iPhones and iPads famously get slower, laggier, and less useful as time goes on. This is not just because of its use because even resetting one will make it just as slow as before. Sure, as we move forward we get more demanding applications and such, but it seriously doesn’t seem like that scales properly with the ability of the hardware, almost like Apple intentionally builds in incremental slowdowns in each patch that isn’t installed on current hardware. It’s apocryphal, I know, but there have been so many people complaining about their perfectly good iDevices suddenly not performing like they used to even after a refresh that makes me feel like there’s at least something to it.
And don’t get me wrong, Android phones seem to do the same to a certain degree. iDevices are just more famous for doing it.
Like I said, it’s apocryphal and probably has other reasons (like the one you mention), but it’s something you hear all the time about them to the point where it becomes major news and there has been some evidence presented, but as I said, it could just be newer versions of software requiring better hardware, which is still a bit iffy when you have an older phone and they want you to update to software that won’t run as optimally on it. In some ways, Android actually benefits from this by just creating security patches for the life of the phone for the older version, and not updating to newer versions of Android like iOS does for old phones.
I think people just like to pick on Apple. They support old phones for at least 5 years with software and security updates, and sometimes even longer. They’ve even been known to push out the occasional security update for devices nearing a decade old.
That’s not to say they’re a perfectly innocent company. I just think there’s an Apple hate bandwagon people like to jump on. Rather than doing that, I’d like to see people focusing on the specific shitty things they do, and giving them credit for the things they get right.
It happens because of two main reasons, firstly is just because of bloat - software/websites are less optimised or doing more because they expect newer and better hardware. The second thing is the intentional throttling of the hardware by the operating system in response to reduced battery life to maintain longevity. basically if the battery is at 50% original battery, to maintain 10+ hour battery life, the device has to use less power - and the way it does that is by lowering the performance of the hardware.
Hey man, I’m an Android dude for phones. Won’t even consider an iPhone as I dislike locked ecosystems for phones, but this is just not true.
Apple supports their devices way longer than any of the major Android producers do. I can’t remember the last time my phone was supported more than 3-4 years, but my iPad was just rock solid and updated for 6 years. Replaced it because I wanted more RAM for scrolling endlessly on Reddit, but it was brilliant for everything else. My daughter still uses it with no issues today, two tears later.
The missus’ Samsung tablet on the other hand…
What a piece of crap, and it was top of the line just three years ago.
Yep. Apple supports their stuff a lot longer, but it does seem like it slows down more and more every single update.
I’m really soured on the whole portable device thing completely because I don’t like the interfaces, I don’t like touchscreen (imprecise garbage), I don’t like how locked down it is by default (Android over iOS here plus some Android devices are very hackable to the point of getting root, but still), and I hate the intense data collection and tracking these devices do to you. Even phones rooted with custom OSes still track you by its mobile radio triangulating your position.
The planned obsolescence is just another frustrating aspect to the damn things.
It’s not even almost, in 2019 there was a settlement where they were found to literally be making older devices artificially slower once a newer model or two was out. Settlement sign ups ended in 2020, search Apple slowdown lawsuit.
Yeah you’re talking about batterygate. That was blown way out of proportion by the media. I know this because I worked for Apple from as far back as 2012 and most iPhone repairs were from old batteries shutting off around 30% charge remaining because the battery was so consumed, it couldn’t keep up with the voltage the hardware was pulling. This led to frequent shutoffs, data corruption and a whole lot of angry customers.
In an iOS 10 update they tweaked iOS to throttle to a speed the battery could handle. So yeah, your old phone might run a little slower, but it wouldn’t shut off in the middle of use and corrupt your shit.
The problem was they didn’t elaborate in the release notes and didn’t give customers heads up as to why they did that. Then their press release was written by engineers. Tech blogs spun the story as “OMG APPLE IS SLOWING YOUR PHONE SO YOU BUY A NEW ONE”.
No.
Apple is telling your phone to dumb itself down to what your old-ass battery can handle. As a result, they also dramatically lowered the price of battery swaps for several years after this whole experience to like $29, and just this last week they officially affirmed their unwritten commitment of supporting devices with software updates for at least 5 years.
Be mad at Apple for shit they deserve please. They’re not a great company and do a lot of shitty things that deserve this kind of hatred. But I lived this. You just have a surface level understanding of what happened.
The only way to circumvent this problem is to invent a battery that doesn’t age. The person who does that is going to be a _very _ rich dude.
The only way to circumvent this problem is to invent a battery that doesn’t age. The person who does that is going to be a _very _ rich dude.
or how about easily replacable batteries. yes, they can be designed in a sleek, apple-y ergonomic way. but its much easier and more profitable to make battery replacements a phone killing endeavour. this applies to other manufacturers as well.
That’s a valid criticism too. But that’s also not exclusively an apple criticism, as you pointed out.
I’m not trying to defend Apple from people who hate them, I just want to make sure we’re not being solely reactionary here.
Again, they dropped the price of out of warranty battery replacements from $99+ to $29 for (don’t quote me on this) something like 2 years as a result of the bad PR they got from this change, which was inherently done to prolong the life of a phone with a consumed battery. That’s anything but a planned obsolescence move. They fucked up the messaging to users sure, but it wasn’t just done to slow your iPhone.
agreed on the batterygate thing. ars did a pretty decent writeup on the reasons behind the CPU throttling.
my issue with Apple has always been their… “its magic!” bullshit. that marketing leads to more and more e-waste as other manufacturers follow the sucessful Apple marketing trend, because, you know… its NOT actually magic and batteries are consumable items.
“Ford, how am I supposed to operate my [insanely expensive] digital watch now [that the battery is broken]?” guess i’ll just get another one!
I appreciate the look behind the curtain but since apple was found in a court to have deceived customers and was proven of wrong doing it certainly is a bit more than just the media blowing it out of proportion or Apple actually doing people a favor that was misinterpreted. For example 3 days a week I use a phone from 2018 that was my daily driver for 3 years and needed to use it as a backup MFA device that I also sometimes stream and watch media on for a few hours a day. Updated it to the latest LineageOS and haven’t had to worry about freezing or being slow or shutting off and corrupting my shit.
iPhones and iPads famously get slower, laggier, and less useful as time goes on. This is not just because of its use because even resetting one will make it just as slow as before. Sure, as we move forward we get more demanding applications and such, but it seriously doesn’t seem like that scales properly with the ability of the hardware, almost like Apple intentionally builds in incremental slowdowns in each patch that isn’t installed on current hardware. It’s apocryphal, I know, but there have been so many people complaining about their perfectly good iDevices suddenly not performing like they used to even after a refresh that makes me feel like there’s at least something to it.
And don’t get me wrong, Android phones seem to do the same to a certain degree. iDevices are just more famous for doing it.
Yeah that’s not my experience. Maybe it’s yours and I apologize for that, but my 11 is still running like it was brand new.
Got any proof that “Apple intentionally builds in incremental slowdowns in each patch”? There was batterygate but that was a messaging problem.
Like I said, it’s apocryphal and probably has other reasons (like the one you mention), but it’s something you hear all the time about them to the point where it becomes major news and there has been some evidence presented, but as I said, it could just be newer versions of software requiring better hardware, which is still a bit iffy when you have an older phone and they want you to update to software that won’t run as optimally on it. In some ways, Android actually benefits from this by just creating security patches for the life of the phone for the older version, and not updating to newer versions of Android like iOS does for old phones.
I think people just like to pick on Apple. They support old phones for at least 5 years with software and security updates, and sometimes even longer. They’ve even been known to push out the occasional security update for devices nearing a decade old.
That’s not to say they’re a perfectly innocent company. I just think there’s an Apple hate bandwagon people like to jump on. Rather than doing that, I’d like to see people focusing on the specific shitty things they do, and giving them credit for the things they get right.
It happens because of two main reasons, firstly is just because of bloat - software/websites are less optimised or doing more because they expect newer and better hardware. The second thing is the intentional throttling of the hardware by the operating system in response to reduced battery life to maintain longevity. basically if the battery is at 50% original battery, to maintain 10+ hour battery life, the device has to use less power - and the way it does that is by lowering the performance of the hardware.
In my experience iPhones and iPads are remarkable for keeping the speed up as they age.
My iPhone 6S lasted me untill 2021, and it was the battery that was the main issue, the speed of the iOS was fine
Hey man, I’m an Android dude for phones. Won’t even consider an iPhone as I dislike locked ecosystems for phones, but this is just not true.
Apple supports their devices way longer than any of the major Android producers do. I can’t remember the last time my phone was supported more than 3-4 years, but my iPad was just rock solid and updated for 6 years. Replaced it because I wanted more RAM for scrolling endlessly on Reddit, but it was brilliant for everything else. My daughter still uses it with no issues today, two tears later.
The missus’ Samsung tablet on the other hand…
What a piece of crap, and it was top of the line just three years ago.
Yep. Apple supports their stuff a lot longer, but it does seem like it slows down more and more every single update.
I’m really soured on the whole portable device thing completely because I don’t like the interfaces, I don’t like touchscreen (imprecise garbage), I don’t like how locked down it is by default (Android over iOS here plus some Android devices are very hackable to the point of getting root, but still), and I hate the intense data collection and tracking these devices do to you. Even phones rooted with custom OSes still track you by its mobile radio triangulating your position.
The planned obsolescence is just another frustrating aspect to the damn things.
We agree on every point except Apple products slowing down significantly faster than Android. My personal experience has been the polar oposite.
Thanks for taking the time to reply!
It’s not even almost, in 2019 there was a settlement where they were found to literally be making older devices artificially slower once a newer model or two was out. Settlement sign ups ended in 2020, search Apple slowdown lawsuit.
Yeah you’re talking about batterygate. That was blown way out of proportion by the media. I know this because I worked for Apple from as far back as 2012 and most iPhone repairs were from old batteries shutting off around 30% charge remaining because the battery was so consumed, it couldn’t keep up with the voltage the hardware was pulling. This led to frequent shutoffs, data corruption and a whole lot of angry customers.
In an iOS 10 update they tweaked iOS to throttle to a speed the battery could handle. So yeah, your old phone might run a little slower, but it wouldn’t shut off in the middle of use and corrupt your shit.
The problem was they didn’t elaborate in the release notes and didn’t give customers heads up as to why they did that. Then their press release was written by engineers. Tech blogs spun the story as “OMG APPLE IS SLOWING YOUR PHONE SO YOU BUY A NEW ONE”.
No.
Apple is telling your phone to dumb itself down to what your old-ass battery can handle. As a result, they also dramatically lowered the price of battery swaps for several years after this whole experience to like $29, and just this last week they officially affirmed their unwritten commitment of supporting devices with software updates for at least 5 years.
Be mad at Apple for shit they deserve please. They’re not a great company and do a lot of shitty things that deserve this kind of hatred. But I lived this. You just have a surface level understanding of what happened.
The only way to circumvent this problem is to invent a battery that doesn’t age. The person who does that is going to be a _very _ rich dude.
or how about easily replacable batteries. yes, they can be designed in a sleek, apple-y ergonomic way. but its much easier and more profitable to make battery replacements a phone killing endeavour. this applies to other manufacturers as well.
That’s a valid criticism too. But that’s also not exclusively an apple criticism, as you pointed out.
I’m not trying to defend Apple from people who hate them, I just want to make sure we’re not being solely reactionary here.
Again, they dropped the price of out of warranty battery replacements from $99+ to $29 for (don’t quote me on this) something like 2 years as a result of the bad PR they got from this change, which was inherently done to prolong the life of a phone with a consumed battery. That’s anything but a planned obsolescence move. They fucked up the messaging to users sure, but it wasn’t just done to slow your iPhone.
agreed on the batterygate thing. ars did a pretty decent writeup on the reasons behind the CPU throttling.
my issue with Apple has always been their… “its magic!” bullshit. that marketing leads to more and more e-waste as other manufacturers follow the sucessful Apple marketing trend, because, you know… its NOT actually magic and batteries are consumable items.
“Ford, how am I supposed to operate my [insanely expensive] digital watch now [that the battery is broken]?” guess i’ll just get another one!
I appreciate the look behind the curtain but since apple was found in a court to have deceived customers and was proven of wrong doing it certainly is a bit more than just the media blowing it out of proportion or Apple actually doing people a favor that was misinterpreted. For example 3 days a week I use a phone from 2018 that was my daily driver for 3 years and needed to use it as a backup MFA device that I also sometimes stream and watch media on for a few hours a day. Updated it to the latest LineageOS and haven’t had to worry about freezing or being slow or shutting off and corrupting my shit.