Apple confirms that it slows down older iPhones as batteries wear out

A couple of days back, Primate labs posted evidence that showed slower performance on Apple’s iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 as they became older. Many people then started blaming Apple of planned obsolesce and claimed that the company is doing so to force users upgrade.

Apple has now released a statement regarding this and clarified that it is mainly due to the degradation of the lithium-ion batteries. According to Apple, the lithium-ion batteries have issues supplying big bursts as they age. This is the root cause of the problem. The problem of peak current can also arise if the batteries are cold or carry less charge.

When the SoC draws a large amount of current, the battery delivers the current in spikes which may cause damage to the SoC. Hence, the iPhone shuts down automatically to avert the damage caused.

This is what Apple had to say:

“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.”

To recollect, this was a widespread issue in 2016 and Apple responded back with a software update that claimed to fix the problem(iOS 10.2.1). However, the company had not commented as to how it fixed the issues.

If your old iPhone is running slow, it may be a good idea to replace your battery. Apple charges $79(approx Rs.5,000) to replace the battery out of warranty.