Apple does slow down your iPhone as the batteries wear out, new study claims

IT TURNS out one of the most common complaints of iPhone owners could actually be the result of something orchestrated by the company, a new study has found.

APPLE updates slow down ageing iPhones by cutting performance power to save the batteries, researchers have claimed.

Scientists at tech firm Primate Labs analysed performance data from thousands of the devices and discovered speeding up a slow iPhone could be as simple as getting a new battery — if you’re willing to give Apple $A119 for the privilege.

Primate Labs founder John Poole said deliberately slowing the processors can have the effect of hiding a dying battery, while also encouraging users to upgrade, reports The Sun.

“Users may believe that the slow down is due to CPU performance, instead of battery performance,,” he told Geekbench.

“[This will cause] users to think, ‘my phone is slow so I should replace it’ not, ‘my phone is slow so I should replace its battery’.”

Anyone else’s iPhone gone mega slow after updating to iOS 11+? I’m talking 5 seconds to react to things

— Sarah Harradine (@squatbot_) December 9, 2017

iPhone is super slow with the latest iOS update. 😒 Apps are crashing too! Why, Apple, why? 🤨

— Dipali Dey (@Dipali_Dey) December 17, 2017

Cringe when I see how slow an iPhone 5/6 loads up from lock screen

— drew (@drewnotfit) December 19, 2017

ever since ios 10 and 11 came out my iphone so mf slow 😒🙄

— P A R K E R 👀 (@issaparkerr) December 18, 2017

@apple has to stop sabotaging its customers w/ these time bomb iOS updates. I know hundred of iphone users complaining about how slow their older versions are now after the latest updates. My 7plus is way slower than when I had the iOS 10.
Switching to android now! Lame

— Luigi Mondelli BJJ (@luigimondelli) December 9, 2017

The huge analysis revealed that iPhone 6S performance took four massive nosedives after each update that followed iOS 10.2.1.

“The distribution of iPhone 6S scores for iOS 10.2.0 appears unimodal with a peak around the average score,” he said.

“However, the distribution of iPhone 6S scores for iOS 10.2.1 appears multimodal, with one large peak around the average and several smaller peaks around lower scores. Under iOS 11.2.0 the effect is even more pronounced.”

Researchers believe the device is designed to encourage iPhone processors to slow down if they detect battery degradation, meaning customers would need to upgrade or pay Apple for a new battery to get their device back to standard.

Batteries naturally degrade over time, with the iPhone designed to last for just 500 charge cycles.

Apple is yet to release a statement on the issue.

This story first appeared on The Sun and has been republished with permission.

Originally published as Apple does slow down your iPhone as the batteries wear out, new study claims