There have been a number of rumors over the last few weeks that Apple were slowing down older iPhones that have degraded batteries. Apple has now confirmed that this is done, but has explained that it has been done to stop handsets shutting down.
Yesterday we saw some results from GeekBench which confirmed this and now Apple has now released an official statement. You can see the statement from Apple below.
“Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.
Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.”
Apple is basically saying that it slowing down these handsets in order to fix an issue with older degraded batteries which had caused the devices to shut down.
There have been rumors for some time that older devices are slowed down to encourage people to upgrade, At least we know now that this is not the case.
Source The Verge