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Another way to look at this is Apple isn't putting in the right sized batteries in their phones because they believe thinner phone is a better phone. If all it

Another way to look at this is Apple isn't putting in the right sized batteries in their phones because they believe thinner phone is a better phone. If all it takes is one year for the phone battery to stop providing enough juice to the CPU/GPU then either the battery is not of adequately designed capacity or the CPU/GPU has too much peak power draw for the battery. Either way looks like a design issue that's just too convenient for Apple to keep selling new phones each year. If they put slightly thicker battery with adequate spare capacity or reduced peak power draw for their SoC people can get 2+ years of consistent performance out of their device. Instead Apple is designing to provide one year of peak performance followed by slow downs so you can go out and get the new phone next year - sounds not very user friendly to me no matter if it looks intentional or not.

roc 9y ago
Who in the world would run right out and buy a new iPhone if their last one became unusable in one year? People switch to the iPhone because of their longer usable life compared to the competition. People pay more for old iPhones compared to the competition because of their longer usable life. Not only is it not in Apple's interest to make self-destructing phones, to even accuse them of that requires ignoring the entire history of iPhone adoption and resale value. Further, there is no "one year" for batteries. Batteries with more charge cycles degrade faster. Batteries that push peak performance more often degrade faster. Batteries that spend time in extreme heat and cold degrade faster. Because of this, a simple anecdote of "throttling after a year" means even less than usual. No-one has data on how much throttling is going on, but Apple. The best proxy we have is the aggregate purchasing decisions of people who had iPhones, and the prices of used iPhones. And people with iPhones overwhelmingly keep buying iPhones. And the prices of used iPhones aren't going anywhere. This "Apple makes self-destructing phones" theory needs a rest.
- leerob 9y ago
  > Who in the world would run right out and buy a new iPhone if their last one became unusable in one year? A lot of people? I'm sure there are tons of people who do this where cost isn't an issue.
  - roc 9y ago
    Let's assume some measurable number of people might do this, purely for arguments sake. Why does the resale value of old iPhones not reflect these devices being "unusable?"
    - blinkingled 9y ago
      You keep saying unusable - nobody said throttling makes it unusable, just slower than a year ago when you bought it. Value of iPhones is irrespective of the Apple admitted fact that they do in fact throttle older phones. Some one year later and some two but it is a known fact that it happens. What it has to do with resale values is a separate thing that would be interesting to debate if Apple had not verified the throttling part.

roc 9y ago

Who in the world would run right out and buy a new iPhone if their last one became unusable in one year? People switch to the iPhone because of their longer usable life compared to the competition. People pay more for old iPhones compared to the competition because of their longer usable life. Not only is it not in Apple's interest to make self-destructing phones, to even accuse them of that requires ignoring the entire history of iPhone adoption and resale value. Further, there is no "one year" for batteries. Batteries with more charge cycles degrade faster. Batteries that push peak performance more often degrade faster. Batteries that spend time in extreme heat and cold degrade faster. Because of this, a simple anecdote of "throttling after a year" means even less than usual. No-one has data on how much throttling is going on, but Apple. The best proxy we have is the aggregate purchasing decisions of people who had iPhones, and the prices of used iPhones. And people with iPhones overwhelmingly keep buying iPhones. And the prices of used iPhones aren't going anywhere. This "Apple makes self-destructing phones" theory needs a rest.

leerob 9y ago
> Who in the world would run right out and buy a new iPhone if their last one became unusable in one year? A lot of people? I'm sure there are tons of people who do this where cost isn't an issue.
- roc 9y ago
  Let's assume some measurable number of people might do this, purely for arguments sake. Why does the resale value of old iPhones not reflect these devices being "unusable?"
  - blinkingled 9y ago
    You keep saying unusable - nobody said throttling makes it unusable, just slower than a year ago when you bought it. Value of iPhones is irrespective of the Apple admitted fact that they do in fact throttle older phones. Some one year later and some two but it is a known fact that it happens. What it has to do with resale values is a separate thing that would be interesting to debate if Apple had not verified the throttling part.