The complaints of users of older iPhone models with the new versions of iOS that are launched on the market are classic: animations slower than usual, unexpected reboots, applications that do not work as they should and, above all, a battery that does not last as long as before. When your iPhone turns three or more years old, you already know that the first problems usually start to appear and that, if you are very demanding, you may have to think about buying a new one.
Well, as we can read in a thread of Reddit These battery and performance issues may be interrelated and caused by Apple itself. Many users are stating how swapping the battery in your older devices for a new battery makes them noticeably better performance even objectifying it in benchmarks carried out. Is Apple slowing down iPhones with battery problems?
The average battery life of the iPhone is among the lowest of all Apple devices, only ahead of the iPod. The iPhone battery is designed to maintain 80% of its original capacity after 500 charge cycles (iPod only 400 cycles). The iPad, Apple Watch or MacBook are designed to maintain 80% after 1000 charge cycles, twice that of the iPhone. If we take into account that the iPhone usually has to be fully recharged every day, after two years the battery will already have a reduced capacity that will make us start to need to change it. This will not happen with the iPad or MacBook until after three years, if we recharge them daily, which is not usual in these devices with greater autonomy.
What happens after those two years? The iPhone battery begins to last less, we notice that it no longer lasts as long as it should and that what used to be a recharge a day is now two, or even three, with the same use as always. We blame the new versions of iOS, but although this may be an influencing factor, the reality is that the battery is already in poor condition.
What is discussed in the Reddit thread is that Apple, aware of this failure, intentionally slows down the iPhone so that the battery lasts longer, subtracting power from the processor so that consumption is more content. Many users have reached this conclusion after checking performance test scores before and after replacing the battery with a new one. Obviously Apple is silent on this issue, but it would not be unreasonable to do so. Is your iPhone slow? Perhaps a new battery is the solution.
It is curious, because in the beginning it should not influence in the beginning but anything can happen.
If they lower the performance of the processor so that the battery can last longer, yes. But I think it's basically the hardware, mainly the Ram, that makes it hard for software updates. Anyway, my iPhone 6 with iOS 11.2 is doing quite well for what I expected when I bought it in 2014.