Resolved Are Intel Apple computers being deliberately slowed?

[eicca]

Those later model years of Intel MBPs had trouble with thermals and the CPUs would frequently throttle. Perhaps that is happening. Do you notice a different when you first startup vs after it has been running a while?

Nope. Freshly started and cool the thing is still slow as crap.

 

[tothemoonsands]

I just replaced a 2020 5K iMac with 64GB RAM, top I9, 1 Tb SSD, and the 5700XT GPU.

Did not experience any major slowdown with Sonoma prior to my upgrade (14” M3 Max MBP).

Interestingly, the iMac would chug more when connected to a second 5K display and a thunderbolt hub with various devices plugged in. But nothing crazy like what you described.

As the OS becomes increasingly optimized only for Apple Silicon, it should be no surprise that intel machines are not going to fare well and should be relegated to specialty use cases only.

 

[Agincourt]

OP admits defeat. We did it MR!

You know just for that I should spite you and keep ranting on, pointing to this post as the reason I decided to keep up this argument.

I got my answer and as such I'll be more mature about it than you were. The only way I would have been 'defeated' is if I never learned anything and my problem never got solved.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

I went through 7 Plus, best thing that came out of this was $29 battery replacement. I replaced my battery twice and was in pretty good condition till I upgraded to 13 PM. Battery replacement can do wonders to prolonging the life of the phone.

Not only that, any device really.
Unless there’s something really great to replace it with, I’m going to just get a new battery for my M1 MBA

 

[nathansz]

Is Apple intentionally slowing Intel Macs? No.

Is Apple investing less time optimizing for Intel-Macs? Very likely.

Everything is being designed a optimized as ARM first and foremost.

The difference in performance between Ventura and Sonoma on intel would lead me to believe Apple is still optimizing for x86

OP has something wrong with their system and has jumped to a conclusion as to what that problem is based on idle speculation

 

[nathansz]

As the OS becomes increasingly optimized only for Apple Silicon, it should be no surprise that intel machines are not going to fare well and should be relegated to specialty use cases only.

Intel machines are faring just fine. OP merely jumping to conclusions.

 

[nathansz]

I just upgraded my self built “Mac” with those identical specs to i7-14700k and rx 6800.

It absolutely flies now.

 

[rgwebb]

Do you have a reference for this court case? I tried searching, but am not seeing any US court case where a judge or jury found Apple guilty of malicious intent on this issue….

As I have said before, you are not understanding how this happened. I had the 6s in my family and lived through this in real time.

The iPhone 6s would randomly shut down. You could not turn it on again without plugging it in, leaving you stranded with a dead phone. Basically the phone was unusable. Before Apple diagnosed the problem, they were just replacing peoples whole phone. At least they did for us.

Then Apple provided a software update that “fixed” the issue. It did this by limiting the peak current the phone could draw when the battery was old. The phone only slowed down when the batter was old. There was no “permanent throttling” as you suggest. It was not done to “preserve the battery” as you suggest. It was done to keep the phone from crashing, and it only applied when your phone had an okd battery. If you replaced the battery, the phone worked without any throttling.

The whole problem is that Apple did it in secret, and didn’t inform the users what the fix was. The fix itself was reasonable, as evidenced by the fact that all iPhones now throttle with old batteries by default.

Furthermore, Apple doesn't give us a code review of their changes to resolve software bugs. The problem here is they applied the same disclosure logic to something that materially changes the advertised hardware performance of the device. This introduced a legal gray area that Apple was willing to spend the money to settle because the cost to pursue a victory and risk of court-ordered compliance crafted by pinhead lawyers were ultimately not cheaper for Apple.

Apple did do the right thing w/r/t to underclocking the SOC to maintain consistency of performance at the expense of overall higher peak performance. There is no question about it. In my opinion, the lawsuits did discipline Apple appropriately for a lack of disclosure. Sometimes both sides are right in their own way and I think this ordeal is a great example of such.

 

[opeter]

Well, Google is targeting Ads blocking software.

Not only that, but Google is also slowly forcing people to use their browser (Chrome), because in other browsers, like Firefox) more and more of ther services is working intetionally slow, uses more time to load etc.

Here you go:

YouTube is reportedly slowing down videos for Firefox users (Update: Statement)

Users are reporting that YouTube has begun adding a five second delay when loading a video on non-Chrome browsers like Firefox. Read on!

www.androidauthority.com

Google says, that this is because of adblocking software.

 

[tothemoonsands]

Intel machines are faring just fine. OP merely jumping to conclusions.

True there's probably another 1-2 years of major MacOS updates, following by another 2-3 years of near-perfect app experience. But at some point in the not so distance future, Intel Macs will no longer be running the most up-to-date/optimized apps, and it will show.

 

[BellSystem]

ahhh yes….Apple does no wrong and is faultless in all things. How dare you even theorize they might be a greedy corporation with broken software. iCloud Drive never syncs nothing for days. Applications never give me the pink screen of death. Apple is perfect in all things and thoroughly tests on old hardware. They have zero financial interest in you having to buy a new machine. Apple is the highest being. Praise Apple.

 

[SpotOnT]

Furthermore, Apple doesn't give us a code review of their changes to resolve software bugs. The problem here is they applied the same disclosure logic to something that materially changes the advertised hardware performance of the device. This introduced a legal gray area that Apple was willing to spend the money to settle because the cost to pursue a victory and risk of court-ordered compliance crafted by pinhead lawyers were ultimately not cheaper for Apple.

Apple did do the right thing w/r/t to underclocking the SOC to maintain consistency of performance at the expense of overall higher peak performance. There is no question about it. In my opinion, the lawsuits did discipline Apple appropriately for a lack of disclosure. Sometimes both sides are right in their own way and I think this ordeal is a great example of such.

Ya. I agree and have pretty much the same take.

There were some weird international lawsuits, where governments (I remember Brazil) claimed Apple was deliberately slowing old (I guess 1-year is considered “old”?) phones down on purpose to force people to upgrade. I think those lawsuits were simple money grabs. They over exaggerating the situation to try and scare Apple into settling for a higher amount. I don’t remember if they slapped fines on Apple as well.

I suspect that is where a lot of these “conspiracy theories” originated as well.

 

[SpotOnT]

ahhh yes….Apple does no wrong and is faultless in all things. How dare you even theorize they might be a greedy corporation with broken software. iCloud Drive never syncs nothing for days. Applications never give me the pink screen of death. Apple is perfect in all things and thoroughly tests on old hardware. They have zero financial interest in you having to buy a new machine. Apple is the highest being. Praise Apple.

Ok - those problems you referenced are actually real. I seriously don’t understand how anyone can use iCloud.

Apple secretly releasing software updates that cripple older devices to trick people to upgrading their hardware…ya that one is the one that is bogus.

 

[nathansz]

True there's probably another 1-2 years of major MacOS updates, following by another 2-3 years of near-perfect app experience. But at some point in the not so distance future, Intel Macs will no longer be running the most up-to-date/optimized apps, and it will show.

At some point sure

But that point is not here yet, so op would do well to figure out with is wrong with their system rather then throwing their hands in the air and assuming Apple is doing something to it

 

[MarkNewton2023]

EDIT: In light of recent responses since I created this thread, I have since stopped with the conspiracy theories. The problem which prompted this has been identified and corrected. No further questions or solutions are needed with regard to this opening post. I realize the idea was silly now and regret framing it as such. I now know better.

Okay I've got an obsolete Intel MacBook Pro (2019) and have recently begun to notice some extreme delays in basic processes. While surfing Safari something as basic as stoping a video on YouTube with a curser click literally takes 4 or five seconds to respond. One would think the input wasn't good, but the video stops and restarts based on how many times one clicks.

I'm not doing any high-end functions, my RAM isn't anywhere near its max of 16 GB, and yet I'm experiencing significant delays in basic inputs... making me wonder whether Apple is deliberately slowing such functions to compel me to buy one of their silicon notebooks. I do understand that Apple will likely stop supporting intel machines sooner than later, but the idea that they would sabotage those who bought their older generation products?!

Glad to see the problem was identified and corrected. I do not believe any conspiracy theory happening with Apple to cause bad experience in their customers. Apple is a customer oriented company which is why they are the most successful company. Keep calm and be happy with Apple!

 

[jwolf6589]

EDIT: In light of recent responses since I created this thread, I have since stopped with the conspiracy theories. The problem which prompted this has been identified and corrected. No further questions or solutions are needed with regard to this opening post. I realize the idea was silly now and regret framing it as such. I now know better.

Okay I've got an obsolete Intel MacBook Pro (2019) and have recently begun to notice some extreme delays in basic processes. While surfing Safari something as basic as stoping a video on YouTube with a curser click literally takes 4 or five seconds to respond. One would think the input wasn't good, but the video stops and restarts based on how many times one clicks.

I'm not doing any high-end functions, my RAM isn't anywhere near its max of 16 GB, and yet I'm experiencing significant delays in basic inputs... making me wonder whether Apple is deliberately slowing such functions to compel me to buy one of their silicon notebooks. I do understand that Apple will likely stop supporting intel machines sooner than later, but the idea that they would sabotage those who bought their older generation products?!

I had a 2020 MBP with 16GB of RAM and noticed this. Facebook often slowed down after a while of browsing and I noticed leaving the TV app open would slow down the computer when it never used to do this in previous OS versions. I upgraded to the M2 MacBook air which for the moment is nice and fast. But no question about it when the M5 or later is released apple may slow down the M2's and want me to upgrade yet again.

 

[megaloupaixtou]

Can you please tell us what was the problem?

I have identified that “cinema mode” on YouTube was slowing down my MacBook pro 2013 retina (8gb) and was also increasing the temperature.

 

[tothemoonsands]

At some point sure

But that point is not here yet, so op would do well to figure out with is wrong with their system rather then throwing their hands in the air and assuming Apple is doing something to it

I guess my point is that there is likely a gradual progression of issues over the next several years. Everything isn’t just going to break after a given year/update, Intel Macs will slowly progress into obsolescence and that process is going on NOW as well.

My loaded 2020 intel iMac took AGES to update OS - even just a minor point update takes 4-5x longer than an M1 Mini or M3 Max MBP.

It doesn’t shock me to see others reporting various issues more and more frequently. After all, Apple has every incentive to get people to upgrade ASAP. Mac growth had some declining quarters and it’s costly to maintain x86 codebase when they are investing billions into their silicone.

 

[Elusi]

macOS started using avx2 in Ventura

And I wrote 2022 so not sure about what your point was? 😅

 

[nathansz]

And I wrote 2022 so not sure about what your point was? 😅

You said that it would make no sense to “re-build their x86 version of MacOS into utilizing AVX2 in 2022”

The point is that is exactly what they did

 

[nathansz]

I just replaced a 2020 5K iMac with 64GB RAM, top I9, 1 Tb SSD, and the 5700XT GPU.

I had the same experience going from 9900k to 14700k

Point being it’s not apple silicon vs intel. Just the age/speed of the computer

You get the same gains on new intel chips as apple silicon

 

[WilliApple]

Okay I've got an obsolete Intel MacBook Pro (2019) and have recently begun to notice some extreme delays in basic processes. While surfing Safari something as basic as stoping a video on YouTube with a curser click literally takes 4 or five seconds to respond. One would think the input wasn't good, but the video stops and restarts based on how many times one clicks.

I'm not doing any high-end functions, my RAM isn't anywhere near its max of 16 GB, and yet I'm experiencing significant delays in basic inputs... making me wonder whether Apple is deliberately slowing such functions to compel me to buy one of their silicon notebooks. I do understand that Apple will likely stop supporting intel machines sooner than later, but the idea that they would sabotage those who bought their older generation products?!

Google has been slowing down Firefox on Windows to "encourage" people to switch to Chrome.

This might be the same tbh, I am NOT switching to Chrome because of what Google is doing.

 

[Elusi]

You said that it would make no sense to “re-build their x86 version of MacOS into utilizing AVX2 in 2022”

The point is that is exactly what they did

Okay please re-read my comment.

 

[HawkTheHusky1902]

"Are Intel Apple computers being deliberately slowed?"​

Me sitting here with a 2013 MBP running Sonoma flawlessly💀

 

[Bokes]

I picked up a new 2022 MacBook Air last month.
Wifi and Safari is always locking up and running very slow.
Then it will suddenly work great for a bit- then starts freezing up.

The speed test shows the internet is barely present. 3.0Mbps!
My iPad is fine and gets 34-45Mbps test result.

I have run Mac cleaner- updated software 14.1.2
restarted, etc...

turns out I needed to re start my main wifi point and that seems to solve the issue.