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Apple has been pretty good at this recently, but the 4 to 6 generations of iPhone saw major slowdowns if you kept your device past 2 years. It may not show up in benchmarks, but the fancier effects of iOS 7 killed performance on older devices GPU wise. Hell, even the 6 Plus, when new, couldn't keepup with the transparency effects.
 
Well Apple certainly deliberately makes it hard for third-party lightning adapters to work on iPhone 8. I bought an adapter that allows me to charge and use headphones at the same time and it worked on iOS 11.0.1. Now that I updated to 11.0.2 it works for 15 seconds and then cuts off. I have to keep unplugging and plugging in to get it to keep working. It seems to only work constantly if I have the phone locked...which is bull.
 
In short, some people want the same performance after 4 years of new features and security updates.

You have reasonable people, then you have the people mentioned above.
 
Proof looks pretty irrefutable to me. The CPU performance bars got lower and lower as time goes by. I'd says Apple definitely is slowing down devices, and this shows it. Thanks for proving my theory. If the tester bothered to use a normalized axis scale, the downward trend is quite obvious.
 

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Lies. Apple clearly paid this company. Ha! We see clearly through your lies. :D:D
 
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”new software updates as a way to encourage its customers to buy new devices.”

Wouldn’t it be much easier and cheaper for Apple to simply abandon the older devices, instead of offering software updates for four or even five years, the longest time in the industry?

Somehow the logic just doesn’t hold.

Yes, optimising new iOS releases for older devices is clearly not their highest priority - I’m getting annoying frame drops / lag every now and then on my 6s, especially when 3D touching icons.

But that’s not the same as “deliberately slowing it down”. That should be quite easy for someone with the right tools to figure out and simply provide concrete proof.

Yet no one hasn’t.
 
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.

Interesting. What about restoring from cloud backup when done with the wipe/install?
 
Forget what papers said Apple new releases for phones that are not coming on that year gets worse battery and slows down til later updates that’s a fact, I’m not saying they slow down devices but they need to optimize it better for older devices
 
All of these more modern and complex security updates that are constantly demanded tend to slow down older devices more than the new ones.
 
Well Apple certainly deliberately makes it hard for third-party lightning adapters to work on iPhone 8. I bought an adapter that allows me to charge and use headphones at the same time and it worked on iOS 11.0.1. Now that I updated to 11.0.2 it works for 15 seconds and then cuts off. I have to keep unplugging and plugging in to get it to keep working. It seems to only work constantly if I have the phone locked...which is bull.
From whom did you buy it? What’s the brand?
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Yet 3D Touch stutter badly on the 6s :(
Throughout the beta period? Yes. Since GM, it’s gone away for me at least.
 
Hey MacRumors, make a pole and 'ask the people.". You know, real world opinion.

I'll start. I wanted to throw my phone at the wall after an update stuttered it so bad. I had to buy a new phone for my sanity. Hint, it wasn't Apple.

From then on Nexus and Pixel. NEVER has an Android update disabled performance as bad as that.

Apple controls hardware and software. It shouldn't happen, but does all too often. I hear it all the time. That and battery degredation is the reason why people replace their phones.
 
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There is no way in hell I am installing 11 on my iphone 6 or my ipad air 2. none. they have burned me too many times and this "study" is not proof or convincing to me. enjoy if it works for you.
I have iPad Air 2 running iOS 11 and I haven't really noticed any issues with it or any slowness. So I would say iPad Air 2 is more than fine to be updated to 11.

However a lot of people have complained about how slow iPhone 6 gets with 11, so I on the same boat as you. I won't update my iPhone 6 to 11 until a lot of people are saying it's actually working fine. I do have to say I hate how Apple tries to "manipulate" us to update to 11 - that annyoing red notification bubble at the corner of the Settings app bugs me a lot...
 
Well its obvious that Apple can build a lite version of iOS that can run on older phones smoothly but of course they don't want to.

Remove all that time consuming encryption, background processing, iclouding, indexing and security coding, and these older phones would fly.
 
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synthetic benchmarks are apples, user experience and fluidness are oranges...

my iPhone 3GS runned butter-smooth until iOS 5 —> now it runs ultra-sluggish with iOS 6
my iPhone 4S runned butter-smooth until iOS 6 —> now it runs ultra-sluggish with iOS 9
my iPhone 5s runned butter-smooth until iOS 9 —> now it's getting sluggish with iOS 10 and 11

my iPad 2 runned butter-smooth until iOS 6 —> now it runs ultra-sluggish with iOS 9
my iPad 4th gen runned butter-smooth until iOS 8 —> now it runs ultra-sluggish with iOS 10

well, guess that my look- & feel-benchmarking tell me another story.

Apple Doesn't Deliberately Slow Down Older Devices — They Deliberately Ignores Them and Their Customers, which in fact becomes handy...
 
Of course the CPU/GPU still performs the same. It effectively gets slower because it's processing more data and in different ways as the OS gets newer. This is basically like saying 56k modems still perform the same now as they always have so the internet is still as fast if you use one... Just no. Older phones slow down as new OS's get updated. period.

Also, I don't believe Apple does this on purpose, it's just a byproduct of progress.
 
For the conspiracy fans......iOS is a closed ecosystem. The 3dmark benchmark is on app store. QED Apple know all about the app and hence can spot its use, at which time they throttle up performance to fool the benchmark. If it was good enough for VW, it’s good enough for Apple!
 
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