Does Apple sprinkle wait()? No. Does the system become more and more complex and Apple taking less time to optimize because it runs “fine” on the [latest - 1] hardware? Yes.
I'll help you a bit.
> > [...] Apple had liberally sprinkled wait() into the iOS 11 code base so that I'd feel like my ole A9 CPU just wasn't cutting it any more
From the article
> Are older iPhones being deliberately slowed? [...] maintain a consistent level of performance across iOS versions
Sure, as you snarkily remark, your CPU/GPU hasn't changed, but neither has the iOS version inherently made your phone slower. Apps on the other hand might be assuming more power nowadays, but that is a whole other question... Or, you could also just have read the end of my comment...
The real rebuttal of "slow" claims should be to look at the added features and security and discuss whether such trade-offs are worth the reduction in performance. For example, to make the user's data much more secure, Apple puts a lot of mechanisms behind XPC, which is inherently slower than mere API calls. These slow the system. Are they worth it, for the security benefit? That's the productive discussion we should be having.
But that is LITERALLY what people were accusing Apple of doing, actually slowing their devices to make them buy newer models. There might have been less conspiracy-esque claims, but jesting they were "sprinkling wait() calls in the code to make me upgrade" is not in that category - so I disagree with your claim that people weren't meaning that.
Anyways, this discussion has derailed, so I'm just gonna leave it at that.
That was actually recently debunked by Futuremark https://www.futuremark.com/pressreleases/is-it-true-that-iph....
Important excerpts found at the bottom of the page:
> Our benchmarking data shows that, rather than intentionally degrading the performance of older models, Apple actually does a good job of supporting its older devices with regular updates that maintain a consistent level of performance across iOS versions.
and
> That said, there are some factors that might affect people's perception of performance after updating an older device with a newer version of iOS. An update might add new features that use more resources or require more processing power. New apps developed for the latest models might not run as smoothly on older devices. Conversely, apps designed for an earlier version of iOS might not take full advantage of optimizations in the latest version. And then there is always the psychological effect of knowing that there is a new and improved model available, which can make your own device seem outdated.