I feel like more transparency would have been welcomed, but aside from that this is a "no win" situation, since you have to pick a winner:

- Do you degrade performance but leave screen-on time relatively unchanged?

- Do you degrade screen-on time but leave performance relatively unchanged?

Most Android devices seem to do the opposite (lose screen-on time, but keep performance relatively unchanged). Different people will have a different perspective on what the "right" strategy is for this, but I think we can all agree that better transparency and maybe even leaving it to the consumer to make the choice would be welcome.

PS - "Planned obsolescence" only applies if Apple was doing this artificially. It seems like if they didn't degrade performance you'd lose screen-on time instead, so you'd still likely replace the handset and perhaps even sooner (since core services e.g. calling, texting, etc, work even with lower performance but not on a phone out of juice).