UK Edition
Apple does slow down older iPhones - but not for the reason you think
Apple is often accused of deliberately slowing down older iPhones, with conspiracy theorists claiming it is a ruse to force customers to upgrade.
Now, it appears that the theory is true, at least in part. Apple admitted that it deliberately limits the performance of iPhones when a battery ages, to stop them shutting down without warning.
It added the "feature" to the iPhone 6, 6S and SE in 2016 in a software update last year and the iPhone 7 was updated earlier this month, with the release of iOS 11.2. New devices will have their processing power zapped in the future, Apple confirmed.
“Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices,” an Apple spokesman said.
Older iPhone batteries struggle to supply the required maximum current needed to power the phone processor at full speed, causing it to shut down unexpectedly, Apple confirmed. In some cases, customers reported powering off even when a phone had 40 per cent battery left.
By slowing the performance, the phone does not need the maximum current, and will no longer switch off without warning.
While smartphone battery capacity decreases as it ages, processing power is not meant to be affected in the same way.
The new feature was first confirmed on Wednesday by Geekbench, a tech watchdog and reviews site. It claimed that, on certain versions of iOS, phones with older batteries would achieve much lower performance scores.
"It appears the problem is widespread, and will only get worse as phones (and their batteries) continue to age," wrote Geekbench developer John Poole in a blogpost.
"I believe (as do others) that Apple introduced a change to limit performance when battery condition decreases past a certain point."
Mr Poole suggested that the problem could be rectified by replacing the battery.
"This fix will also cause users to think, 'my phone is slow so I should replace it' not, 'my phone is slow so I should replace its battery," he added.
In October, researchers found that the initial release of iOS 11 drained iPhone batteries more than twice as fast as the previous operating system iOS 10 did.