Slowing down is mostly caused by battery wear. All my Android devices have had the same problem.
People complaining about their phones being slow have aged batteries, a nearly full filesystem, and have likely gone through numerous system updates.
On iOS it is trivial to move off files you don't need on the device anymore and then do a backup, full wipe, and restore.
Updates are how they deliver updated battery management algorithms, not the metric they use to determine battery age.
You have absolutely no evidence to support this statement.
> That said, I didn’t like their approach of secrecy
Apple is under no obligation to disclose every practice or behavior, especially one which is completely innocuous and benefits the customer with zero downside. The alternative to slowing down the processor to account for increased internal resistance is "the phone crashes", which is exactly what iPhone 6S models did until Apple released the fix in an iOS 10 update.
Several generations of iPhones have been clearly specifically designed to make the battery and screen easy to replace (Apple even uses pull-tab-releaseable adhesives for the battery), and doesn't place the lightning connector on the main board unlike damn near every Android phone; it's an easily replaced module.
The "slowdown" was specifically to increase the amount of time before the phone's battery would have to be replaced. Other manufacturers have done the same.
How strange that this anti-repair anti-consumer company's OS releases support their phones far longer than any other phone manufacturer...
> You have absolutely no evidence to support this statement.
Correct. That’s why I said “seemingly” and “anecdotally”.
> Apple is under no obligation to disclose every practice or behavior, especially one which is completely innocuous and benefits the customer with zero downside.
I didn’t say they did, I just said I didn’t like it.
Apple’s CPUs are very bursty, and that causes them to suddenly draw a large current from the battery. Older batteries cannot handle this so the CPU doesn’t get enough power and reboots. What Apple did was to stop the CPU from suddenly ramping up speed, which means the battery doesn’t have to deal with a sudden spike in power demand and can keep up even if it’s degraded.
This does, of course, slow the phone down as it can’t ramp up as aggressively.