The elephant in the room is why Android manufacturers don’t need to do this. I have a collection of both iOS and Android devices, weighted a bit more to the iOS side, but I have several Android devices which are quite old (3+ years), which have never been throttled, and bench the same as they always have ... perhaps with a couple of percentage point differences due to software installations, aging storage, etc.
Every one of these devices use Lithium Ion batteries.
For that matter, so do laptop computers, tablet computers, and an array of other consumer electronic devices.
That iPhones and iPhones alone uniquely need to be throttled to such a dramatic degree is something that makes little sense. Unless the battery technology in use is somehow inferior.
I remember years back having an iMac upgraded with “Apple Memory” from Apple, only to open it up and discover that they were cheap Hynix memory modules. This is a company that screams about its processors from the top of the highest mountain, number of cores, clock speed, etc, as well as storage space, but when it comes to the amount of RAM in a device, suddenly declares “Specs don’t matter!”
That Mac devotees have to suspend disbelief in order to remain in the tribe is more or less a foregone conclusion, and despite the endless stream of alternative justifications for their behavior, this is most likely what we are witnessing here.
And while Apple may get away with it, each time they do, they burn ever so slightly more goodwill in the process. Even in religion, there is often a point where even the most evangelized eventually go “oh come on, this is too much”!
There have been a few studies (of varying quality) performed on the Apple faithful, and their results are interesting. It’s perhaps that most obvious example of consumerist brainwashing we’ve seen, at least in the last 50 years, with perhaps the most fascinating aspect being that the strongest believers are absolutely, positively convinced that they are anything other than brainwashed. This is probably a common trait among all religions, though. I’ve known some extremely religious people, yet not one of them were anything other than hostile to the notion that they were brainwashed.
I once read on these very forms a user that said “Apple asks me not to care how much RAM is in my device, and I honor their request!”
When confronted with things like this, what can you say? It’s like arguing Christianity with a Christian. Nlobody’s mind is ever changed.
It is almost unfathamoable that group of people have accepted Apple’s iPhone-slowing explanation. Then again, if Apple said they slowed the phones to save Sperm Whales by mitigating energy usage, they’d believe that too, and even champion it as yet more evidence of the benevolence of Apple.
In the end, though, it’s the religious faithful that hold computing back.
If people refused to accept this nonesense, we’d have better devices today, and we know they are possible. The iPad Pro would probably have 10GB of RAM, iPhones would have a stylus option, and it’s doubtful that anyone’s phone would be slowed.
Alas, the religious faithful keep standards lower for everyone, as Apple has a certain number of guaranteed sales regardless of what they release. I mean, why blow your entire technological wad in one release when the people will wet themselves over the fact that new phones now come in black. BLACK! Ohhhh, I love love love love love black! I gots to get me one of those!
Specs, though? Eh, don’t matter.
In the end, the 10% gets what the 90% will accept. They are right when they say “most people only care about” ... but with major companies constantly leaving out the wants of the creative class and the technological elite, in favor of the average people, a certain dumbing-down of technological potential is sure to follow, and IMHO, we’ve seen this trend accelerate in recent years.
Apple throttles phones to sell more phones. And grass is green and the sky is blue.
That this statement is even controversial, with some even steadfastly denying it, is something that psychologists and sociologists will study for years to come.
