What BS?
When I replaced my xr with a 14PM my xr didn’t become slower.
This would be due to battery degradation, inverter degradation, etc.
For the most part the a22 and later on iPhones slowdowns isn’t really a thing.
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Other The myth of Apple intentionally slowing down older iPhones…
- Thread starter Al Rukh
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Yes, I’ve been saying this all along. Having said that my comments about the a12 still stand. My own anecdotal opinion is that my Xs max with a new battery on iOS 17 performed as miserably as in the year I bought it.
My X hasn't but it was at 79%. the IPhone SE was similar but it was even starting to be spicy pillow
iOS 12 maybe?
Planned obsolescence is an overused term. But if you change your phones battery every 18-24 months you’ll scarcely want a new phone.
Very few people ever replace batteries in their phones. Apple will continue to sell millions of new devices to people who just need a new battery.
I’m relatively convinced that old batteries or damaged screens are the cause of at least 80% of new iPhone purchases.
Very few people ever replace batteries in their phones. Apple will continue to sell millions of new devices to people who just need a new battery.
I’m relatively convinced that old batteries or damaged screens are the cause of at least 80% of new iPhone purchases.
That’s correct. Most people would rather just get a new iPhone 2-3 years later rather than taking the trouble to pay close to $100 (in my country) for a battery replacement. Also, the resale values of iPhones are high and with Apple tradein program available, the outlay for a new iPhone is manageable.
It’s highly likely someone would get a new iPhone due to it being slow. Most people change it for other reasons within 3-5 years before even experiencing any significant level of slowdown and lag.
Perhaps you are a very heavy user in terms of apps used?
Like you said, the reason for which iOS updates decrease battery life is due to increased power consumption. What’s the problem? Very simple. If you are an efficient user, with light to moderate use, original iOS versions are amazing, due to their efficiency. New iOS versions obliterate this, because they’re inefficient and have too much power consumption. This is why, for example, the iPhone 6s has paltry battery life even with light usage on iOS 15.
Now, even if the device isn’t updated, heavy use has always resulted in poor battery life. If the usage is heavy enough, battery life is obviously more abhorrent when updated, but the user won’t recall the original version having good battery life regardless.
Allow me to give an example: 1st-gen iPad Pros, iOS 9. Some people used it for drawing with the Apple Pencil. They said they used it at max brightness for various reasons, and reported battery life struggled to get to 4 hours. With that usage on iPadOS 16, you’d get one hour, but the user won’t recall iOS 9 as being particularly great anyway.
If power consumption is high enough, original versions won’t give a good battery life anyway.
You frequently mentioned “but what if you use it at full brightness on LTE for GPS?”, and no device will give a good battery life with that usage. Will an iPhone Xʀ on iOS 12 be infinitely better than one on iOS 17? Yes, but you can probably drain one on iOS 12 in... what? Four hours? Not great.
That said, there’s no iPhone that will give you good battery life with that usage.
Well, iOS 12 is very decent on A9 devices. It wasn’t updated far enough. I have a 9.7-inch iPad Pro (A9X) on iOS 12 and it’s great. iPadOS 16 is a different story, though.
Even with 79% health, the iPhone X would be great on iOS 11 or 12.
I suppose Apple will release new interleaved maintenance iOS versions (maybe 19?) that would be good.
The X (and SE) had better battery when new but seeing those wear levels (and SE splitting apart) I always supposed that was the main cause (never replaced batteries)
It definitely was a thing until iPhone 6S was released.
I vivily remember my iPhone 3G, 5 and 6 Plus being practically unusable the year after when a new iOS would drop.
Since 6S had a major jump in RAM, the longevity of these devices became much better. Now you can comfortably use an iPhone for 4 years or more.
I vivily remember my iPhone 3G, 5 and 6 Plus being practically unusable the year after when a new iOS would drop.
Since 6S had a major jump in RAM, the longevity of these devices became much better. Now you can comfortably use an iPhone for 4 years or more.
They throttled the old 4 and 4S phones due to battery health. If you have ever used an old droid with a crap battery in it, then you will know what I am talking about when the unit just reboots on its own because it doesn't have the juice to drive the SOC. Its not a big conspiracy no matter how its gets spun.
Due to increased functionality in subsequent ios releases. This is an important point as it is not like battery consumption goes down just because. Now we hope that apple designs for this the best they can.
Yes that is how the original Apple benchmarks are done, using light and efficient and best case scenarios. But all battery operated computing devices suffer the same fate, use them heavily, this includes bright sunlight, heavy computation, bad cell signal etc and even on the original o/s version there will be poor battery life.
Yes, prior to the a12 I fully agree.
User wont recall the original version having bad battery life either. People tend not to remember slow trends over long periods of time.
As I’ve commented my xs max with a new battery on ios 17 for my rememberance is as miserable as it was when I bought it.
Yep.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this.
Putting aside the whole fiasco about performance throttling and battery degradation, new versions of iOS (and most operating systems) will be more resource intensive, which will impact older hardware more heavily with regards to both performance and battery life. It’s not planned obsolescence per se, but with Apple limiting what version of iOS you can downgrade to, you’re SOL if you upgrade through major iOS versions and your device takes a performance hit. Your device will be slower and have worse battery life and you won’t have a way to revert to a previous version of iOS that alleviates these issues.
To give a brief example of actual use case of this, my kid has an iPad 9 and it’s only used during long trips. It’s loaded with a couple streaming services and activity apps, and it’s not used frequently because, as mentioned, it’s only for long trips. I was lucky to get an iPad that came with iPadOS 15, the version it originally shipped with. It gets fantastic battery life and performance is great for what it’s used for. I upgraded to the latest version of iPadOS 15 and disabled further updates, because I know that if I were to update to iPadOS 17 it will be slower and battery life won’t be as good. You can’t really argue otherwise.
The typical consumer doesn’t know this. They will notice that their device is slower and be pushed to upgrade to a newer device, when a software reversion might alleviate most of their device’s issues.
No, of course. Increased functionality causes increased power consumption.
I just disagree with the fact that the only benchmark you’re using is extremely heavy usage.
A12 onwards it isn’t as poor as it used to be but there’s still a huge difference.
Yeah, people who don’t track it don’t notice.
It’s significantly worse, but if your usage is very heavy, I see why you’d think that.
Completely true, I have nothing to add to this.
Yeah, and the good thing about your iPad is that the vast majority of streaming apps will keep working forever, and battery life and performance won’t decrease.
This baffles me. People may not notice at first, but there are many people with years, decades of iOS experience, and they keep updating... why? Why don’t they notice? Why do iOS adoption rates keep rising? At this point, people shouldn’t update as much, yet they keep obliterating devices by updating everything. I really don’t understand.
As an iPhone Xʀ user on iOS 12, I can confirm that not updating works.
Apple didn't exactly. They responded by introducing the battery replacement programme and redesigning their phones to make them easier to service. The end result is better transparency about the iPhone's overall battery health (wish it were more transparent on the iPad, but the info is there in the in the logs if you know where to look), and the ability to get your battery serviced at any Apple Store within the same day.
So I guess they earned back everyone's trust?
Funny story though. I was just at the Apple Store yesterday to have my 13 pro max's battery replaced. I know I had this conversation earlier with another forum member about how the battery health percentage is probably rigged to minimise the number of battery replacements done within the first two years (which is typically how long your iPhone is covered by Applecare+). It's health was still at 81% (and had been that way for many months already), but I thought since it was the school holidays, may as well since I had a bit of time. The store was packed, and I was told I had to wait for about 4 hours because apparently, a lot of people were there to have the batteries on their phones and Apple Watches serviced as well.
TL;DR, I had restored my 8+ prior so I could remain contactable during that time, and wow, I forgotten how much I missed the form factor and the feel of the curved glass edges against my hand. Also, I could be mistaken, but my 8+ on iOS 16.7.2 felt faster to me, though battery life was dying pretty quickly. Health was at 92% still, so I agree that iOS has probably gotten way too heavy for the A11 chip to properly support, though Apple seems to have prioritised performance even on a 6-year old device. But it was still a nice phone to use for that few hours. Touch ID, control centre from the bottom...😬
And my 13 pro max seems to feel just that bit faster and snappier with a new battery. 🤔
I don't know what my point is. Just an observation...
We agree. Use it more the battery goes down faster.
We all know apples benchmarks are achievable if done in the same way. But people don’t use their phones like that. They use them their way which includes light, moderate and heavy usage. And heavy usage drains the battery.
If by huge you mean statistically normal then I agree.
And people who track it find YMMV same as everything else in life.
Yes it’s about the same miserable life I got when I bought it. But it’s really okay when I use it lightly.
Whilst any improvement should be appreciated, I don’t think this fixes anything really, battery life still worsens through irreversible iOS updates. They are transparent about the impact of increased power consumption on degraded batteries, but the underlying issue is just as poor as it was before the fiasco.
To Apple’s credit, performance has gotten a lot better, like you experienced with the 8+. But like you also experienced, good battery health still doesn’t fix anything, the underlying increased power consumption still severely degrades battery life, and this process is irreversible. Even replacing the battery won’t match original iOS versions. It’s like they’re saying “look, we obliterate battery life, and we now tell you instead of hiding it, but we’ll keep doing it, thank you very much”.
No, many people are light to moderate users.
Nonsense. Not true and not what I said.
No, it doesn’t vary. Not discussing this.
Okay, sure. As good as on iOS 12? No.
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Going on a gross unprovable generalization many people are also heavy users.
Again can’t prove as in a fact. Therefore the line in the sand can mean virtually anything.
The only reason not to discuss is that these are anecdotal data points only.
Better. Because of additional functionality and patching and lack of battery performance.
Okay, you’ve gone from reasonable assessments to... this. That’s it for this conversation from me.
It all goes down to the enemy you know vs. don't. When voting for a president, which would you prefer, the candidate who has a lot of "bad" but seems to put it all out there so you at least have a chance at knowing where they're coming from, or the candidate also with a lot of "bad" but who's steeped in the old world tradition of keeping a lot on the downlow, forcing you to wonder or guess or seek to find it out on your own. Even if they both really suck, lol.
Apple hid some key info, preventing the consumer from making an educated choice about their phones that suddenly were crashing or not working as well, either from a new iOS or old battery or a combination of both.
Everyone knows (or should know by now) that the primary purpose of annual iOS upgrades is to obsolete older iPhones. And how do they do that? By slowing them down to the point where they’re too aggravating to use.
It’s obvious.
It’s obvious.
The only problem with this theory is, it’s not true at all.
I don’t know about primary purpose but it’s definitely a side effect that Apple is aware of and is not doing much to address, because it benefits them financially. If they truly cared, they would make it possible to downgrade to past major iOS versions (even if it’s the latest update for that particular major version) or at least enable new features to be disabled to enhance performance/battery.