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Comment by stefanwlb | Hacker News Reader

Why are people so slow to realize what is happening? Or are they afraid to say it how it is? Apple has been screwing older gen phones from the beginning, especially when a new model is about to be released. Majority of people will think after their "forced update", well my phone is so slow and my battery is really bad, maybe it's time to upgrade to the new iPhone 8. Anyone who thinks otherwise is very naive or part of their corruption.

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You are accusing an international corporation of maliciously software crippling millions of devices worth billions of dollars. With that in mind, this is easily testable and has been researched and debunked in the past. If apple was caught doing this there would a multi-billion dollar class-action suit.

What’s more likely is each new phone is significantly faster and more efficient than previous iterations. Thus, new software designed for “current” devices will run dramatically slower on a device even two years old. Fun fact, the most intense gain being made in processor tech is by apple and their SoC tech. Each new A series chip blows away competition to the continued amazement of most.

While I don't have hard data to counteract what you say, my personal experience is that every .0 release is indeed quite rough on the battery, and within a few weeks a .1 or .2 release largely remedies that. This effect is usually visible on both older models and the newest ones (even though, for those, you don't really have a way to compare the behaviour with the previous iOS version).

I've experienced this almost every year.

So - don't attribute to malice what can be explained by a rushed release.

The flip side of that is that Apple continues to provide software updates to super-old hardware. How many Android phones get updates for 4 years?

However, I agree that if you do install that final OS update, it tends to make performance terrible. I regretted installing iOS 10 on my iPhone 5; and the unfortunate thing was that there was no way to downgrade.

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