Apple slowing down old iphones???

[Paul May]

I just read an interesting story over at technobuffalo.com that reports a Harvard student who found a correlation between the release of new iPhone devices and the increase in people searching for solutions to slow iPhones.

Is Apple Slowing Down Old iPhones on Purpose? | TechnoBuffalo

Do you think this is possible? And do you think that any other major companies purposely slow down their products to help sell new ones?

 

[StephanW]

On purpose? Possible!

I would like to look differently and say the new updates are optimized for latest Apple A6 and A7 CPU's inside and therefor less for the older products. Does this mean it's deliberately slowing down older iPhone models? Yes, you can read this in the sentence but I don't really think that's the case here.

The study is relatively simple. Trucco searched for when people searched most for “iPhone slow.” Her results show major spikes for that search term right around the time of the iPhone launch each year, according to Daily Mail. That might show that Apple somehow plans to make its products obsolete right when new ones launch, though we think there are also other explanations for why this happens.

Seriously Laura? Apple is the king when it comes to bringing new updates to the people. Everyone wants iOS 8 today instead of tomorrow. This means everyone will update even if it's not really handy to do is. My old 4S wasn't brilliant on iOS 7 so I used Google to speed up my iPhone. The search string "Speed up iPhone iOS7" could tell you that older iPhone became slow.

Still, Trucco shows that the same conundrum doesn’t occur for new Galaxy devices

Galaxy phones? Tabs? Tab + Note? Note+ Note Mini? What you mean KitKat 4? 4.4? 4.4.4? Sorry, you've lost me.

 

[Paul May]

On purpose? Possible!

I would like to look differently and say the new updates are optimized for latest Apple A6 and A7 CPU's inside and therefor less for the older products. Does this mean it's deliberately slowing down older iPhone models? Yes, you can read this in the sentence but I don't really think that's the case here.

I didn't read it to mean that the new OS updates that are on the new phones were slowing down the old phones. The way I understood the article, the spike in searches comes before the release of the updated OS and iPhone.

 

[jmshub]

I don't think Apple is intentionally slowing down older phones, but they definitely have a history of being ambivalent at best about backwards compatibility. I think they design each version of iOS with their newest hardware in mind. If the software slows down the older phones, then so be it. That will only incentivise these users to update their hardware.

 

[dgr_874]

I don't think Apple is intentionally slowing down older phones, but they definitely have a history of being ambivalent at best about backwards compatibility. I think they design each version of iOS with their newest hardware in mind. If the software slows down the older phones, then so be it. That will only incentivise these users to update their hardware.

Really? IOS 7 runs on hardware that is 4 years old at this point (iPhone 4). Try running any of these other OS's on hardware 4 years old and see how far you get.

Admittedly, IOS 7 on an iPhone 4 isn't great, but that's more the fault of the hardware vs the software. Some new software features will not work or wont work great so Apple decides to leave it out.

 

[xandros9]

Interesting data. My first instinct is to think its a sort of psychological thing brought on by the new iPhone's so-many-times speed increases advertised. but that would require the user knew about the announcement.
Perhaps someone should watch their iOS device's performance quantitatively every week or two.

I can't wait to see developments.

 

[ohgood]

Really? IOS 7 runs on hardware that is 4 years old at this point (iPhone 4). Try running any of these other OS's on hardware 4 years old and see how far you get.

Admittedly, IOS 7 on an iPhone 4 isn't great, but that's more the fault of the hardware vs the software. Some new software features will not work or wont work great so Apple decides to leave it out.

I run android 4.4.x on a four year old HTC g2, it works fine aside from the time it's slower CPU needs to crunch data on boot and when opening huge vector maps.

 

[dgr_874]

I run android 4.4.x on a four year old HTC g2, it works fine aside from the time it's slower CPU needs to crunch data on boot and when opening huge vector maps.

And is that officially supported from google like ios 7 on an iPhone 4? I think not.

 

[LTTG]

This is how marketing works these days...

 

[ohgood]

And is that officially supported from google like ios 7 on an iPhone 4? I think not.

i have no idea what is officially supported. you asked for what was possible, i provided personal experience of what is. maybe if your questions were more specific in the future.

 

[dgr_874]

i have no idea what is officially supported. you asked for what was possible, i provided personal experience of what is. maybe if your questions were more specific in the future.

And what did you have to do to do that? I'm sure it wasn't as simple as pressing the upgrade button on the iPhone. But hey, you are awesome with spinning my words to suit your witty comeback, so you win 100 internets. Enjoy.

The allegation was that Apple was purposely slowing down older phones prior to an upgrade cycle in order to force users to upgrade to the newer software. I find this so absurd that I had to comment. But believe what you want.

 

[ohgood]

And what did you have to do to do that? I'm sure it wasn't as simple as pressing the upgrade button on the iPhone. But hey, you are awesome with spinning my words to suit your witty comeback, so you win 100 internets. Enjoy.

The allegation was that Apple was purposely slowing down older phones prior to an upgrade cycle in order to force users to upgrade to the newer software. I find this so absurd that I had to comment. But believe what you want.

no spin at all, read your own question, up there, where I quoted it.

I'll answer this latest question now. what I had to do was download two zip files ( I'm working from memory so this might be off a little) , flash a recovery, then the new operating system.

 

[Paul May]

I don't think Apple is intentionally slowing down older phones, but they definitely have a history of being ambivalent at best about backwards compatibility. I think they design each version of iOS with their newest hardware in mind. If the software slows down the older phones, then so be it. That will only incentivise these users to update their hardware.

I believe the article refers to the increase in slow down searches before the new update is released. What you say makes sense that newer software is not optimized for older hardware, but the way I understood the article there was slowdowns on the older hardware just before the new stuff was released.

 

[StephanW]

I believe the article refers to the increase in slow down searches before the new update is released. What you say makes sense that newer software is not optimized for older hardware, but the way I understood the article there was slowdowns on the older hardware just before the new stuff was released.

How will Apple slowing down specified devices before the OS update?

 

[Paul May]

How will Apple slowing down specified devices before the OS update?

Good question, that's kind of what I was purposing in the original post. Maybe there is a time trigger to bog down phones? Maybe it's just peoples imaginations, but if you look at the graph the spikes are clearly happening right before the release of a new product. I just find this interesting and was hoping somebody had some insight as to why.

 

[Muessig]

I think this is all part of planned obsolescence.

 

[a5cent]

Highly unlikely. We know Apple purposefully omits features that could easily run on older hardware, but I don't think devices are purposefully slowed down. If that were true we would definitely already know for sure. It's too easy to prove. I've never seen an iPhone slow down in such a way myself either.

I'm with those who think this is psychology at work, not technology. Maybe also just people looking for a reason to justify upgrading, rather than actually having the problem themselves.

 

[D M C]

Is this windows forum?

Don't you think you should post this thread on iMore forum

We are MS fans and most of us jealous or hate Android and Apple.
I don't think you will get honest opinion because most of us do not own Apple products

 

[BatteryLife]

Is this windows forum?

Don't you think you should post this thread on iMore forum

We are MS fans and most of us jealous or hate Android and Apple.
I don't think you will get honest opinion because most of us do not own Apple products

That's why this is in the Off-Topic Forums... Furthermore, the type of mentality of people (forumers) on each of the Mobile Nations sites are different. Some may enjoy the mindset of some more than the others.

Oh ya, to answer your question, No, this isn't windows forum, this is more towards Windows Phone forums, there's a difference. And I think its more appropriate to say "some of us" instead of "most of us".

 

[D M C]

That's why this is in the Off-Topic Forums... Furthermore, the type of mentality of people (forumers) on each of the Mobile Nations sites are different. Some may enjoy the mindset of some more than the others.

Oh ya, to answer your question, No, this isn't windows forum, this is more towards Windows Phone forums, there's a difference. And I think its more appropriate to say "some of us" instead of "most of us".

I know tthe difference between windows and windows phone.
But I am clear enough what I want to say.
And
I am using wp more than 1 year and during that time I find most of them are hater's.
I accept that wp users don't hate Apple as they hate Google.
But that doesn't change facts

Even in this WPC can you calculate how many threads are on Android and tell me a single thread which isn't show hatred towards Google and Android.
Some of user may not be hater but most are.