Apple Responds To Claims They Slow Down iPhones With Older Batteries

Recently benchmarks have confirmed, or at least lent more credence to the idea that Apple is slowing down older iPhones, and in a statement provided to TechCrunch from Apple, it seems that the Cupertino company has more or less confirmed that this is true, although it’s not necessarily for the nefarious, money-grabbing reasons some might think.

“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.”

For those hearing about this for the first time, earlier this month a post on Reddit revealed a possible theory as to why older iPhones might feel like they’re getting slower. It was discovered that this is due to aging batteries, which Apple then released a software update that “smoothed it out”, resulting in phones “underperforming”.

It was theorized that if you were to swap out the old battery on your iPhone for a new one, your problems could be solved, or at least have the experience improved upon. The statement provided to TechCrunch seems to affirm that theory, but like we said, this doesn’t seem to have been done out of ill-intentions.

That being said, Primate Labs’ John Poole thinks that maybe Apple could have approached it a different way instead of having to wait until this point. According to Poole, “I think users who experience significant slowdowns due to battery wear would want Apple to be more transparent about this issue. A notification stating that the battery needs service would be a simple way to reduce users’ concerns and help them address this problem.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Cellphones
Tags: iPhone