iPhone users have long complained that their devices seem to slow down when new models are released. Some believe it to be a purposeful effort by Apple (and other tech companies) to reduce the device’s performance in order to get its users to buy newer models. The damage had already been done even though Apple has long denied this report. Co-founder of Tumblr and iOS developer Marco Arment tweeted that “the reputation damage from secretly slowing down old iPhones, regardless of the reason, will likely linger for a decade.” Many people called for Apple to notify its users when it begins reducing their phones’ performance, as well as give them a setting to decide whether to allow that slowdown or not.
After being caught out, Apple has announced that a software feature released last year, unknown to their customers, makes its iPhone operate more slowly to make amends for its ageing lithium-ion battery, so they say. According to Apple, the older batteries do not hold their charges as well as the newer batteries, and low charge or cold temperature can pose worse problems.
The processors in the iPhone 6 and 6S wanted to hit faster speeds, but their batteries couldn’t handle the demand, prompting some phones to simply switch themselves off. The ageing battery means the phone could have trouble operating or might unexpectedly shut down. To address that, Apple incorporated better power management capabilities, into its iOS software, starting with last year’s iOS 10.2.1. Apple says, the operating system slows down your device to prevent it from shutting down, but only in cases of cold temperature, low battery charge or very old batteries. To help manage power consumption, the processor will help spread out the task instead of shutting it down immediately.
The notion that Apple is slowing down it’s older phones to force its users into buying a newer model has been debunked by some tech bloggers. Although, they do believe that newer software upgrades can mess with older phones because the new software is designed for the newest model. Apple usually releases updates to fix as many glitches as possible. The batteries of the older model can be replaced as Apple says its batteries should still have 80% of their original capacity after 500 charges.
This is a guest post by Asseh Rebecca.
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