Apple Doesn't Deliberately Slow Down Older Devices According to Benchmark Analysis

[pat500000]

How about this: "Apple is deliberately slowing down the phones by not addressing people's reported bugs." Jk.

I wouldn't say this title is true, but imo, they should either 1) purge the ios and start fresh or 2) release more updates based the feedbacks that people submitted.

 

[now i see it]

iPhone customer installs new version of iOS, everything slows down. Everything from text input on the keyboard in any app, to launching apps.

Customer complains on forum. Thousands of others do as well. The rest of the millions just suffer through it or buy a new phone.

Official benchmarking company runs the phones through their benchmark software that has nothing to do with real world use and proclaims that new iOS versions don't slow down the iPhone.

Ha!

 

[macTW]

Too many people are blind to reality. Accept that you can’t use “intentional slowdown” as your excuse to hate Apple.

 

[JM]

This story won't play well in the MacRumors.com community--it completely invalidates all the conspiracy theories and complaining.

No, it doesn't invalidate any theories about deliberate device slowing.... More accuratley it's Apple ignoring the older devices. The article states: "Apple's operating system updates also introduce more advanced APIs and technology for its newest devices, leading to built-in and third-party apps that are aimed at more powerful devices and may not be optimized on older devices, resulting in an older device feeling more sluggish than a newer device following an iOS update."

So, yeah, Apple doesn't deliberately slow older devices down, it just deliberately ignores optimization for older devices.
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No conspiracy theory here but...

All those tests do is show the process is doing what it was designed to do. Does it take into account actual real life experiences? Maybe experiences with a phone that's been updated several OS iterations vs. a flatten/re-build each major OS release. I've always wiped clean with a major update and never restore an iCloud backup. Lightning fast, all the time, even on older hardware.

I suspect the slowdowns affect people who just update iOS 8,9,10,11 and so on. Old code lingers and causes issues IMO. Major OS update: DFU, flatten, go from there. Always smooth afterwards for me.

No. I do clean installs too.

My 5s loads messages and maps noticeably slower after I updated to, 10 was it, that had all the extra iMessage crap.

 

[BulkSlash]

In all honesty this result doesn’t surprise me, once my 6 Plus has got something loaded it’s as fast as it has always been. Where it is undeniably slower is in unlocking and loading an app. I think this is all down to RAM, with only 1GB it has to spend time kicking stuff out of memory before it can load the app I’ve tapped on.

 

[JM]

I never thought that Apple intentionally slowed down old devices. There are easier ways to make people upgrade, like not bringing out software updates for older devices. I like it that Apple supports its devices for several years.

A great solution would be for Apple to leave off new features for older than 2 year devices, and just give them security updates (if this is at all possible... I'm not a programmer/engineer).

 

[Scottsoapbox]

To restore speed to your device simply reinstall the OS and restore from backup...

...just like a Windows PC.

 

[Precision Gem]

The reality is, my iPhone 6 with IOS 11 is almost not usable. My iPad Pro sees no slowdown at all with IOS 11. On the iPhone 6, if I try to use Siri, it takes maybe 15 seconds for Siri to respond... trying to take a photo is almost impossible as there is about a 5 second delay. A processor benchmark may not show the true experience. IOS 11 killed my iPhone 6 to the point Apple is forcing me to buy a new phone.

 

[DragonSky]

And still my iPhone 6 feels slower.

I think there are a couple of things going on when people update that may, given the lack of quantitive measures on the device, result in the user thinking the device is running slower.

• After most updates the device does an index of contents to allow Spotlight/search to work quickly, this can make the device respond slowly during the process.
• There is almost always a bunch of updates to applications that take advantage of new OS features. Sometimes these features are not fully baked or may not be correctly implemented, so can make the applications run slower or be more buggy.
• Apple have dialled up the flashy UI stuff, this will of course run better on the newer device than the older ones, thereby making them respond more slowly. I have also seen some of the setting that remove the flashy animations be reverted by an update, making things slower anyway.

I am at the end of the hand me down chain in my family (don't know why that is as I pay the bills) so end up running the oldest phone in the house. I've got to say that I don't generally notice any greater speed when I get to use one of the newer devices for general tasks. Of course when running 3d games, the later iPhones/iPads can knock the socks off one that is a few years old. That said, it looks like I may be the receiver of a brand new iPhone SE to replace my old faithful (and now battery bulging) iPhone 5.

On the Mac front. I have seen the newer OS versions actually speed up the older device (2009 iMac) as they slowly get rid of older code.

 

[ChazSch]

don't care...fix my mail being much slower
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The reality is, my iPhone 6 with IOS 11 is almost not usable. My iPad Pro sees no slowdown at all with IOS 11. On the iPhone 6, if I try to use Siri, it takes maybe 15 seconds for Siri to respond... trying to take a photo is almost impossible as there is about a 5 second delay. A processor benchmark may not show the true experience. IOS 11 killed my iPhone 6 to the point Apple is forcing me to buy a new phone.

THIS!!!

 

[Zaft]

Moaners on here will still find a way to put a negative spin and confirm their bias about Apple’s planned obsolescence...

If nothing else, they will claim Apple paid for this research.....

Already been claimed in a different thread lol

 

[brianvictor7]

Something I noticed on my iPhone 5S starting with iOS7 was that the camera app was slower to open than when I first got it. The delay got worse with each new OS until it stretched to 10 seconds. I missed a lot of moments because of that. With iOS 11 it seems to have improved by a few seconds. Since buying it 4 years ago, however, apps have just opened slower than they did with the first OS.

 

[michaelaye]

Of course, it's the same hardware!! What a useless benchmark!!

Roberto, SH! (SCNR )

 

[ChazSch]

I am pretty sick of hearing the "reindexing" comment....as its been what, 3 weeks. There are number go things that are not stabile. Overall I like the UI, but the hesitation...the 3-4-5-10 second delay when going to a new app. I get a lot of sticking keyboards when typing IN MESSAGE...come on!!!!!

 

[JM]

The reality is, my iPhone 6 with IOS 11 is almost not usable. My iPad Pro sees no slowdown at all with IOS 11. On the iPhone 6, if I try to use Siri, it takes maybe 15 seconds for Siri to respond... trying to take a photo is almost impossible as there is about a 5 second delay. A processor benchmark may not show the true experience. IOS 11 killed my iPhone 6 to the point Apple is forcing me to buy a new phone.

Apple has always treated their customers very, very well: especially if the customer buys their newest products.

This is only a feeling, and one example is when going to an Apple Store with iphone problem and employees suggesting that I can "always buy the new iPhone it's really cool."

I'm not knocking their approach.... But I would wager that Steve Jobs had this mindset: that if a customer buys his products, he treats them very well. And if they don't or they leave, then that person is "dead to him."

Old phones don't make Apple money, so why should they care? (And it certainly doesn't sound warm and fuzzy to lay bare this approach. hah. It sounds much better to spin/sell it the way that Apple does. It's a really good company for Consumerists)

 

[deanthedev]

I love how people always claim Apple intentionally slows devices down to force people to upgrade.

You know, there’s a much easier way to force people to upgrade - just copy the Android OEMs. Instead of making iOS available to devices that are 4 years old Apple should only support devices that are 2 years old. And completely abandon users on devices that are over 2 years old.

 

[0997853]

Futuremark... trying to get attention.

How can you say that because your single process benchmark works the same, the phone is not slowed down?! Have they though one second about the Operating System's GUI slowness?! Or about the loading times of apps?!

 

[eoblaed]

And still my iPhone 6 feels slower.

The device has yet to be created where every task is instant. No matter how fast our computers/devices are, they're not instant. When we get an upgrade of some kind, one of things that stands out to us is the performance improvement over our previous device. We'll marvel at how much faster it does certain tasks. Years pass, and what was once a happy improvement is now taken for granted. It's just the way the device is. Then when we see new gear, our old gear, no matter how happy we were with its speed all that time ago, seems slow and outdated.

Psychosomatic issues can play heavily into it, too.

 

[JM]

I love how people always claim Apple intentionally slows devices down to force people to upgrade.

You know, there’s a much easier way to force people to upgrade - just copy the Android OEMs. Instead of making iOS available to devices that are 4 years old Apple should only support devices that are 2 years old. And completely abandon users on devices that are over 2 years old.

Or abandon feature upgrades, and just give them security updates.

 

[Duane Martin]

iPhone customer installs new version of iOS, everything slows down. Everything from text input on the keyboard in any app, to launching apps.

Customer complains on forum. Thousands of others do as well. The rest of the millions just suffer through it or buy a new phone.

Official benchmarking company runs the phones through their benchmark software that has nothing to do with real world use and proclaims that new iOS versions don't slow down the iPhone.

Ha!

People using no methodology nor understanding of technology spew anecdotes, claiming if they get enough of them it equals facts.

HA!

 

[NachoGrande]

My iPhone 6 is slow AF

 

[oplix]

That's NOT what "slowing down devices" even means. SMH. What it means is that the new OS is only built for new devices and that makes older devices perform worse when upgrading the software.

 

[JM]

The device has yet to be created where every task is instant. No matter how fast our computers/devices are, they're not instant. When we get an upgrade of some kind, one of things that stands out to us is the performance improvement over our previous device. We'll marvel at how much faster it does certain tasks. Years pass, and what was once a happy improvement is now taken for granted. It's just the way the device is. Then when we see new gear, our old gear, no matter how happy we were with its speed all that time ago, seems slow and outdated.

Psychosomatic issues can play heavily into it, too.

My subjective experience is more true than your subjective experience.


joking

 

[canadianreader]

real life experience at least mine proves this chart wrong after two iOS cycles the phone will dramatically slow down especially those with 1gb of ram

 

[stiligFox]

The biggest thing I tell anyone I know is when doing a major revision upgrade (9 to 10 to 11, etc.), always do a wipe and clean install. My brother was having so many issues, crashes, and slow downs with his 7+ that I wasn’t having with my 6S+. I finally convinced him to wipe it clean and voila - he’s got the faster phone again.