They deliberately make it hard to repair so you buy a new one and have been caught multiple times slowing phones down and saying it's to "save battery life" which could easily be fixed by allowing a removable battery.. I guarantee your battery was shot by that point.

I never mentioned Samsung, so that's just a useless strawman argument you're making. Also, Samsung has a rugged phone that still lets you take the back off and replace the battery. Where's Apple's version?

> I never mentioned Samsung, so that's just a useless strawman argument you're making.

I was with you to some extent in your original post... sort of.. But this last response made me go from with you to thinking you have some sort of agenda, with a real bias and aren't actually interested in a real conversation, you just seem to want an argument that you feel you can win.

The slowing down was necessary to not overload the batteries (very obviously necessary since phones were resetting otherwise), and apple offered replacement batteries almost at cost. What more do you want??

It was a perfect engineering solution, poorly communicated to users.

I'll take a slightly slower phone (in reality not noticeable on most tasks) over unplanned restarts. My partner only just stopped using the iPhone 6 I bought in 2014, original battery all the way, and she had the throttling turned on for years without knowing or caring.

Apple did not communicate to users they were slowing down the phone to prevent issues. They did it silently so users would upgrade rather than replace the battery.

> apple offered replacement batteries almost at cost.

Only after they were caught slowing down phones without informing users.

It was not and still is not commonplace for any company to discuss the deep engineering details of a product's battery management logic with customers. The majority of products just stop working, some have an indicator of "bad battery".

> They did it silently so users would upgrade rather than replace the battery.

That's a deliberately uncharitable interpretation. It could just as easily be explained by them wanting the customers to not have a crashing phone tarnishing their opinion of the brand. If it were about money, they should have popped up a message saying "The phone is going to be slower because the battery is dead, contact your Apple Store to buy a new battery."

Apple has a long record of making decisions for users without presenting options about them. Having these problems solved for us rather than being bothered with them is part of what we've paid for all these years. But their audience is broader now, they're much more successful, and when this practice rubs people the wrong way we all hear about it in the press as if it's some Antennagate-level flaw or scandal with which they were "caught." So they put in an option to make the phone worse but the user happier and move on. I would say "but the reputation damage is done" if it wasn't a foregone conclusion to so many that Apple must be up to no good.

Ok... and if I could replace the battery myself easily then that would not be a concern would it?

I told you, I want the ability to replace the battery myself. Do you like losing your phone for a few hours/days so you can get the battery replaced?

It’s not a useless straw man argument. iPhones typically have a longer life cycle than android phones. That is a fact. User replaceable batteries lower the quality and aesthetics of the phone. So there’s no benefit to having a better replaceable easily. Just take it to an Apple Store.

>User replaceable batteries lower the quality and aesthetics of the phone

That is an often repeated lie. Companies like Framework have proved it a lie and appear to be making good money by doing it.

The visual aesthetics of the framework don’t leave much to be desired. The build quality is a fraction of MacBook.

So I’m unsure how it’s a lie? Framework made an incredible device. But it pales to a MacBook.

I did not make a comparison to Samsung, the op did. I am not arguing which phone is better, that's you and OP.

I was discussing apple's flaws and OP/you decided to talk about another company that was worse in an attempt to convince everyone that it's ok for apple to act a certain way.

Re Samsung, they sold 258.3M phones last year; approximately 60 SKUs--with < 3% having user replaceable parts. They are equally responsible. Do you hold them to the same standard?

> have been caught multiple times slowing phones down

Both Apple and Google found themselves in a situation where phones would suddenly go dead when the device was under high load despite the battery reporting that it had a charge, although with the Nexus 6P it was happening to devices that were only a year old.

> your phone will randomly shut down and completely die, even though your battery indicator might have said you had plenty of juice left. It's not a simple system crash, because your phone will stay dead until you connect it to a charger. We've seen reports of the battery dying from a charge as high as 67% to as low as 15% on both Android Marshmallow and Android Nougat.

https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/nexus-6p-battery-random...

Google's solution to the problem was to tell users they were out of warranty and to buy a new phone.

A class action lawsuit eventually forced them to issue refunds.

> Google, Huawei Agree to Pay Nexus 6P Owners Up to $400 for Faulty Devices

https://www.droid-life.com/2019/04/11/google-huawei-nexus-6p...

“Throwaway” may be hyperbole, but the average lifespan in terms of iOS versions for an iPhone is about 5-6 years. (On the low side, someone who bought an iPhone SE in September 2018 only got four years.) The issue is that the hardware often works fine for 10 years or more. Nowadays it’s usually software that makes devices obsolete, without any real necessity.

> The issue is that the hardware often works fine for 10 years or more.

I don't know about that. It technically still works, but you will feel it being slow because developers keep updating their apps to take advantage of new technologies and features. Even browsing the web keeps getting worse because web developers seem to cruft up their websites as much as the hardware can bear.

I really think around 5 years is the limit to be able to use your phone as an general purpose, internet connected device. If you want to repurpose it into an iPod Touch or Smarthome remote controller or something after that that's still doable even if you're using a deprecated version of iOS.

The story with iPads is a little different. If all it is for most people is a streaming service and article-reading machine those can last 10 years or more and the OS probably should have a longer life and a higher priority on making the batteries easily serviceable. I'd actually love a stripped-down, barebones version of iPad OS that makes it dumber but more secure. Sort of like booting in safe mode, for when people want to repurpose old devices.

This is part of the criticism, though: There is no inherent need for the software to become slower (and less efficient). Throwing the hands up on that front just means we’ll eternally keep churning, in the name of “progress”.

I think you are forgetting what phone apps 10 years ago looked like and the features they had. It’s not useless bloat that’s slowing them down, it’s the addition of actual features people like and take advantage of.

Even aside from the good point Gigachad also made, it's not really under Apple's control to make web and app developers be more efficient. People just develop and scope for the power envelope the hardware can provide. It would be great if they optimized for cutting bloat, but they just don't and there's nobody with the ability to dictate that they do.

App review processes are already opaque and inconsistent enough with fairly straightforward rules around what is and isn't around. I don't think devs are going to like it if Apple starts getting opinionated about how you're doing indexing on your SQL.

I believe older iPhones still get security updates for a very long time. Much longer than 5 years, making them one of the longest-term supported devices on the market currently.

The 5s got one in 2023.

https://www.makeuseof.com/apple-security-updates-for-10-year...

Older Android phones also get security updates for a long time via Google Play Services!

And what happens if the security vulnerability is found in the operating system itself and not Google Play Services.

You're in the same situation you are with iOS where old versions don't get all security vulnerabilities patched.

Android is a more modular system than iOS. Even if the core OS is out of date, many components are updated via Google Play.

A 10 year old iPhone would be the 5s. It has gotten a security update within the last year.

Not to be pedantic but the iPhone 8 came out in late 2017. Still a good lifespan!

To offset that: I'm still using an iPhone 7. I'm stuck on iOS 15, but that doesn't matter to me.

To which it is worth noting that Apple is still issuing security updates for iOS 15, the most recent was ~3 days ago.

That is why I left the google Pixel for iPhone. I liked my Pixel, but at the time, they only did 3 years of support and security updates, I understand they recently upped it to 4 or 5 years? Sure, my iPhone costs more, but if I use a phone for its total life span (when it stops getting security updates), the iPhone comes out cheaper if you divide the cost of the phone by the number of years it gets supported.

I'm using an iPhone 6S, I changed the battery after around three years. The only issue is it gets pretty hot sometimes, still not sure what it is but it's manageable.