A Reddit post went viral a couple days ago, in which an iPhone 6s user reported that replacing his battery drastically increased the phone’s performance, with iOS 11.
The discussion lead to theories and speculation that Apple purposefully slows down older iPhones to “full day’s charge if the battery has degraded over time,” according to Mac Rumors.
According to the Reddit user TeckFire, their iPhone had been trudging through its function at a slow pace after its update to iOS 11, particularly compared to their brother’s iPhone 6 Plus, so their research led them to the idea that they should replace the battery.
Wear level was somewhere around 20% on my old battery. I did a Geekbench score, and found I was getting 1466 Single and 2512 Multi. This did not change wether I had low power mode on or off. After changing my battery, I did another test to check if it was just a placebo. Nope. 2526 Single and 4456 Multi. From what I can tell, Apple slows down phones when their battery gets too low, so you can still have a full days charge.” – Reddit user
This isn’t the first time Apple has been accused of purposefully slowing down old models of their iPhones. Although this accusation is less heavy, little explanation is offered to people whose iPhones behave strangely after the release of a new model each time.
This is a topic that requires firsthand experience: if you observe a phone suddenly become different, is it a coincidence?
(Image credit: Mac Rumors, Reddit)