iPhone Performance Issues Will Increase With Battery Age and Change in OS

Sometime ago, users were complaining that their iPhone 6s was slowing down, after which swapping out the battery restored the performance of the phone. It was assumed that with the aging battery, Apple releases a software update that forces the battery to consume less power by downclocking the CPU.

Now the Geekbench founder, John Poole decides to perform a serious of his own tests to see if battery aging is really the problem, so here are his results. We are confident that you will want to pay attention to these findings.

Poole’s Findings Reveal That Battery Aging and Change in the Operating System Will Lead To Performance Issues on Your iPhone

According to the tests carried out by Geekbench founder, performances issues are more evident when an iPhone is updated to the major annual software update rather than the timely updates that are released in between the 12-month period.

“First, it appears the problem is widespread, and will only get worse as phones (and their batteries) continue to age. See, for example, the difference between the distribution of iPhone 6s scores between 10.2.1 and 11.2.0.

Second, the problem is due, in part, to a change in iOS. The difference between 10.2.0 and 10.2.1 is too abrupt to be just a function of battery condition. I believe (as do others) that Apple introduced a change to limit performance when battery condition decreases past a certain point.”

Charts for iPhone6

He also comes to the conclusion that both battery aging and change in OS will lead to performance issues on your iPhone. Poole believes that because battery aging is inevitable, Apple will continue to release software updates that will cut down the performance, leading to consumers picking up a better and faster iPhone more often.

“If the performance drop is due to the “sudden shutdown” fix, users will experience reduced performance without notification. Users expect either full performance, or reduced performance with a notification that their phone is in low-power mode. This fix creates a third, unexpected state. While this state is created to mask a deficiency in battery power, users may believe that the slow down is due to CPU performance, instead of battery performance, which is triggering an Apple introduced CPU slow-down. This fix will also cause users to think, “my phone is slow so I should replace it” not, “my phone is slow so I should replace its battery”. This will likely feed into the “planned obsolecense” narritive.”

Charts for iPhone 7

While you will be bombarded with software updates from time to time, the best bet for you to keep an older iPhone’s performance is to replace its battery with a new one. You can also choose not to update the phone to the latest software update, though it might also result in app support being driven away.

Have you noticed that any of your iPhones have been slowing down? Tell us your thoughts down in the comments.