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

[jclardy]

Just clickbait. The "malware" is the new OS, built and tested primarily on the new, unreleased hardware. iOS 26 is literally the best example of it, for older phones, they now have to render a transparent glass shader effect on every toolbar that literally just didn't exist in the old flat UI.

 

[2fx1989]

Please stop being so gullible. You’re forgetting one very important thing…

If it’s on the internet then it’s almost certainly NOT true

 

[lewchenko]

The malware is 'real', but its called every new version of iOS or macOS lol. New stuff always seems to slow your HW to a crawl over time.
I remember a Macbook pro 2010 era model that literally became unusable as I kept up with updated OS versions as much as possible.
Still .. you get several years use for your money. Arguably longer than for PCs and Android Phones.

 

[cjsuk]

Twitter post is a conko bonko banana brain paranoid ********.

Reality is:

1. There is some CPU throttling going on to reduce the effect of current spikes on batteries as they measurably age, which is well known. The architecture uses MOSFET which requires huge current spikes to shovel electrons around quickly into the gates. If you don't mitigate that, the voltage sags during the spikes and causes the internal state of the circuits to get corrupted leading to crashes and therefore data corruption, which is a really big deal. Basically makes phones with marginal, old batteries, much more reliable.

2. Newer iOS versions have more bloat on them. They moved a whole ton of stuff from Objective-C to Swift and separated bits of OS components so they could be sandboxed. That has overhead. Plus shiny new UI stuff and features adds to the weight.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

I grabbed the speaker. Set it at a certain volume, started a stopwatch upon starting playback. When I turned it off, I hit pause on the stopwatch and wrote down the partial time. Next time I used it, I did the same. Rinse and repeat until I ran out of battery. It is rated for 8 hours playback (at indeterminate volume, today’s speakers are rated at a certain volume, whatever, I played it at 40% volume, reasonable for a quiet indoors environment). Twelve years after launch, I got 12 hours of playback until it ran out of battery.

I tested my 2019 headphones last month. I used them a LOT. Rated for 20 hours of playback. Same mechanism, stopwatch, etc. I got 21h 52 min. I tested them in 2019 and got a similar result. Batteries are resilient or I’m the luckiest person in history. Every single thing I have is going to be the perfect exception to the rule?

I got 8.5 hours of SOT to 50% with my Xʀ in 2019… I got 8.5 hours of SOT to 50% in 2026. Either I’m the luckiest person ever, or the difference is in our software treatment.

And even though I can attribute my speakers to lack of use (they haven’t been cycled THAT much), I have used my headphones a lot.

I don’t know what to tell you. You can attribute my iOS devices’ unchanging battery life to two factors: my software efficiency (I don’t update) AND my settings efficiency (yes, pretty much every draining setting is disabled). But my other devices? They have no settings. They just have volume controls. Batteries are fine.

Now, is there a limit? Hell, maybe. Maybe I come back here in twenty years and I go: “do you remember that speaker I mentioned in 2026? Well, it’s 2046 and battery life is finally poor”. Perhaps that happens. But by then… why would that speaker’s battery life be relevant at all? In fact, I already bought another one. So I have two (that are battery-powered, or three in fact but the third one doesn’t fact because it’s too small and therefore unused). But I bought another one because I wanted to, not because mine had any shortcomings, including battery life.

And like I said, I literally timed both devices without massive software updates like iOS devices with a stopwatch and battery life is fine. One is 7 years old. The other one is 13 years old. In fact (and this is the point) the only devices I’ve seen that have lost massive amounts of runtime with time have been… significantly updated iOS devices. You can imagine why I call iOS updates “malware”. I can squeeze like-new battery life from anything and everything even if it is over a decade old… except for a three-year-old iPhone that has been obliterated by Apple’s irreversible software garbage (malware).

You said you use Bluetooth, battery-powered speakers. Have you really never had any speaker from a reputable brand with like-new battery life within only five years?

Nope, in fact the Soundcore speaker I bought only a year ago (rated for 12 hours) is already reaching that state where every time I go to use it it seems to be dead, even if it was just recently fully charged.
Your statements don’t hold up to physics, historical precedent, or my own experiences.
And no, your stopwatch statements are not an indication of literally anything.
I also have a tiny old Bluetooth speaker purchased in 2011, guess what? It doesn’t really hold a charge in 2026.

 

[FeliApple]

Nope, in fact the Soundcore speaker I bought only a year ago (rated for 12 hours) is already reaching that state where every time I go to use it it seems to be dead, even if it was just recently fully charged.
Your statements don’t hold up to physics, historical precedent, or my own experiences.
And no, your stopwatch statements are not an indication of literally anything.
I also have a tiny old Bluetooth speaker purchased in 2011, guess what? It doesn’t really hold a charge in 2026.

I am extremely skeptical of your speaker dying like that. Some questions: do you have a “Bluetooth standby” feature enabled? Do you turn it off fully when it’s not in use?

Do you play it at max volume? The newest speaker I bought got me 40 hours of playback at 30% volume, but dropped from 80% to 40% after two hours at full volume. Just like with iOS devices, when you push the device, battery life collapses, but that’s normal even with a brand new device.

A one-year-old speaker from a reputable brand should easily last more than one year, even if you’re skeptical of my 13-year-old speaker (which depending on your experience may be understandable), one year is definitely too new. It is especially telling (and concerning) the fact that it’s dying without being used, there’s clearly some standby bleed going on, and all I can think of is some standby function. My 13-year-old speaker? I charged it three months ago and I grabbed it recently. I plugged it back in to test battery drain whilst off. The device stopped charging within five minutes, indicating that it had barely lost any battery life in three months while being off. My iOS devices lose more while turned off (even new ones!)

But I think that the key is volume level: at 100% no speaker new or otherwise will have good battery life.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

I am extremely skeptical of your speaker dying like that. Some questions: do you have a “Bluetooth standby” feature enabled? Do you turn it off fully when it’s not in use?

Do you play it at max volume? The newest speaker I bought got me 40 hours of playback at 30% volume, but dropped from 80% to 40% after two hours at full volume. Just like with iOS devices, when you push the device, battery life collapses, but that’s normal even with a brand new device.

A one-year-old speaker from a reputable brand should easily last more than one year, even if you’re skeptical of my 13-year-old speaker (which depending on your experience may be understandable), one year is definitely too new. It is especially telling (and concerning) the fact that it’s dying without being used, there’s clearly some standby bleed going on, and all I can think of is some standby function. My 13-year-old speaker? I charged it three months ago and I grabbed it recently. I plugged it back in to test battery drain whilst off. The device stopped charging within five minutes, indicating that it had barely lost any battery life in three months while being off. My iOS devices lose more while turned off (even new ones!)

But I think that the key is volume level: at 100% no speaker new or otherwise will have good battery life.

You will say literally anything other than batteries degrade, something that has been known for decades.
Sure, maybe iOS devices slow down, maybe they don’t, whatever.
But you can’t just ignore physics, or how batteries work.
Yes, my speaker from 15 years ago has a crappy battery, and the one I bought about a year ago isn’t lasting as long as it did on day one. This is normal, this is expected behavior from rechargeable battery powered devices.
Is there variation? Of course, and obviously a battery that lasts an insanely long time on day one is going to take years before it’s noticeably worse. But this idea that battery degradation doesn’t exist, an iPhone that is never updated on day one will have the same battery life 10 years later it’s just silly.
I have a big battery bank that was purchased in 2021, now it has a bloated battery and I refuse to use it.
I have a ring doorbell purchased in 2020, it used to get around three months on a full charge, now it’s more like a month and a half to two months. But it has also been sitting outside and direct sunlight during hot summers and in below zero temperatures during winters, constantly there. Of course there’s going to be degradations six years after the fact.

 

[glen-the-grey]

Unlike Scotty we can't change the laws of physics.

Rather than comparing a speaker to a phone which is a much more complex and capable device I would be more interested in a four-way comparison of battery life (although this might be more tricky to accomplish):

1. Old phone running old softare
2. Old phone running updated software
3. Old phone with new battery running old software
4. Old phone with new battery running updated software

That way you should be able to isolate if the battery is being impacted by its age or by the software that has been loaded on. You would have to make it a fair comparison though and I'm not sure how you could also isolate for other factors such as WiFi/mobile signal strength (i.e., power draw/loss through modem), GPS, environment, etc.,

It would be tricky but possible I'm sure if you had the time and inclination—might make for an interesting research article.

I suspect you will find that batteries degrade over time and you will also find that software gets more complex over time and is optimized for the latest released hardware—there is nothing wrong with Apple optimizing for their latest hardware, its a business and that is part of how they operate.

I'm just grateful I can keep using my old phone and it keeps getting updates so I don't have security holes in my life...and when the battery gets unusable I will probably replace the battery before I replace the phone.

 

[Non-Euclidean]

They did not “throttle old phones” - they limited power draw of degraded batteries to prevent unexpected shutdowns (something every laptop and phone manufacturer has been doing forever). Frankly, the entire thing is ridiculous and a big failure for Apples PR. It is also a great illustration how you can do a reasonable thing and still get blamed for all possible and impossible reasons.

True, but sometimes you have it coming for you, when you tell people "You are holding it wrong".

 

[Non-Euclidean]

About as likely that Elvis will be nominated for the next secretary general of the united nations, elected pope, disclose that he's an alien, and announce that the inspiration for all of his music was Perry Como.

Well of course, not all of them! Obviously being Pope and UN Secretary General cannot be done simultaneously!

 

[Non-Euclidean]

Malware is designed to actively damage the system. The new operating systems don’t do that.

What Apple is failing to do, however, is optimize the new systems for older devices. In other words, Apple’s inaction is causing the problems.

You might be familiar with this from graphics cards. NVIDIA releases updates almost weekly to adjust the graphics card’s performance and settings for a new game. It has happened before that a new update made a game run 30% faster or slower.

So no, a “developer” who claims Apple is developing malware to slow down old systems has no clue about IT or business management.

Oh, I think that list is significantly longer than IT and business management.

 

[FeliApple]

You will say literally anything other than batteries degrade, something that has been known for decades.
Sure, maybe iOS devices slow down, maybe they don’t, whatever.
But you can’t just ignore physics, or how batteries work.
Yes, my speaker from 15 years ago has a crappy battery, and the one I bought about a year ago isn’t lasting as long as it did on day one. This is normal, this is expected behavior from rechargeable battery powered devices.
Is there variation? Of course, and obviously a battery that lasts an insanely long time on day one is going to take years before it’s noticeably worse. But this idea that battery degradation doesn’t exist, an iPhone that is never updated on day one will have the same battery life 10 years later it’s just silly.
I have a big battery bank that was purchased in 2021, now it has a bloated battery and I refuse to use it.
I have a ring doorbell purchased in 2020, it used to get around three months on a full charge, now it’s more like a month and a half to two months. But it has also been sitting outside and direct sunlight during hot summers and in below zero temperatures during winters, constantly there. Of course there’s going to be degradations six years after the fact.

I am not Mr. Battery maker. I have no incentive to lie. Batteries degrading in such a massive way for a device not affected by software updates to end up having awful battery life has just never been my experience.

I’ve seen an updated iPhone 5 with a dead battery (NOT used by me) and a Windows laptop with a dead battery (also NOT used by me).

Every other battery-powered device (and every device used by me) has either maintained like-new battery life or dropped so little that it was irrelevant (my 9.7-inch iPad Pro dropped to 85% health within three years on iOS 9 and right before Apple forced it into iOS 12 it had lost exactly half an hour, from 14 hours to 13.5, or 3.5%, negligible).

As I said: perhaps if you absolutely push an old battery even with software efficiency (maximum brightness, cellular and camera use), or with software irrelevance (absolute maximum volume on a decade-old Bluetooth speaker), you might see a rather significant difference because it just cannot provide the power required, BUT… new devices’ battery already suffers when you push them to the maximum anyway, at worst it’s just a worse iteration of the already garbage battery life (my new Bluetooth speaker is rated for 24 hours at 44% volume. I got 40 hours at 30-40% volume. Sony rates it for 5 at full volume, and my tests agree, it kept dropping 20% per hour at full volume). If with a degraded battery I get 40 hours at 30% volume, 24 hours at 44% volume, and 3 hours - rather than 5 - at full volume… honestly I don’t really care (and probably wouldn’t notice).

But efficient battery use is NOT affected by battery degradation in my experience, to be absolutely honest, even if sounds unscientific.

As I said: there is a likelihood that if I push my 60% health iPhone 6s on iOS 10 with 15% battery left it will shut down. Or like I said, if I use my speaker at 100% volume when it’s 15 years old battery life will suffer vs when it was new. But that’s not how I use my devices. With my usage pattern: a phone used typically on the upper ranges of the battery, on its original iOS version, and with efficient settings and a speaker not at full volume and kept outside of the sun always and without fail, my devices will realistically be fine for as long as they’re relevant.

The only possible bump on the road? Apple forcing my devices out with their software updates and making any efficient use absolutely impossible because newer, garbage, inefficient iOS versions just need too much power.

 

[HouseLannister]

I don't get how anyone can argue that battery life does not get worse as battery health drops and performance does not get worse as battery health causes performance throttling. If you do not notice these changes, then there is no reason to not update because you won't notice that slowdown or loss of battery life either. Not trying to shatter the illusion, but if you are immune to performance loss and battery degradation, milk it for all its worth. It's great that some of us are oblivious to the gradual heat death of the universe as all things suffer the effects of entropy, but be universal in that belief and keep your phones updated...

 

[Sami13496]

I still use an iPhone XR. A model that’s about 8 years old. In my opinion, Apple devices last an unbelievably long time and remain genuinely usable even after many years.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

My NES can’t run Breath of the Wild well. Or at all. Did Nintendo install malware on my NES to slow it down?

 

[FeliApple]

I don't get how anyone can argue that battery life does not get worse as battery health drops and performance does not get worse as battery health causes performance throttling. If you do not notice these changes, then there is no reason to not update because you won't notice that slowdown or loss of battery life either. Not trying to shatter the illusion, but if you are immune to performance loss and battery degradation, milk it for all its worth. It's great that some of us are oblivious to the gradual heat death of the universe as all things suffer the effects of entropy, but be universal in that belief and keep your phones updated...

View attachment 2629141

But that’s the whole point: I can only maintain device quality BECAUSE I don’t update.

If I updated, performance and battery life would shatter (especially with low battery health) because the OS demands too much power.

 

[Marrk]

I have no evidence to add to this thread, only my suspicions.

I agree with much of what others have said regarding the idea that the newer software updates overwhelm the capabilities of the older hardware, and the effect is to degrade the function of the older phone. This makes sense. Is it "malicious" to offer an update that they know will do this? I don't know.

I just traded in my iPhone SE because several updates ago I lost the home button on the device, and I lost the ability to immediately and reliably "wake up" the phone. The phone became more unreliable than not. Why, oh why, did I do this update? The update forced me to buy a new device, an IPhone 17e.

I have a further suspicion, which I will present in the form of a question. Can Apple download changes to the OS on my MacBook Pro whenever I am connected to the Internet? As we speak, I'm being asked to update the OS software, and the longer that I wait, the more I experience new OS errors, like Alerts from OS Calendar no longer work.

 

[HouseLannister]

But that’s the whole point: I can only maintain device quality BECAUSE I don’t update.

And the counterpoint is that you haven't maintained any device quality. You are just not able to tell the difference. So why would an update automatically upgrade your ability to see the slowdown and notice the loss of battery life. It's catch-22. You can't prove your point until you do the update.

 

[FeliApple]

And the counterpoint is that you haven't maintained any device quality. You are just not able to tell the difference. So why would an update automatically upgrade your ability to see the slowdown and notice the loss of battery life. It's catch-22. You can't prove your point until you do the update.

What? No. I can maintain battery life when I don’t update and when I update I can’t. It’s that simple.

iPhone 6s on iOS 9, new, 100% health: 8 hours of SOT.
iPhone 6s on iOS 10, 10 years old, and 60% health: 8 hours of SOT

iPhone 6s on iOS 13, 3 years old, 94% health: 3-4 hours of SOT, same usage.

Very simple.

 

[HouseLannister]

iPhone 6s on iOS 9, new, 100% health: 8 hours of SOT.
iPhone 6s on iOS 10, 10 years old, and 60% health: 8 hours of SOT

You got those two devices right there? Run the Geekbench.
Or is this the same device and your perception of what your phone was like 10 years ago is flawed?

 

[FeliApple]

Run the Geekbench

Why? Why is geekbench relevant? With the same usage I can’t get four hours on an updated device with 94% health. Whatever a benchmark says is irrelevant (as it is pushing the device to the maximum, factor which I’ve discussed earlier and factor which doesn’t really matter in my daily use).

 

[leman]

True, but sometimes you have it coming for you, when you tell people "You are holding it wrong".

True. Apple is a huge company and should know better how to handle customer communication. Amateur hour won’t cut here.

 

[bluecoast]

A combination of new features and animation cycles that half kill the chips of older phones to render = seems like malware.

My 16e is not great on iOS 26.

My mother’s iPhone 13… Wow.

You can see each animation stage of the pop up menu on the bottom tool bar of safari.

The translucency is obviously too much for the processor to handle.

And that’s after I turned on ‘tinted’ on her phone.

If ever any needs proof that the translucency is an incredible waste of processing cycles and thus power.. Just experience iOS 26 on the iPhone 13.

God knows what 26 is like on the 12 and 11.

Btw she used to be very happy with iOS and iPadOS and now she’s unhappy with both.

Well done Apple.

 

[HouseLannister]

seems like malware.

Hanlon's razor

 

[FeliApple]

You got those two devices right there? Run the Geekbench.
Or is this the same device and your perception of what your phone was like 10 years ago is flawed?

Two different devices: one still runs iOS 10, the other one was forced by Apple out of iOS 9 into the malware that is iOS 13.