> The problem is that there was a narrative for years that Apple was intentionally slowing down older phones with software updates, but there wasn't any proof.

Except that is not what they were doing. There is a huge difference between pushing out updates around the time of a new phone release to push users onto the new phones (what people proposed Apple was doing) compared to slowing down your phone so it stays usable after its battery becomes unable to support the factory level of performance. I would say Apple was doing the opposite of what people suggested since slowing the phones down made them usable for a longer period of time.

Meanwhile, if you complained to Apple Care that your phone was slower, Apple's employee would tell you that you were wrong. That you were imagining it. Or that the newer OS's were ever-more complex so a slower feeling phone was just an inevitable part of progress.

Still don't see the problem?

No problem.

These things can be true as well, and none of them imply that Apple intentionally slowed phones to boost sales.

I agree it's inconclusive as to whether the whole thing was to increase sales in the short term. But keeping it a secret from your own staff is highly suspect. Like I said, they had their own support staff regularly telling their best customers (some of whom paid extra for Applecare) that they were basically imagining things.

All allegedly because people are too dense to understand the concept that rechargeable batteries degrade over time? I learned this fact some 30 years ago as a child playing with toys.

So, maybe it wasn't to increase sales in the short term but it certainly was done to protect Apple's brand. Which, in turn increases the company value.

This is true, but it’s also true that it wasn’t in a vacuum.

People were already trying to damage Apple’s brand by making the case that they were intentionally slowing phones down to force upgrades, long before there was any substance to the concept.

I’m not saying they made good choices, but it’s not clear that they had good options.

The narrative existed because there was a span of several years where successive updates did make iPhones a bit slower, by virtue of adding more features and complexity. Since Apple makes money by selling you a new phone, some people assumed that it was a way to gaslight you into upgrading. When these people learned of a circumstance where it was definitively shown that Apple did slow down older devices, they took it as proof that their gaslighting theory was true.

My iPhone 4 became unusably slow after an update I could not revert. I liked that device and would have preferred to have it still work if needed in a pinch.

edit: To be clear I would have preferred them not force the upgrade on me. I still would have likely purchased a new phone, but instead I purchased an android phone.