Friday, December 22, 2017

Yes, fanbois - Apple is screwing you

Yes, it's true that Apple's software slows down older iPhones.  They claim that it's to protect against over-draining older batteries.  They say that this is only in the last year or two that they've done this.  It seems that this is not true:
Apple hasn't explained why it didn't disclose the practice until now, after GeekBench released charts based on its data that showed how older iPhones were not performing as quickly as they had when they launched.
And people are looking more closely, and finding that this goes back to at least the iPhone 3G:


It seems that every time Apple releases a new iPhone model, Google searches for "iPhone slow" spike.  Hmmmm.

A class-action lawsuit has just been filed on this:
The complaint recounted how the various plaintiffs, frustrated by iPhone slowdowns, bought the latest models, unaware they could have just paid Apple US$79 for a $4.45 replacement battery to resuscitate their hobbled handset.
So fanbois, you know that you're getting fleeced.

5 comments:

SiGraybeard said...

Why does the Android curve follow the same basic shape as the iPhone curve? Minus the peaks since there's no equivalent new version Android phone release in the distributed world of Android.

I can see two possible explanations: (1) would be the search term isn't specific enough and all of those are iPhone searches - or (2) everyone's phone is slowing perceptibly because software bloat is the root cause.

Jonathan H said...

I personally assumed that software bloat was the cause for everybody, and I suspect it is at least part of the problem - but Apple has admitted they do it intentionally, so even if software is part of the issue, it isn't the entirety of it.

Old NFO said...

Part of it IS software bloat, and Apple at least admits it. Android/Google, not so much...

Sevesteen said...

The last Apple product I bought was an early iPod tOuch. After a few years, an OS update made it basically unusable--Technically everything still worked, but so glacially slowly that it became more trouble than it was worth--and there's no reasonable back-out. It isn't credible that this was an accident or the best that they could do.

Rick C said...

"Why does the Android curve follow the same basic shape as the iPhone curve?"

That curve probably better tracks the overall rise in numbers of Android phones in general.