Apple Slows Down Old iPhones With Weak Batteries, Geekbench Data Suggests

Apple has allegedly made changes to iOS that deliberately scale down the performance of older iPhone models as their batteries degrade beyond a certain point, according to findings by smartphone performance testing firm Geekbench. In a blog post, the company says that its analysis of the scores of iPhone 6s devices running iOS 10.2.1 as opposed to iOS 10.2 show that there are now multiple points where scores cluster, below the single average point that was previously observed, and is typical of multiple tests running on the same device.This change, as a result of a seemingly minor software update, suggests that the company has knowingly reduced the performance of some devices. The effect is even more pronounced with iOS 11.2. A similar analysis of iPhone 7 scores shows a typical concentration of scores at one level up until the release of iOS 11.2, when the same pattern of several clusters at lower levels emerges.