Other The myth of Apple intentionally slowing down older iPhones…

[JPack]

I have the theory that people who deny this do so for one of two reasons, or both:

-They don’t use devices that are updated far enough

Or, alternatively:

-They don’t remember how they ran back when they were on their original iOS versions.

Otherwise, the constant denial of updates-induced obliteration is utterly baffling.

Some people simply have an unhealthy affinity towards a brand. They believe the brand can do no wrong. In psychology, it's cognitive dissonance. Even if a company does something wrong, they'll twist it so it becomes justified in their mind. Otherwise, it becomes an uncomfortable truth.

 

[Boy261]

I have the theory that people who deny this do so for one of two reasons, or both:

-They don’t use devices that are updated far enough

Or, alternatively:

-They don’t remember how they ran back when they were on their original iOS versions.

Otherwise, the constant denial of updates-induced obliteration is utterly baffling.

Definitely true, what i have learned in 12 years of iphones is ios impacts a lot, then on the side batteries also contribute.

Though they do age much more slower now and end up with better performance on their last os update than previous older iphones. Changing from 6s to xs max didnt have a huge noticeable change in speed, mostly in loading or rendering stuff. It wasnt when i used the 6s 3 years later out of fun that i noticed some change but man, that 6s is still rocking.

Now going from this xs max to the 15 pro max i tested on store you can clearly see a bump, but actually most of it is achieved by the 120hz panel.

I have already implemented this routine with my iphone when i buy a new one to just stick with the release os for 2 years, snd update just before the nect one comes out, so for example if the phone comes with 12.x.x i will update it as far as i can and wait for 13.x.x to be on final version just before 14 comes out. Does wonders for the first 2 years of the phone and you get rid of most of the bugs, and is always stable.

In any case, soon i will be changing the battery from my xs max to a fresh one, lets see how much improvement there is on the performance.

 

[FeliApple]

Some people simply have an unhealthy affinity towards a brand. They believe the brand can do no wrong. In psychology, it's cognitive dissonance. Even if a company does something wrong, they'll twist it so it becomes justified in their mind. Otherwise, it becomes an uncomfortable truth.

Agreed! Funnily enough, somebody may read my comments and say “you clearly hate Apple, why do you even have Apple devices?”

I’m a massive fan. I really like what Apple does when they really try. When devices aren’t updated they’re wonderful. Like I said earlier, 3 of my 4 main devices run original iOS versions, and they’re flawless, even if they’re older (except for the iPad Air 5). The other one runs very respectably on iOS 12 (my 9.7-inch iPad Pro). Which is why it saddens me when Apple condemns millions of devices to poor experiences when they totally could guarantee flawlessness forever. Once I saw what iOS updates do to devices, and decided never to update anything again, my experience with iOS devices has been nothing short of flawless.

Even my 9.7-inch iPad Pro which was forced to iOS 12 is great. Yes, battery life isn’t as good as on iOS 9, but it’s almost perfect. iPadOS 16 users cannot say the same.

It is because of that respect I have for Apple’s initial device quality that I criticise them so much both for obliterating devices via updates and also for disallowing downgrades. Imagine if Apple were to guarantee that every device could run perfect iOS versions forever? Let the user decide if they want compatibility and features.

I’m sure that many people's opinions would be very different if they could go back and see how original versions run.

 

[FeliApple]

Definitely true, what i have learned in 12 years of iphones is ios impacts a lot, then on the side batteries also contribute.

Though they do age much more slower now and end up with better performance on their last os update than previous older iphones. Changing from 6s to xs max didnt have a huge noticeable change in speed, mostly in loading or rendering stuff. It wasnt when i used the 6s 3 years later out of fun that i noticed some change but man, that 6s is still rocking.

Now going from this xs max to the 15 pro max i tested on store you can clearly see a bump, but actually most of it is achieved by the 120hz panel.

I have already implemented this routine with my iphone when i buy a new one to just stick with the release os for 2 years, snd update just before the nect one comes out, so for example if the phone comes with 12.x.x i will update it as far as i can and wait for 13.x.x to be on final version just before 14 comes out. Does wonders for the first 2 years of the phone and you get rid of most of the bugs, and is always stable.

In any case, soon i will be changing the battery from my xs max to a fresh one, lets see how much improvement there is on the performance.

Absolutely, the first major version is typically safe.

I’d like to refer you to my previous comment: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...wing-down-older-iphones.2413230/post-32787340


And I’d also like to share a picture showing that I have actually tried this. I know what iOS perfection means, even though my main iPhone is now five years old, it’s completely flawless:

 

[I7guy]

Sure, but at least it can work as a main device for a basic user with no need to charge several times per day.

Sure. Functionality of severely reduced and I think not charging a phone “several times” a day is worth it when the phone can use only some smaller percentage of its functionality.

You may be fine with it being merely usable.

We have different accolades of the same line in the same. My usable is your flawless.

I am not. Neither of our approaches here specifically is wrong, we value different things, and that’s okay.

100%

This is completely false.

All I have to do is find one person who claims thusly proving it isn’t false. Not going to bother.

Yes, and the result is very simple: millions of great iOS devices reduced to uselessness.

Most of them 32 bit devices.

All of them if updated far enough.

Well my max is still going strong. iOS 18 for it? Who knows?

Agreed.

The beauty of choice. Like I said, I’m very thankful that Apple allows those of us who value performance and battery life to stay behind.

And loss of functionality, vulnerabilities, etc. but yeah, choice is good.

 

[FeliApple]

Sure. Functionality of severely reduced and I think not charging a phone “several times” a day is worth it when the phone can use only some smaller percentage of its functionality.

Like I said, we value different things. You carry a portable charger or charge your device more than once to get functionality and features. Nothing wrong with that.

We have different accolades of the same line in the same. My usable is your flawless.

Sure, you value your devices when they are merely usable. I don’t.

All I have to do is find one person who claims thusly proving it isn’t false. Not going to bother.

Yeah... no.

Most of them 32 bit devices.

I wish. Early 64-bit devices were thrashed, too. Newer 64-bit devices are severely affected. The degree to which this affects the user... depends on the user, like our conversation shows.

Well my max is still going strong. iOS 18 for it? Who knows?

“Going strong”.

And loss of functionality, vulnerabilities, etc. but yeah, choice is good.

Sure, but I happily choose that.

 

[I7guy]

Like I said, we value different things. You carry a portable charger or charge your device more than once to get functionality and features. Nothing wrong with that.

Sure, you value your devices when they are merely usable. I don’t.

Yeah... no.

I wish. Early 64-bit devices were thrashed, too. Newer 64-bit devices are severely affected. The degree to which this affects the user... depends on the user, like our conversation shows.

“Going strong”.

Sure, but I happily choose that.

No proof. That's the bottom line. No proof any which way, except for the video I posted, which was at least an objective datapoint.

In addition, as I said, our accolades may be different words but amount to the same thing. Your flawless is my usable. My flawless is your "out of the universe". Not your "flawless" is equivalent to my "unusable".

iPhone XS Max video stuttering - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

iPhone XS - momentary stuttering after inactivity

I've noticed on my iPhone XS that if I am scrolling through something, say a webpage in Safari, when I lift my finger for around 10 seconds to read something, my phone stutters for a hundred milliseconds or so when I start scrolling again. Seems small, but it's very distracting, and the 6s I'm...

forums.macrumors.com

quod erat demonstrandum

 

[BellSystem]

No the first thing is I want more capability and better photography.

When a sentence starts with if generally there is no argument to be made. Also battery health can be checked in the battery applet in settings.

Well according to you they made billions from new iPhones that only cost them a few hundred million. Seems like a win.

Nice hyperbole.

oh look, someone disagrees and defends blindly against someone with an opposing viewpoint. It’s so predictable it’s funny. Please continue to criticize what I posted by using fanboy logic to tare it down. You are so cool. You are exactly the person I am talking about in my post.

 

[I7guy]

oh look, someone disagrees and defends blindly against someone with an opposing viewpoint. It’s so predictable it’s funny. Please continue to criticize what I posted by using fanboy logic to tare it down. You are so cool. You are exactly the person I am talking about in my post.

I call ‘em as they’ve been written. Generalized opinions without substance are some of the sloppiest debating techniques.

 

[I7guy]

Definitely true, what i have learned in 12 years of iphones is ios impacts a lot, then on the side batteries also contribute.

Though they do age much more slower now and end up with better performance on their last os update than previous older iphones. Changing from 6s to xs max didnt have a huge noticeable change in speed, mostly in loading or rendering stuff. It wasnt when i used the 6s 3 years later out of fun that i noticed some change but man, that 6s is still rocking.

Now going from this xs max to the 15 pro max i tested on store you can clearly see a bump, but actually most of it is achieved by the 120hz panel.

I have already implemented this routine with my iphone when i buy a new one to just stick with the release os for 2 years, snd update just before the nect one comes out, so for example if the phone comes with 12.x.x i will update it as far as i can and wait for 13.x.x to be on final version just before 14 comes out. Does wonders for the first 2 years of the phone and you get rid of most of the bugs, and is always stable.

In any case, soon i will be changing the battery from my xs max to a fresh one, lets see how much improvement there is on the performance.

From the 6s to the max is a lot of capability. That is recording HD and smart hdr, the neural engine etc. Rendering heavy JavaScript pages is noticeably faster on the max. Comparing my max to the 14PM is no contest in terms of rendering JavaScript. Sites like MR load in the blink of an eye on the i14pm.

That is not the panel, that’s the processor. The 6s although a brilliant step up from the i6 was extremely inefficient.

 

[FeliApple]

No proof. That's the bottom line. No proof any which way, except for the video I posted, which was at least an objective datapoint.

In addition, as I said, our accolades may be different words but amount to the same thing. Your flawless is my usable. My flawless is your "out of the universe". Not your "flawless" is equivalent to my "unusable".

iPhone XS Max video stuttering - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

iPhone XS - momentary stuttering after inactivity

I've noticed on my iPhone XS that if I am scrolling through something, say a webpage in Safari, when I lift my finger for around 10 seconds to read something, my phone stutters for a hundred milliseconds or so when I start scrolling again. Seems small, but it's very distracting, and the 6s I'm...

forums.macrumors.com

quod erat demonstrandum

iPhone XS - momentary stuttering after inactivity

I hate to play the semantics game, but here goes. My max is not having the “stuttering” issue. If my max isn’t having the issue that means not “all” a12 devices are having that issue, which means some a12 devices are having the issue. If you want to parse a lot vs some please feel free.

forums.macrumors.com

For what it’s worth, I tried. I tried a lot. I tried leaving the app inactive for a while, I tried a bunch of apps, I tried every trick i found on that thread to reproduce the issue. I scrolled as fast as I can when I exit the app.

Regardless of what I do, it’s completely smooth on my iPhone Xʀ running iOS 12.3.1.

I knew it would be... I’ve been running iOS 12 for over 4 years now. If I had any issues, I would’ve noticed by now.

Funnily enough, it’s smoother than my iPad Air 5 with an M1 on iPadOS 15.

The only thing that could be better is standby battery life. It drops 3% overnight sometimes, which is quite a bit of screen-on time loss. 3% on the 6s isn’t 3% here. It’s the only aspect that I wish were a little better, but then again, like I mentioned on the iPad thread, standby battery life has worsened as of iOS 12 (maybe 11) for iPhones, and iPadOS 13 for iPads, even when the device is on its original iOS version, as my iPhone 6s on iOS 10 is significantly better than my Xʀ in terms of standby, and my iPad on iOS 12 is perfect in that regard (equal to iOS 9, yet 30% worse in terms of screen-on time when compared with iOS 9. Why? I don’t know). My 6s on iOS 10 just doesn’t drop, neither does my 5c. The Xʀ is worse than both. Like I said, the fact that it’s on an original version has no effect here, it’s perhaps the only aspect I truly wish were better.

Then again, users ever since have confirmed that standby has fallen apart since iOS 12 and has never returned to what it was on iOS 10. A byproduct of features, I guess?

 

[rungxanh2901]

iPhone XS - momentary stuttering after inactivity

I hate to play the semantics game, but here goes. My max is not having the “stuttering” issue. If my max isn’t having the issue that means not “all” a12 devices are having that issue, which means some a12 devices are having the issue. If you want to parse a lot vs some please feel free.

forums.macrumors.com

For what it’s worth, I tried. I tried a lot. I tried leaving the app inactive for a while, I tried a bunch of apps, I tried every trick i found on that thread to reproduce the issue. I scrolled as fast as I can when I exit the app.

Regardless of what I do, it’s completely smooth on my iPhone Xʀ running iOS 12.3.1.

I knew it would be... I’ve been running iOS 12 for over 4 years now. If I had any issues, I would’ve noticed by now.

Funnily enough, it’s smoother than my iPad Air 5 with an M1 on iPadOS 15.

The only thing that could be better is standby battery life. It drops 3% overnight sometimes, which is quite a bit of screen-on time loss. 3% on the 6s isn’t 3% here. It’s the only aspect that I wish were a little better, but then again, like I mentioned on the iPad thread, standby battery life has worsened as of iOS 12 (maybe 11) for iPhones, and iPadOS 13 for iPads, even when the device is on its original iOS version, as my iPhone 6s on iOS 10 is significantly better than my Xʀ in terms of standby, and my iPad on iOS 12 is perfect in that regard (equal to iOS 9, yet 30% worse in terms of screen-on time when compared with iOS 9. Why? I don’t know). My 6s on iOS 10 just doesn’t drop, neither does my 5c. The Xʀ is worse than both. Like I said, the fact that it’s on an original version has no effect here, it’s perhaps the only aspect I truly wish were better.

Then again, users ever since have confirmed that standby has fallen apart since iOS 12 and has never returned to what it was on iOS 10. A byproduct of features, I guess?

I bet you rarely update your apps too?

 

[johnmacward]

Apple created this problem themselves, by letting their CEO "admit" wrongdoing. Tim Cook never should have come out with the "I'm Sorry" nonsense. Apple should have stayed silent on the issue, and when pressed should have commented "How and why Apple manages the CPU performance of Apple Silicon is absolutely no one's business outside of Apple engineering"

Interesting, and I suppose you also prefer that food companies never admit to "salmonella tainted" batches because that's their "businesses business". Nothing to do with me, even if I have to spend 2 weeks in a hospital. You know what, it was my fault for choosing "that" can on the shelf, the one beside it was perfect and I should've known that.

Something is incredibly clear from reading a substantial amount of posts here, we accept entirely that batteries are consumable items that degrade over time and need replacing way quicker than a phone might need replacing. Apple decided that they were exempt from this phenomenon with the iPhone (and equally the iPad and I'll discuss that later) as even though iPhone batteries degrade, and pretty rapidly considering how much we use them (and what that means for recharge / discharge cycles), they're literally the piece of tech we use the most, born out by all statistics, then it would be pretty damn logical for some software on the iPhone to detect their decline (which absolutely exists) and inform the user that a battery replacement would be necessary very soon or they may experience poorer performance. Apple never did this until
1. a controversy kicked off, regardless of the fact that...
2. its obvious that batteries need to be replaced eventually and...
3. Apple probably had these statistics since very early iPhones to monitor current draw, voltage use and develop new processor designs.

I remember the shutdown problems with my very first iPhone, an iPhone 4 so this issues goes back way before the iPhone 6/S (even if there wasn't throttling then) and there's no doubt that Apple knew for a while why phones just shutdown.

About my iPad, I had an iPad Air 2 for a few years that was flawless except for a slightly sticky home button and finally a battery that was giving up at 35% charge. So I went to the Apple Store to demand a price for replacing the parts (realising the prices would probably be outrageous but I was curious regardless). No repair was possible for either item - the iPad was 4/5 years old and they don't replace batteries on these models (after just 4/5 years ?) and equally they wouldn't touch the home button either. I was encouraged to just buy a new iPad. The thing in my hand was almost flawless, still quick, operational except for some simple to fix items. No hope. Apples' shtick isn't device maintenance - it's sales and new units shipping as often as possible (and don't worry "Liam" will recycle your entirely ok device). Be a fan of them, but be sceptical also.

 

[johnmacward]

I reckon there’s also the issue of how you’re determining whether the person needs protection in a given situation. It’s probably too easy to rationalize “I must protect people from their wrong choices about X” (where X is political candidate, philosophical choices, religion, etc.) once you’ve decided you should protect people from themselves. Paternalism always has the problem of imposing your values onto someone else who doesn’t necessarily share those values.

Additionally, when it comes to throttling, while perhaps Apple should’ve been more transparent upfront, I still think making throttling the default (and not opt-in) was the better choice. How are you going to communicate the benefits of throttling to the users most in-need of it, especially if they’re not particularly cued into the tech news cycle? And even if Apple had been upfront about it and even if there were a toggle from day 1, you’d still have people cynically suggesting that Apple’s just using throttling on older phones to sell new phones. You’d still have people pushing the same planned obsolescence angle they’re pushing in this very thread. It was very much a “screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t” situation.

Hmmm, I don't know - a message that just pops up on their screen after a random shutdown event.

This isn't difficult to engineer at all. We're talking about the company that put detection chips in their chargers so they can complain when you don't use an Apple certified charger. They have logs about power consumption on device going back to iPhone 4 at least (the first time I got a battery replacement from them and they could confirm the power drops). So its quite clear they can see current amperage delivery decline over time and when that hits a certain limit they can notify the customer to consider a battery change. No need for flooding the New York Times, El Pais et Le Monde with ads for highlighting this to customers.

 

[henkie]

Some people simply have an unhealthy affinity towards a brand. They believe the brand can do no wrong. In psychology, it's cognitive dissonance. Even if a company does something wrong, they'll twist it so it becomes justified in their mind. Otherwise, it becomes an uncomfortable truth.

This! Other examples aplenty: 8GB in a MBP in 2023 (almost 2024). Apple Koolaid drinker: “not everyone needs 16GB, it runs fine with 8GB. Actually it is not really a pro machine” (thing costs 2000 euro in Europe!!). Lightning on iPhone until 2023: “it is a superior port”. Why replace it then on iPads only? And then this weird warping to justify slowing down the iPhone without informing its users. Like religious fanatics or some fans of politicians or sports teams. They cannot comprehend or deal with the fact that an entity (be it a person, brand or sports team) can make mistakes or show unethical behavior.

 

[Al Rukh]

This! Other examples aplenty: 8GB in a MBP in 2023 (almost 2024). Apple Koolaid drinker: “not everyone needs 16GB, it runs fine with 8GB. Actually it is not really a pro machine” (thing costs 2000 euro in Europe!!). Lightning on iPhone until 2023: “it is a superior port”. Why replace it then on iPads only? And then this weird warping to justify slowing down the iPhone without informing its users. Like religious fanatics or some fans of politicians or sports teams. They cannot comprehend or deal with the fact that an entity (be it a person, brand or sports team) can make mistakes or show unethical behavior.

How is the existence of the 8GB/512GB M3 MBP at $2300 (in my country) a “mistake” or “unethical”?

 

[Al Rukh]

Hi,

There was no warnings, no options, nothing that could tell you what was happening.
Some time after it blew up, and apple was forced to disclose the peak capacity stuff.

It was pretty shady on their side.

There were warnings, your iPhone slowing down, shutting down and so on. I hope I’m not coming across as sarcastic but, have thought of bringing it to Apple? Or did you go out and buy a new iPhone because you can afford it and be over with the issue?

 

[henkie]

How is the existence of the 8GB/512GB M3 MBP at $2300 (in my country) a “mistake” or “unethical”?

Read that line again. But now imagine Dell selling a 2300 dollar laptop with 8GB in 2023 and adding “Pro” in the name. And no, 8GB Mac = not 16GB Windows. I already see many M3 8GB MBP on the refurbished market. Sounds like people buying them made a mistake.

 

[Abazigal]

This! Other examples aplenty: 8GB in a MBP in 2023 (almost 2024). Apple Koolaid drinker: “not everyone needs 16GB, it runs fine with 8GB. Actually it is not really a pro machine” (thing costs 2000 euro in Europe!!). Lightning on iPhone until 2023: “it is a superior port”. Why replace it then on iPads only? And then this weird warping to justify slowing down the iPhone without informing its users. Like religious fanatics or some fans of politicians or sports teams. They cannot comprehend or deal with the fact that an entity (be it a person, brand or sports team) can make mistakes or show unethical behavior.

Which sounds like an oversimplification of the points I have previously made (assuming this was referencing me). I will also turn this argument on its head. There seem to be many members here who seem to automatically assume the worst of Apple. The instance news breaks out which paints Apple in a negative light, they rush to flood the forum with all manner of vitriol and negativity. And really, what sort of rational argument can one make within minutes of reading an article?

1) You are right that not everyone needs 16gb ram, which is why the people who need more have the option of paying for additional ram, or be nudged towards getting one of the M3 Pro models. I have never said that nobody needed 16gb ram ever, just that the arguments boiled down to the M3 MBP supposedly being too expensive for the value it offered.

2) I don't think I have ever argued that lightning was superior to usb-c, just that I was largely indifferent between the two (charge my iPhone wirelessly) and I can probably count the number of times I have plugged a cable to my iPhone's port with 1 hand.

3) We know for a fact that Apple did slow down their phones once upon a time. What we don't know is the exact motivations behind why they went about it the way they did (unless you were there in the room when this went down). Your assertion that Apple did this for dishonest reasons is just as much an opinion as is my attempt to rationalise why Apple did it that way.

Apple isn't perfect. I don't deny that they too can make mistakes or show unethical behaviour. However, I go back to the statement I made in another thread - I believe an argument should not only be correct, but it should also be correct for the right reasons. We are all debating here. We are all making opinions backed by facts (hopefully). May the best argument win.

Or will you all be happy only when this forum turns into an echo chamber with everyone all chanting the same refrain "Screw Apple!!!" every time a new piece of news is posted?

 

[henkie]

I was not referencing you in particular.
1) Well I think we would then almost agree. There seems to be a large number of m3 8GB mbp on the refurb market here…
2) I don’t want to derail the debate at hand (slowing down phones). But that is your particular use case. Many others would have liked usbc sooner than later. I bought a 13 mini, DESPITE lightning (biggest drawback of that phone: I can literally charge all my electronic devices with a single usbc cable, except my iPhone). Guess there are many others. And I still find wireless charging finicky (maybe at home it is fine, but in cars, hotel rooms etc it is just more annoying than anything. Let alone the speed and energy loss). Ironically, usbc on the iphone15 enabled Apple to film the latest keynote with an iPhone as a show off.
3) Car analogy again: if ford would do this (half the horse power because fuel consumption got out of hand) without proper warning. What would you think about that? A multibillion company cannot phantom that it should inform its users when throttling their phones? Really?

It is just a pity to see that after some straight out home runs (eg M1pro MBP), Apple has decided to go and try for short term “easy” money. And that some here defend those practices, just because it is Apple. Not because of the practice itself. Therefore, just imagine if Samsung would do this throttling without informing its users? Or Dell selling a 2000 euro “pro” laptop with 8GB? Or, the reverse, Dell having an Arm based laptop that blows the competition out of the water.

 

[FeliApple]

I bet you rarely update your apps too?

Yeah, I don’t update apps much. Sometimes I do, but not that often.

 

[I7guy]

iPhone XS - momentary stuttering after inactivity

I hate to play the semantics game, but here goes. My max is not having the “stuttering” issue. If my max isn’t having the issue that means not “all” a12 devices are having that issue, which means some a12 devices are having the issue. If you want to parse a lot vs some please feel free.

forums.macrumors.com

For what it’s worth, I tried. I tried a lot. I tried leaving the app inactive for a while, I tried a bunch of apps, I tried every trick i found on that thread to reproduce the issue. I scrolled as fast as I can when I exit the app.

Regardless of what I do, it’s completely smooth on my iPhone Xʀ running iOS 12.3.1.

I knew it would be... I’ve been running iOS 12 for over 4 years now. If I had any issues, I would’ve noticed by now.

Funnily enough, it’s smoother than my iPad Air 5 with an M1 on iPadOS 15.

The only thing that could be better is standby battery life. It drops 3% overnight sometimes, which is quite a bit of screen-on time loss. 3% on the 6s isn’t 3% here. It’s the only aspect that I wish were a little better, but then again, like I mentioned on the iPad thread, standby battery life has worsened as of iOS 12 (maybe 11) for iPhones, and iPadOS 13 for iPads, even when the device is on its original iOS version, as my iPhone 6s on iOS 10 is significantly better than my Xʀ in terms of standby, and my iPad on iOS 12 is perfect in that regard (equal to iOS 9, yet 30% worse in terms of screen-on time when compared with iOS 9. Why? I don’t know). My 6s on iOS 10 just doesn’t drop, neither does my 5c. The Xʀ is worse than both. Like I said, the fact that it’s on an original version has no effect here, it’s perhaps the only aspect I truly wish were better.

Then again, users ever since have confirmed that standby has fallen apart since iOS 12 and has never returned to what it was on iOS 10. A byproduct of features, I guess?

I’m sure your iPhones operate the way you want them, but the bigger point is the variability of how people claim their phones operate. I hypothesize this could be due to a few factors:
- phone operates as claimed
- phone doesn’t operate as claimed but owner doesn’t notice
- phone doesn’t operate as claimed but owner doesn’t care

Whatever the reason there is clearly some variation across the board for performance.

 

[FeliApple]

I’m sure your iPhones operate the way you want them, but the bigger point is the variability of how people claim their phones operate. I hypothesize this could be due to a few factors:
- phone operates as claimed
- phone doesn’t operate as claimed but owner doesn’t notice
- phone doesn’t operate as claimed but owner doesn’t care

Whatever the reason there is clearly some variation across the board for performance.

Perhaps, but there’s no denying that iOS updates eventually make both aspects worse (performance and battery life), even if the user may not be sensitive enough to remember how it ran originally.

 

[I7guy]

Perhaps, but there’s no denying that iOS updates eventually make both aspects worse (performance and battery life), even if the user may not be sensitive enough to remember how it ran originally.

This is all terminology, as “worse” can mean anything from something not very measurable to something very measureable.

And I’m of the opinion even if there’s is some performance hit, the gains outweigh the losses.

I think two things are clear:
1. The original version of software that came with a phone is not flawless for everybody
2. Updating a phone to a later iOS release does not necessarily result in a performance hit for everybody

You don’t necessarily have to agree but this is my opinion.

 

[FeliApple]

And I’m of the opinion even if there’s is some performance hit, the gains outweigh the losses.

This is totally fine. Like I’ve repeatedly stated, updating is merely a trade. You trade performance and battery life for features and compatibility. How willing is everyone to make this trade? Well, it depends on the user.

I think two things are clear:
1. The original version of software that came with a phone is not flawless for everybody

This isn’t my experience, but alright.

2. Updating a phone to a later iOS release does not necessarily result in a performance hit for everybody

Funny wording, “Not necessarily”. Agreed, if the device isn’t updated far enough. This is false if you update through enough major iOS versions, and this is false for every iOS device that’s ever been updated far enough.