So I question the question is would users be happier having their phone slow down or having the battery appear to drain extremely fast?
I guess my answer to that would depend on how bad the average “slowdown“ is. I think you’re right if the issue is serious, but if most people only take a 10% hit when your phone is old then the slowdown may be a better option.
I’ll admit that I’m not sure how possible that is. If this technique would let you pretend that the battery only had half its capacity left without slowing down the phone then that maybe one thing. If even a slight battery degradation meant you have to pretend the phone only had 1/20th of its original battery left then obviously that’s pointless.
Having a too small battery is the exact definition of planned obsolescence!
If they hadn't tried to make the phones as small as possible and used a battery with 20% more capacity the problems would not be as severe.
That’s not true. Having a too-small battery on purpose is planned obsolescence. Having a small battery (what does "too small" means? Compared to what?) has nothing to do with that. That’s the purpose of "planned" in "planned obsolescence".
If a battery has not enough capacity to carry the phone trough a whole day after 1-2 years of use then it was too small to begin with.
I have the feeling that iPhone batteries are just large enough that the phones survives a day of medium use if the phone is brand new. After 1 or 2 years the battery is so bad that it barely holds enough charge for a few hours of usage.
That’s just a feeling. I’ve had my iPhone for 3 years now and the battery is completely fine.
Perhaps there is _some_ good intention on Apple's part. But I think it hides a just-as-motivating factor as forcing upgrade purchases. My opinion is their position is disingenuous at best. I would rather see them move toward the customer having the control to choose the experience or not instead of - as they explained - only adding transparency into the decisions into which Apple is forcing you.
Plainly, my experience was: I had perfectly healthy hardware, yet my 2-gen old device was almost too slow to be useable. And now here I sit with a $1200 unnecessary replacement.
Pulling down search on the home screen: freeze. Typing into search input: freeze. Unlocking from notifications screen: freeze. Freezes every two or three times an app is opened or closed. Screen transitions always stutter a little, Safari hangs, screen becomes unresponsive, sometimes it just starts draining battery and gets hot with no app running at all.
I think my mention of Android triggered some emotions here (many downvotes). My first smartphone was a Dell with 1.5 that ran horribly slow, around 2010. That one was really bad, couldn't even answer calls most of that time due to unresponsive UI, and is still my benchmark for bad experience. This iPhone is getting quite close.