iPhone 17 Does Apple install malware to slow your old phone down?

[FeliApple]

Why are you still denying battery chemistry?

Is that really the conclusion you get from my post? That’s not what I said.

Batteries degrade but original versions are efficient enough so as to offset that degradation even with moderate use.

Push it too hard and there might be a difference even on an original iOS version, but who cares anyway? We are talking about tertiary devices. What am I going to do? Play a game with full brightness on an iPhone 6s on iOS 10? No.

Conversely, an iPhone 6s on iOS 15 with like 78% health is useless even for music because the iOS version consumes too much. Come on, you can’t keep denying this after millions of devices have been obliterated.

 

[Marrk]

That just sounds like the hardware was wearing out on your old SE.

As for the calendar alerts, if you buy into the conspiracy theory that Apple ships secret code to slow down older phones, how does that apply to your almost new 17e? The conspiracy theory is the malicious malware infecting people.

I don't know. I am guessing that software updates are engineered for the latest, greatest hardware, so it's just a matter of time before the updates are "not really, perfectly" compatible with your hardware. It may be asking too much of any company to produce software updates that are backward compatible.

Disclaimer: I don't know anything. Consider me a four-year-old when it comes to tech.

 

[Veoronox]

According to the communityNotes, the person was referring to Apple's Batterygate instead of actual malware.

 

[AppleForeverandEver]

She is full of hot air.

She is full of something !

 

[Flappy Dunk]

What are you talking about cross-compatibility?
I can't even login to my Apple ID on my MacBook Air (Big Sur 11.7.11) with my other devices on iOS 18 and later.

View attachment 2629920

That's because you have Advanced Data Protection turned on, which restricts your Apple ID to devices running iOS 16.2 / macOS 13.1 or later ONLY.

 

[FeliApple]

That's because you have Advanced Data Protection turned on, which restricts your Apple ID to devices running iOS 16.2 / macOS 13.1 or later ONLY.

Oh, that is indeed why! Here’s Apple Support’s relevant section:

Yeah, very, VERY obviously a non-issue. If you have every device updated then it’s fine, but it’s absolutely NOT a valid argument to deny cross-compatibility.

As I was saying, this cross compatibility between a quintillion iOS versions exists, and works properly. Like I said, I have iOS 18, iPadOS 18, iPadOS 15, iOS 12, OS X El Cap (from 2016!), iOS 10, iOS 5, etc, etc, etc, everything works flawlessly in terms of logging to the Apple ID.

This is an absolute non-issue. If you have a myriad iOS versions like I do you just can’t enable Advanced Data Protection, whatever, it’s fine.

I am not about to sacrifice 90% of what I have for this, anyway. Like I said there is cross-compatibility and this is a non-issue.

 

[FeliApple]

In fact, the issues of avoiding Apple malware can be condensed into a single phrase: compatibility issues due to garbage, pathetic, abhorrent third-party developers, web developers, app developers, all developers.

Why do websites stop working? Because developers update the components for no reason at all. Why do apps stop working? Because developers horrifically increase compatibility requirements and kill older app versions.

Apple itself, with all of its faults in terms of what they do to devices, behaves correctly, greatly even, with older iOS versions. Everything that Apple does correctly is almost rendered futile because third-party developers don’t do things correctly.

Because compatibility is NOT the goal for the overwhelming majority of developers.

And since iOS 26’s adoption rate was released and it matched 18:

People do not care either so there’s no incentive for any of this to change. Therefore, Apple will continue to kill devices all the time, developers have no incentive to give us compatibility, and users will keep complaining about what iOS malware does to devices yet continue to update.

I cannot wrap my mind around why long-term iOS users, MacRumors users with years of forum participation, etc, keep complaining about iOS updates. You know how this works, why do you keep expecting things to be different?

 

[BillyJoeJimBob]

If by malware you mean Planned Obsolescence rolled into every iOS and MacOS, then yes. Sequoia runs fine on a 2012 Mini 6,1 with OCLP. The point being is that the hardware can run the latest OS and "limitations" are arbitrary.

 

[FeliApple]

Yep, I'm with you here.

I mean, kinda, to a degree? Sure, a fully updated install of the launch version on an older iPhone will plausibly be easier on a battery than the latest revision. I don't buy a 50% runtime loss though. I'm not saying you didn't see that, I am saying that is not a universal truth, and is likely an outlier. I would expect the actual difference to be much smaller. If an analysis were done on a thousand old iPhones, I would expect the overall difference to actually be fairly small.

So an old battery doesn't perform like a new one, but you're happy with the compromises required to keep old ones optimised. I actually admire that!

I dont't buy the notion that an 11 year old phone will have unchanged battery life if you never update it. Physics and chemistry are real. I find it akin to the fuel-saver devices you plug in to your car's cigarette lighter, or the mythical "100mpg carburettors" I used to read about. You can't ignore chemistry. You can make compromises to maximise a battery's useful life, but an old battery is an old battery.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to be insulting with these comparisons, they just illustrate my point.

I'm super happy with iOS 26.5 on my iPhone 14.

I came back to this thread because there has been an interesting development.

My forcibly updated iPhone 6s running iOS 13 (phone which was running iOS 9 and Apple forced it out thanks to the A9 on iOS 9 activation bug, where Apple deactivated all iOS devices on iOS 9 with the A9 chip and forced them to update)… just “died”.

I left the phone off for two months and when I grabbed it again it died. Battery health dropped from 78% to 75% (confirmed via Coconut Battery, 74.9% after 1100 cycles), and battery life has collapsed like it does when the battery is dead.

The phone dies overnight from 100% on standby with efficient settings on Airplane mode; drops to 63% after 50 minutes of music, and is (finally) completely unusable.

The battery is dead.

…however…

…my iPhone 6s running iOS 10 did not drop from 100% after 45 minutes of music playback in the exact same conditions. Coconut shows 63% health. Standby battery life is normal for the phone, dropping normally overnight, maybe 2-3%. I assume many, many hours of music playback. I was using the updated one just because it has 128GB of storage vs 32GB.

I, therefore, yield the initiative here and leave the conclusion to the reader…