Apple on Wednesday admitted it had been secretly throttling the performance of older iPhones.
The admission outraged even some of the company’s biggest fans.
Customers have good reason to be distrustful of the company and to suspect its motives.
Apple has long inspired an almost religious devotion among customers and tech aficionados – but it just seriously undermined its fans’ faith and loyalty.
The company on Wednesday acknowledged what some people have long suspected: that it has been secretly stifling the performance of older iPhones.
Critics have accused the company in the past, based on anecdotal evidence, of purposely slowing phones to compel users to upgrade to the latest model. While Apple admitted to the practice on Wednesday, it sought to underscore that it had done so for a purely altruistic reason: to prevent older phones from shutting down unexpectedly.
The justification hasn’t mollified Apple’s outraged fans. If anything, the company’s statement has stoked the conspiracy theories, and for good reason.
By the company’s own admission, it’s been throttling the performance of iPhones since last year.
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.
Apple’s secrecy – a badge of honor when it comes to unveiling new products – is certain to encourage distrust in this situation. Apple comes across as an organization that was intentionally hiding something, something it acknowledged only when it was caught red-handed.
If Apple didn’t acknowledge that it was throttling older phones until one year after it started doing so, what else is the company not telling customers? Why should iPhone users believe the company’s explanation for why it’s throttling phones? And why should they believe that it only started doing that a year ago?
Such questions might sound like the ravings of conspiracy theorists. But in this case, the conspiracymongers were proved right: Apple was slowing down its phones. And there are rational reasons to think the company may not be offering a full explanation why.
The iPhone maker has a big reason to push customers to upgrade
The fact is Apple has an incentive to push users to upgrade; it makes money selling new devices, after all.
And the company has a history of artificially making older devices look inferior to new ones. The iPhone 4, for example, was perfectly capable of running Siri, but Apple reserved that feature for the model that replaced it, the iPhone 4s. Likewise, the camera in the iPhone 3G was capable of shooting video, but Apple didn’t turn that feature on and instead made video recording the signature capability of its next device, the iPhone 3GS.
Planned obsolescence is a long-standing practice in the tech and broader manufacturing industries.
Apple may well be honest in explaining its motives for throttling phones and about the time frame when it started doing so. But many folks just aren’t going to believe that.
“For years, we’ve reassured people that no, Apple doesn’t secretly slow down their older iPhones to make them buy new ones,” the blogger and iPhone developer Marco Arment said in a tweet Wednesday. He added in a follow-up Twitter post: “The reputation damage from secretly slowing down old iPhones, regardless of the reason, will likely linger for a decade.”
Whatever the company’s motives for throttling iPhones, it should have made clear long ago what it was doing, if only for public-relations reasons. If it had told users what it was doing when it introduced the throttling feature – or heck, even better, when it first started seriously considering building the feature into the iPhone’s operating system – it would have been able to shape the discussion and maybe even improve how the feature works.
Instead, it’s now drawing customers’ criticism, distrust, and ire. And it has no one to blame but itself.
GeekyMeerkat on December 21st, 2017 at 15:26 UTC »
Apple - "We encased the battery in our phones, and made this the market standard. But don't worry batteries are so much better now"
Us - "You promise this isn't just a tactic to get us to buy a new phone when the battery goes bad, instead of just buying a new battery?"
Apple - "No no no, our batteries are so good that by the time they go bad you'll not even want that phone anymore."
Later...
Apple - "We slow your phone to protect it from batteries as they go bad."
Us - "You promise this isn't just a tactic to get us to buy a new phone? I seem to recall something about your batteries being good for the life time of the phone."
Apple - "No no no, this isn't to get you to buy a new phone... this is us extending the lifetime of your phone. If we didn't slow your phone down and cripple it with software updates, then it would die sooner! It may be crippled but isn't a crippled phone better than a dead phone? Your battery will kill it if we don't cripple your phone!"
Us - "So why again can't we just take the battery out and put in a new one? You are absolutely sure this isn't a tactic to get us to buy a new phone?"
Apple - "Oh no no see there you go assuming the worst again. We aren't doing this to force you to buy a new phone. You can always send your phone back to us and we'll replace the battery for you for a reasonable fee if it's out of warranty. This is good for you because you know you aren't suppose to just throw batteries out right? We'll dispose of that old battery properly."
Us - "Oh okay, so when you replace the battery, you'll speed my phone back up right? I mean the slow down is to protect us from old batteries after all so we can have a fast phone again right?"
Apple - "Hum what was that I didn't hear you? May I interest you in the new iPhone X2? It'll be much faster than your old phone."
EDIT: One, thanks for the gold whoever gave it to me. And two, I see a number of people saying that if you replace the battery that the speeds do go back up. Okay fine. But the question is still a valid question, and from what I saw Apple wasn't actually providing that answer in a nice clear area. If the answer is obtained by people doing tests of their own, that's not really Apple providing the answers is it?
ididitdoit on December 21st, 2017 at 15:14 UTC »
My iPhone 6 got throttled to 600 mhz with a battery capacity at 88% of its designed capacity. That is more than healthy enough to have a stable battery. I think there is more to it.
Replacing the battery helped.
toasterslayer on December 21st, 2017 at 14:54 UTC »
They said that they make phones run slower to conserve battery life...I don't think this is worth it.