Were they hired by Apple to deal with this growing PR problem?
Benchmarks are well known not to translate to real-world usage. The biggest complaints are with GUI, restart, and app load slowdowns, not CPU or GPU functionality. No testing done on those facets, right?
The most vocal complaints overall are with the "just upgraded" times after a new iOS comes out. Every apologist tells us why we should mock complainers as ignorant fools, and Apple rest on their laurels with that as the community solution, rather than actually addressing that issue themselves once and for all.
It isn't even a question: Apple want you to keep buying the same hardware products every year. Now that they have phones and iPads, they can push an even faster upgrade cycle than with Macs. They are a hardware company using minimal software development to lure new buyers, who eventually may discover that the development of that software only supports selling the bullet point new features of each iOS, which sells iPhones (not continued maturation of the software product). In fact, their iOS developments have actually harmed their prior quality software development, like iWork (being back-ported from iOS to Mac OS, trashing hundreds of features and installing a clumsy GUI).
Yes, there is a push to upgrade to a new phone. Yes, the OS is the push. No, Apple don't optimize iOS for any device but the newest. Yes, planned obsolescence is a real thing. The computer industry has made it so much more blatant than any other industry and has accelerated the same in every industry that sells computerized product: Push product out prematurely, ignore the software bugs, push out the successor ASAP, and abandon the predecessor.
What uninformed bullshit. Apple certainly does optimize on devices older than the latest. This is why it is unarguable fact that iOS devices have the longest useful lifespans of the industry with the longest support. Unlike Androids where even flagships are abandonware immediately after launch. If you have facts to the contrary, please share them.
But, as with all computing platforms, as the software increases in capability so must the hardware requirements. It is unrealistic and quite foolish to expect old computing devices to run new platforms with identical performance as new hardware with increased capability. How anyone can believe that it's instead an evil corporation twirling their waxed mustaches trying to screw you is a mystery. I'm guessing you don't work with computing technology very much.
Anyway the real proof is the resale market -- unlike your conspiracy theory, people actually understand this and are willing to pay premium prices for used devices, unlike the knockoffs.
The point is I don't want to run NEW features.
I just want the same features I had when I first bought the phone.
Bottom line is an iPhone gets slower after each major iOS release. That is a FACT.
Then just disable the NEW features. Apple does not force you to use them. If you don't want to use iCloud Backup then turn it off. Turn off iCloud Photo Library, turn off Apple Music, turn off background app refresh, turn off transparency and animated wallpapers. If Safari displays white screen for 1-2 seconds then your connection is shitty, it cannot load the last page you were in. I have also an iPhone 5s that works perfectly under iOS 11.0.2 with all iCloud and transparency features on, it has smaller memory, smaller storage and smaller battery than your 6 Plus.
iPhone may get slower after each major iOS release but this is temporary and is due to the necessary optimizations and housekeeping work for the new system. That doesn't last more than two days.
Bottom line is an iPhone gets slower after each major iOS release. That is a FACT.
It does no such thing. The phone's hardware is identical and not throttled in any way.
Does the software put additional load on the older hardware? Sure. But, that doesn't mean the phone is slower. It moves the bits from register to register just as fast as it always has.
And, for the record, my SE loads apps at the same speed that it did on iOS 11.
Mike, you're splitting hairs. When sog35 says "the iPhone gets slower after each major iOS release" he is saying the same hardware, running at the same speed, is having to do more because the OS is larger, more complicated, and running more software. He is NOT saying the hardware is running slower. As an engineer, I don't even how how you would make it DO that.
The point is that Apple used to trim down releases on older hardware-- remember when transparency was a thing? Well, you didn't get that on older hardware because the GPU didn't have the shaders involved to make it fast-- so it was locked out. Same with many of the animation features that were too much for the CPU on older hardware.
Apple doesn't appear to do that anymore-- so the latest OS release for a particular piece of hardware *barely* works, rather than being a useful upgrade.
That, combined with the inability to run older OSes (see my previous comment) means that, yes, after a while, old hardware gets to a point where it is crippled by its own OS and has become virtually useless.
Okay, look, here's the reality. The public perception is that Apple has somehow crippled the hardware with an OS update, forcing users to buy new phones.
No, that is not the public perception. It is the perception of the wannabe tech crowd that loiters in comment sections making wild, unfounded, unconfirmed, irrational claims.
People may not believe that Apple intentionally slows down their iPhone or iPad but I can tell you from first-hand experience older devices do feel slower. I was using my mother’s iPad mini 2 (which is running the latest software available for it) the other weekend and there was a lot of UI lag. People aren’t imagining this.
Turn off transparency along with animated wallpapers the iPad Mini 2 will regain its performance under 11.0.2. Yet we're able to run the new dock, slide-over and many other UI enhancements brought by iOS 11. These are better to run slowly than not running at all. We're still running iOS 11 on A7 a four-generations old CPU, what else would've imagine?
Bottom line is an iPhone gets slower after each major iOS release. That is a FACT.
It does no such thing. The phone's hardware is identical and not throttled in any way.
Does the software put additional load on the older hardware? Sure. But, that doesn't mean the phone is slower. It moves the bits from register to register just as fast as it always has.
And, for the record, my SE loads apps at the same speed that it did on iOS 11.
Mike, you're splitting hairs. When sog35 says "the iPhone gets slower after each major iOS release" he is saying the same hardware, running at the same speed, is having to do more because the OS is larger, more complicated, and running more software. He is NOT saying the hardware is running slower. As an engineer, I don't even how how you would make it DO that.
The point is that Apple used to trim down releases on older hardware-- remember when transparency was a thing? Well, you didn't get that on older hardware because the GPU didn't have the shaders involved to make it fast-- so it was locked out. Same with many of the animation features that were too much for the CPU on older hardware.
Apple doesn't appear to do that anymore-- so the latest OS release for a particular piece of hardware *barely* works, rather than being a useful upgrade.
That, combined with the inability to run older OSes (see my previous comment) means that, yes, after a while, old hardware gets to a point where it is crippled by its own OS and has become virtually useless.
It is an important hair to split. Here's part of the problem: as forum regulars, we assume that we're addressing every article to you, at you, the regular AI reader, the engineers, the long-time users, et cetera. We should all be able to troubleshoot, identify problems, and identify root causes. It should be second nature to us that the hardware is the same, and not getting throttled.
We should also know that "we" are in the vast minority of the subset of Apple users.
Have you looked at social media lately? There are a large contingent of people that say that their phone is literally running slower because of iOS 11, and that there is some vast conspiracy from Cupertino to cripple the hardware and make the CPU run slower, and a host of other maladies to try and force purchases.
Regardless of how many of you get irritated because this article is about raw statistics, and split hairs, if one person that is not a regular finds it and says "oh, okay! I get it now!" then mission accomplished.
"Bottom line is an iPhone gets slower after each major iOS release. That is a FACT" -- is a false statement. It is not accurate, and feeds the fears of social media. Like I said in the response, the registers are read and filled at the same speed.
I have said at least twice in this thread that newer software running on older hardware induces more load. What else I have said, is that the hardware is the same. It is literally no slower than it was the day it was bought -- and that is the crux of the matter.
Okay, look, here's the reality. The public perception is that Apple has somehow crippled the hardware with an OS update, forcing users to buy new phones.
No, that is not the public perception. It is the perception of the wannabe tech crowd that loiters in comment sections making wild, unfounded, unconfirmed, irrational claims.
People aren’t imagining this.
People may not believe that Apple intentionally slows down their iPhone or iPad
Of course it is slow, when a 3 -4 year old devices gets an update that runs smoothly on the current year model. I mean, come on... Common sense? Ah, forgetaboutit.
And you are wrong, people do say that Apple INTENTIONALLY slows down devices, to sell more of the new models. The reason for them saying that is because there are people who keep spreading and supporting that rumor, that obviously is not true. Since the majority of people are not really smart, they just assume that whatever they heard about so many times MUST BE TRUE, otherwise that rumor would not have persisted.
Okay, look, here's the reality. The public perception is that Apple has somehow crippled the hardware with an OS update, forcing users to buy new phones.
Guess what. Newer software means heavier software demands. The phones are literally the same speed as the day they were bought and these metrics are the proof. The difference is the load placed on them by the software.
There is no plot or conspiracy. There is no shadowy cabal demanding that code get bloated to force users to buy a new phone. There is no Cook and Ive plot to turn down the processor and GPU speed. That's insane to even speculate, but yet, here we are. Planned obsolescence as a conspiracy to force hardware sales isn't a thing.
Do you want your phone to be the same as the day you took it out of the box? Never update your software. Problem solved.
Well, just web sites are increasingly becoming small apps of a few MB to tens of MB, this kind of performance creep also happens across all apps as programmer gets new capabilities and the bulk of their potential clients upgrade (unlike in Android were because of fragmentation and the fact people can't upgrade, apps must cover devices that are much less capable).
When a new phones comes out, the apps on it were optimized to work well on a phone 1 years old that was much slower in CPU/GPU/memory/network and storage. By the time it is 3 years old, the apps that it uses will be optimized for a phone 2 year newer that it is and will thus use A LOT more processing and battery.
That was especially notable between phones like the 3G and say the 4s were there was a world of difference in performance,
or the 5s and 4 or 4s were again the difference was very important.
Programmers can't use those capacities before they come on line. When they do, phones are more taxed and battery and performance diminishes.
Were they hired by Apple to deal with this growing PR problem?
Benchmarks are well known not to translate to real-world usage. The biggest complaints are with GUI, restart, and app load slowdowns, not CPU or GPU functionality. No testing done on those facets, right?
The most vocal complaints overall are with the "just upgraded" times after a new iOS comes out. Every apologist tells us why we should mock complainers as ignorant fools, and Apple rest on their laurels with that as the community solution, rather than actually addressing that issue themselves once and for all.
It isn't even a question: Apple want you to keep buying the same hardware products every year. Now that they have phones and iPads, they can push an even faster upgrade cycle than with Macs. They are a hardware company using minimal software development to lure new buyers, who eventually may discover that the development of that software only supports selling the bullet point new features of each iOS, which sells iPhones (not continued maturation of the software product). In fact, their iOS developments have actually harmed their prior quality software development, like iWork (being back-ported from iOS to Mac OS, trashing hundreds of features and installing a clumsy GUI).
Yes, there is a push to upgrade to a new phone. Yes, the OS is the push. No, Apple don't optimize iOS for any device but the newest. Yes, planned obsolescence is a real thing. The computer industry has made it so much more blatant than any other industry and has accelerated the same in every industry that sells computerized product: Push product out prematurely, ignore the software bugs, push out the successor ASAP, and abandon the predecessor.
What uninformed bullshit. Apple certainly does optimize on devices older than the latest. This is why it is unarguable fact that iOS devices have the longest useful lifespans of the industry with the longest support. Unlike Androids where even flagships are abandonware immediately after launch. If you have facts to the contrary, please share them.
But, as with all computing platforms, as the software increases in capability so must the hardware requirements. It is unrealistic and quite foolish to expect old computing devices to run new platforms with identical performance as new hardware with increased capability. How anyone can believe that it's instead an evil corporation twirling their waxed mustaches trying to screw you is a mystery. I'm guessing you don't work with computing technology very much.
Anyway the real proof is the resale market -- unlike your conspiracy theory, people actually understand this and are willing to pay premium prices for used devices, unlike the knockoffs.
The point is I don't want to run NEW features.
I just want the same features I had when I first bought the phone.
Bottom line is an iPhone gets slower after each major iOS release. That is a FACT.
You don't get to upgrade an OS platform version and selectively exclude old code from new. That isn't how software works. The major point release of an OS has tons of stuff in it that are consider not backwards compatible. That's why it's a major version number point release.
What you are asking for is akin to asking for cheeseburgers flying out of the screen. Nice idea, but it just doesn't work that way.
Okay, look, here's the reality. The public perception is that Apple has somehow crippled the hardware with an OS update, forcing users to buy new phones.
Guess what. Newer software means heavier software demands. The phones are literally the same speed as the day they were bought and these metrics are the proof. The difference is the load placed on them by the software.
There is no plot or conspiracy. There is no shadowy cabal demanding that code get bloated to force users to buy a new phone. There is no Cook and Ive plot to turn down the processor and GPU speed. That's insane to even speculate, but yet, here we are. Planned obsolescence as a conspiracy to force hardware sales isn't a thing.
Do you want your phone to be the same as the day you took it out of the box? Never update your software. Problem solved.
Mike, were there a significant number of folks saying Apple was doing something nefarious to purposefully modify users phones to slow them down? I've not ever come across that claim myself but maybe it was a "thing"? All I recall reading is that some number of users feel new OS updates aren't optimized for their older phones even if they are "compatible", resulting in poorer performance.
Yes it's a thing. I've had normals claim Apple does exactly this. And even that early paranoid poster on this thread claims Apple purposely fails to optimize iOS for previous iterations of the hardware to specifically annoy people with its slowness to compel them to buy newer versions.
Okay, look, here's the reality. The public perception is that Apple has somehow crippled the hardware with an OS update, forcing users to buy new phones.
No, that is not the public perception. It is the perception of the wannabe tech crowd that loiters in comment sections making wild, unfounded, unconfirmed, irrational claims.
People may not believe that Apple intentionally slows down their iPhone or iPad but I can tell you from first-hand experience older devices do feel slower. I was using my mother’s iPad mini 2 (which is running the latest software available for it) the other weekend and there was a lot of UI lag. People aren’t imagining this.
Yes because that's older hardware, running newer software. As has been explained very clearly -- new point releases of an OS version are more capable and do more stuff, requiring more processing power. The hardware hasn't changed from its incept date and of course will run slower.
Have you never owned a desktop computer before? Seriously. Besides major OS versions, try playing any new game on an older computer and compare frame rates.
New software always runs slower on older, less capable hardware. This is as natural as it getting darker when the sun sets.
Were they hired by Apple to deal with this growing PR problem?
Benchmarks are well known not to translate to real-world usage. The biggest complaints are with GUI, restart, and app load slowdowns, not CPU or GPU functionality. No testing done on those facets, right?
The most vocal complaints overall are with the "just upgraded" times after a new iOS comes out. Every apologist tells us why we should mock complainers as ignorant fools, and Apple rest on their laurels with that as the community solution, rather than actually addressing that issue themselves once and for all.
It isn't even a question: Apple want you to keep buying the same hardware products every year. Now that they have phones and iPads, they can push an even faster upgrade cycle than with Macs. They are a hardware company using minimal software development to lure new buyers, who eventually may discover that the development of that software only supports selling the bullet point new features of each iOS, which sells iPhones (not continued maturation of the software product). In fact, their iOS developments have actually harmed their prior quality software development, like iWork (being back-ported from iOS to Mac OS, trashing hundreds of features and installing a clumsy GUI).
Yes, there is a push to upgrade to a new phone. Yes, the OS is the push. No, Apple don't optimize iOS for any device but the newest. Yes, planned obsolescence is a real thing. The computer industry has made it so much more blatant than any other industry and has accelerated the same in every industry that sells computerized product: Push product out prematurely, ignore the software bugs, push out the successor ASAP, and abandon the predecessor.
Liar, liar, pants on fire. Your rants are just that, rants. You can provide no evidence your scurrilous claims are true. Your rants are uninformed opinion and nothing more. As software progresses the horsepower required to run it efficiently increases. You would be screaming bloody murder if Apple's policy was that every iOS upgrade would only run on the latest hardware and all previous hardware was left out of the new software. Do you expect High Sierra to run on a Mac Classic as fast as it does on a 5K iMac? I have a retired 2008 iMac that won't run High Sierra at all. Am I supposed to be alleging planned obsolescence too?
Yeah this guy makes shit up all the time, I've seen it on his other posts. He projects his opinions as facts when they're absolutely not. Low value poster.
Okay, look, here's the reality. The public perception is that Apple has somehow crippled the hardware with an OS update, forcing users to buy new phones.
Guess what. Newer software means heavier software demands. The phones are literally the same speed as the day they were bought and these metrics are the proof. The difference is the load placed on them by the software.
There is no plot or conspiracy. There is no shadowy cabal demanding that code get bloated to force users to buy a new phone. There is no Cook and Ive plot to turn down the processor and GPU speed. That's insane to even speculate, but yet, here we are. Planned obsolescence as a conspiracy to force hardware sales isn't a thing.
Do you want your phone to be the same as the day you took it out of the box? Never update your software. Problem solved.
Thank you Mike, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Common sense reigns supreme when articulated simply.
I don't think CPU and GPU benchmarks are relevant to this conversation. I don't think at least, that the conspiracy was that they reduced clocks on those things, that would be easily notable.
However what we can see is that major OS releases do add fractions of seconds on casual interactions like opening apps, which do add up over time. I don't think it's out of malice, just software growth over time.
I don't think CPU and GPU benchmarks are relevant to this conversation. I don't think at least, that the conspiracy was that they reduced clocks on those things, that would be easily notable.
However what we can see is that major OS releases do add fractions of seconds on casual interactions like opening apps, which do add up over time. I don't think it's out of malice, just software growth over time.
It’s not perception! Check the screen responsiveness against your finger taps. Check opening a folder, close it, and open another. Check typing on a keyboard as usual in Notes, passwords for login, home button, swiping up and down. It’s not about performance of CPU or GPU, it’s about how long the touch screen response to your finger. It’s about annoying your eyes with a slower than the past expectation. My iPhone 6 Plus slowed down, not on the first day, but the second, then going faster on the third, and slowed down again in the next few days. Use another iPhone Slow-Motion camera and count the micro-second between two characters appearing will tell you what is reality!
In a locked benchmark app I’m sure it performs well. But looking at my iPhone 6+, it’s clear, at least to me, that 1. The battery drains about twice as fast. Two charges per day necessary with normal use. the code must undergo severe optimisation to bring back the battery life, I think. 2. The apps themselves are often OK, but it’s the switching between apps and services that is bringing it to its knees, compared to iOS 10. Even bringing up control centre is a burden. It should always be accessible. Perhaps iOS 11 relies more on instructions that are optimised for newer hardware, or iOS is growing a bit too big for older phones? stuff like this doesn’t always show in benchmarks.
In a locked benchmark app I’m sure it performs well. But looking at my iPhone 6+, it’s clear, at least to me, that 1. The battery drains about twice as fast. Two charges per day necessary with normal use. the code must undergo severe optimisation to bring back the battery life, I think. 2. The apps themselves are often OK, but it’s the switching between apps and services that is bringing it to its knees, compared to iOS 10. Even bringing up control centre is a burden. It should always be accessible. Perhaps iOS 11 relies more on instructions that are optimised for newer hardware, or iOS is growing a bit too big for older phones? stuff like this doesn’t always show in benchmarks.
How on earth do you know the apps are OK, from my own experience (and looking through settings to how much they use), they are very very far from OK.
Until they have most of their clients on the new platform, apps devs will put off optimizing their apps to the new platform. For paid apps its even worse since old users don't bring new money.
I've got the 6s and see nothing of what you are talking about, must be some special phone you got. Also, why not wait to upgrade a month of two instead of whining. You could, but of course you didn't and instead bitch.
Facts:
1. Benchmarks just test the hardware, not the real use of the phone.
2. Some phones get slower with iOS 11, while others don't.
3. Apple don't sign the iOS 10 version to do a downgrade, so even if you want, you cant come back.
Conclusion:
Even if Apple is not doing that on purpose, the reality is that some devices are getting slower. So, i guess it would be a nice thing to let them chose which version of iOS they prefer. If they want some old version without the updates, it should be always their decision, just like how it happens with Android.
So: why Apple don't do this?
3 Possible reasons:
1. Reputation: having more devices in the last version is always a good sign that Apple always is pride to show of.
2. Less problems: Even if the phone is slow, is more secure than and old version, beside other bugs of the system.
3. More profit: if you want the last iOS software to run perfectly, buy a newer iPhone.
I don't think Apple is making some phones slow on purpose, HOWEVER, i neither think that they care too much about this phones with 3/4/5 years old.
Facts:
1. Benchmarks just test the hardware, not the real use of the phone.
2. Some phones get slower with iOS 11, while others don't.
3. Apple don't sign the iOS 10 version to do a downgrade, so even if you want, you cant come back.
Conclusion:
Even if Apple is not doing that on purpose, the reality is that some devices are getting slower. So, i guess it would be a nice thing to let them chose which version of iOS they prefer. If they want some old version without the updates, it should be always their decision, just like how it happens with Android.
So: why Apple don't do this?
3 Possible reasons:
1. Reputation: having more devices in the last version is always a good sign that Apple always is pride to show of.
2. Less problems: Even if the phone is slow, is more secure than and old version, beside other bugs of the system.
3. More profit: if you want the last iOS software to run perfectly, buy a newer iPhone.
I don't think Apple is making some phones slow on purpose, HOWEVER, i neither think that they care too much about this phones with 3/4/5 years old.
You started strong but finished, well not so strong.
1) There is a good reason why Apple should not let people pick and choose their version. SECURITY. If you allow people to stay on an old version, it means someone that what to bypass a bug fix would just have to downgrade. So, locking down the versions is a way of making things more secure for everyone in that version.
2) You can come back, if you come back within the 10-14 days they sign both versions. If you upgrade late (say in december), you can only come back to the latest signed version. That's why, if you want to try IOS 11, do it the first day and if after a week you don't like it, revert back.
3) Most of the performance hits on old phones occur in the earliest major version. If you decide not to upgrade in the first few days and test it within the 10-14 day grace period, it's best to wait until reviews of the .1 or .2 updates to upgrade to a major version if your phone is 3 year old or more.
4) Apple does not force an update.
5) mix and matching updates is a very bad idea, it would complicate testing by Apple a lot since the number of versions with their own quirks and unresolved bugs would explode. Those versions that receive partial security updates could not be tested as thoroughly as the latest versions (cause there would not be enough people in betas with those versions) and thus they would undoubtably suffer significant regression bugs.
This would also affect the resource Apple can use for QA and development of more recent versions.
Windows has basically switched to Apple's update model for consumer products (but not for business products) for a reason, it makes for a more better user experience if you don't have an IT department to help you (which is the case in a business context). Downgrading a windows update on an existing system these days is a pretty crappy experience and most people don't do it.
Tl;dr: It's not CPU/GPU power, it's a fixed RAM size, aging flash memory and increased memory footprints of iOS and apps that cause a perceived slowdown. And that simply can't be helped.
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This site regularly reports about hardware in a professional manner. So why in the world would an editor think that raw CPU/GPU power would matter? Of course changes to APIs happen over time that may impact the processing power directly in a minuscule way, but that is not where system slowdowns come from.
Performance issues are usually pretty much entirely memory-based. Flash memory is known to degrade over time, even with internal load balancing, so loading times naturally increase over time (far more noticeable than any change to raw CPU/GPU power could), but the real killer is memory management. The iPhone 6 plus has 1GB of RAM, compared to the 3GB of the 8 plus. iOS has grown steadily, and OS features always get priority when it comes to multitasking, so less availability memory for other apps. Meanwhile, apps also grow in size and functionality and need more memory, causing other running apps to get paged into the (constantly slowing) flash memory. So switching apps then causes a) running apps to be slowly written to flash, and b) the requested, hibernated app to be loaded from flash.
When I got my iPhone 6 plus almost 3 years ago, 1GB of RAM could comfortably hold several apps without having to swap any of it into a flash page file. These days my iPhone is often even struggling with loading on-demand parts of a running app into memory, and often even switching between two apps would cause either of them to reload, especially when it's memory hogs such a Facebook, Twitter and Chrome. Just switching between this holy trifecta can cause slowdowns that are less than pretty.
So what I, as a user, would expect from Apple and app developers, is better memory management for older phones, but even that can only do so much given that every app is constantly in a race of offering more and better looking functionality than its competitors, continuously bloating it's memory footprint up, and iOS obviously need to add features as well that can't be loaded on demand.
So what I'd really like to see is memory benchmarks and multitasking checks. Xcode for instance allows to at least see RAM usage. But for real comparisons, that would require old hardware with old iOS versions and old app versions to compare, and those are hard to come by.
Comments
iPhone may get slower after each major iOS release but this is temporary and is due to the necessary optimizations and housekeeping work for the new system. That doesn't last more than two days.
The point is that Apple used to trim down releases on older hardware-- remember when transparency was a thing? Well, you didn't get that on older hardware because the GPU didn't have the shaders involved to make it fast-- so it was locked out. Same with many of the animation features that were too much for the CPU on older hardware.
Apple doesn't appear to do that anymore-- so the latest OS release for a particular piece of hardware *barely* works, rather than being a useful upgrade.
That, combined with the inability to run older OSes (see my previous comment) means that, yes, after a while, old hardware gets to a point where it is crippled by its own OS and has become virtually useless.
Regardless of how many of you get irritated because this article is about raw statistics, and split hairs, if one person that is not a regular finds it and says "oh, okay! I get it now!" then mission accomplished.
What you are asking for is akin to asking for cheeseburgers flying out of the screen. Nice idea, but it just doesn't work that way.
Yes because that's older hardware, running newer software. As has been explained very clearly -- new point releases of an OS version are more capable and do more stuff, requiring more processing power. The hardware hasn't changed from its incept date and of course will run slower.
Have you never owned a desktop computer before? Seriously. Besides major OS versions, try playing any new game on an older computer and compare frame rates.
New software always runs slower on older, less capable hardware. This is as natural as it getting darker when the sun sets.
I don't think CPU and GPU benchmarks are relevant to this conversation. I don't think at least, that the conspiracy was that they reduced clocks on those things, that would be easily notable.
However what we can see is that major OS releases do add fractions of seconds on casual interactions like opening apps, which do add up over time. I don't think it's out of malice, just software growth over time.
7 to 8
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/ios-8-on-the-iphone-4s-performance-isnt-the-only-problem/
8 to 9
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/ios-9-on-the-iphone-4s-a-stay-of-execution-nothing-more/
Check the screen responsiveness against your finger taps.
Check opening a folder, close it, and open another.
Check typing on a keyboard as usual in Notes, passwords for login, home button, swiping up and down.
It’s not about performance of CPU or GPU, it’s about how long the touch screen response to your finger. It’s about annoying your eyes with a slower than the past expectation.
My iPhone 6 Plus slowed down, not on the first day, but the second, then going faster on the third, and slowed down again in the next few days.
Use another iPhone Slow-Motion camera and count the micro-second between two characters appearing will tell you what is reality!
1. The battery drains about twice as fast. Two charges per day necessary with normal use. the code must undergo severe optimisation to bring back the battery life, I think.
2. The apps themselves are often OK, but it’s the switching between apps and services that is bringing it to its knees, compared to iOS 10. Even bringing up control centre is a burden. It should always be accessible. Perhaps iOS 11 relies more on instructions that are optimised for newer hardware, or iOS is growing a bit too big for older phones?
stuff like this doesn’t always show in benchmarks.
############
This site regularly reports about hardware in a professional manner. So why in the world would an editor think that raw CPU/GPU power would matter? Of course changes to APIs happen over time that may impact the processing power directly in a minuscule way, but that is not where system slowdowns come from.
Performance issues are usually pretty much entirely memory-based. Flash memory is known to degrade over time, even with internal load balancing, so loading times naturally increase over time (far more noticeable than any change to raw CPU/GPU power could), but the real killer is memory management. The iPhone 6 plus has 1GB of RAM, compared to the 3GB of the 8 plus. iOS has grown steadily, and OS features always get priority when it comes to multitasking, so less availability memory for other apps. Meanwhile, apps also grow in size and functionality and need more memory, causing other running apps to get paged into the (constantly slowing) flash memory. So switching apps then causes a) running apps to be slowly written to flash, and b) the requested, hibernated app to be loaded from flash.
When I got my iPhone 6 plus almost 3 years ago, 1GB of RAM could comfortably hold several apps without having to swap any of it into a flash page file. These days my iPhone is often even struggling with loading on-demand parts of a running app into memory, and often even switching between two apps would cause either of them to reload, especially when it's memory hogs such a Facebook, Twitter and Chrome. Just switching between this holy trifecta can cause slowdowns that are less than pretty.
So what I, as a user, would expect from Apple and app developers, is better memory management for older phones, but even that can only do so much given that every app is constantly in a race of offering more and better looking functionality than its competitors, continuously bloating it's memory footprint up, and iOS obviously need to add features as well that can't be loaded on demand.
So what I'd really like to see is memory benchmarks and multitasking checks. Xcode for instance allows to at least see RAM usage. But for real comparisons, that would require old hardware with old iOS versions and old app versions to compare, and those are hard to come by.