I just found out that Apple has been accused of slowing down older phones to encourage people to buy new ones. This got me wondering, are there phone manufacturers that don't engage in this practice? What about Android devices—are they also guilty of throttling performance?
2 Answers
It's important to know that Apple’s intention with slowing down devices is to prevent unexpected shutdowns caused by failing batteries. Users who have older devices won’t necessarily experience major slowdowns unless the battery is in bad shape. Still, some argue they should have communicated better about battery health.
Actually, Apple doesn't just slow down phones randomly. They throttle the CPU on devices when the battery starts to degrade, which is meant to prolong the phone’s usability rather than force an upgrade. So, it’s not exactly as bad as it sounds.
That makes sense, but do you think they design their batteries to degrade faster than competitors like Samsung? I've had my Samsung phone longer, and it seems to hold a charge better than my iPhones did.