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Ask HN: is there any way to switch off the iOS “slowdown when old” code?

2 points by hoodoof 9y ago

Recent news says iOS slows down devices with old batteries - clearly to force hardware upgrades. Is there any way a user can turn this off?

mtmail 9y ago
[citation needed] Can you point to an analysis or news article that shows it's to force customers to upgrade?
- hoodoof 9y ago
  No it is my opinion but a reasonable conclusion to come to. --> Battery wear is a measure of device age, or a good proxy for that in most cases. --> Apple wants people to keep upgrading their hardware --> primary reason to upgrade is old, slow device --> Apple ensures devices get slow as they get older. If it was really Apple acting in the users interests, then it would be a user option, not a secret setting in the code.
  - matt_the_bass 9y ago
    I’ve heard people claim better device performance after resetting to factory settings. Maybe this is just a case of needing to clean out the crud and not downgrading based on battery?
  - mtmail 9y ago
    "Apple ensures devices get slow as they get older" Do you have a statistic for that or is that anecdotal? I'm perfectly happy with my 5 year old iphone. I notice the Facebook/Skype/Slack app get larger and larger over time. https://sensortower.com/blog/ios-app-size-growth https://sensortower.com/blog/ios-app-size-growth Primary reason to upgrade for me is lack of security updates, Apple stopped supporting the iphone 5 (any 32bit CPU device) for example.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
LarryMade2 9y ago
I think part of it is software upgrades, many of which are optimized for newer hardware, or not optimized for out of production hardware. So when new features are added/enhanced older systems may see a slowdown, another factor is newer hardware runs faster so some new updates may not care about optimizing as it runs fine on the newer system anyways. Have used Apple products for a while, they don't really like spending a lot of undue effort on stuff they don't sell anymore. Still running iOS 8 on an iPhone 5s, works great, I hear newer iOSs are not as efficient on this phone, so will stick with 8 on it.

2 points by hoodoof 9y ago

Recent news says iOS slows down devices with old batteries - clearly to force hardware upgrades. Is there any way a user can turn this off?

mtmail 9y ago

[citation needed] Can you point to an analysis or news article that shows it's to force customers to upgrade?

hoodoof 9y ago
No it is my opinion but a reasonable conclusion to come to. --> Battery wear is a measure of device age, or a good proxy for that in most cases. --> Apple wants people to keep upgrading their hardware --> primary reason to upgrade is old, slow device --> Apple ensures devices get slow as they get older. If it was really Apple acting in the users interests, then it would be a user option, not a secret setting in the code.
- matt_the_bass 9y ago
  I’ve heard people claim better device performance after resetting to factory settings. Maybe this is just a case of needing to clean out the crud and not downgrading based on battery?
- mtmail 9y ago
  "Apple ensures devices get slow as they get older" Do you have a statistic for that or is that anecdotal? I'm perfectly happy with my 5 year old iphone. I notice the Facebook/Skype/Slack app get larger and larger over time. https://sensortower.com/blog/ios-app-size-growth https://sensortower.com/blog/ios-app-size-growth Primary reason to upgrade for me is lack of security updates, Apple stopped supporting the iphone 5 (any 32bit CPU device) for example.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

LarryMade2 9y ago

I think part of it is software upgrades, many of which are optimized for newer hardware, or not optimized for out of production hardware. So when new features are added/enhanced older systems may see a slowdown, another factor is newer hardware runs faster so some new updates may not care about optimizing as it runs fine on the newer system anyways. Have used Apple products for a while, they don't really like spending a lot of undue effort on stuff they don't sell anymore. Still running iOS 8 on an iPhone 5s, works great, I hear newer iOSs are not as efficient on this phone, so will stick with 8 on it.