Apple might be secretly glitching older iPhones

Older iPhones Reported 'Breaking' After Apple Unveils iPhone 11

So, Apple unleashes the iPhone 11 (to a mostly-disinterested public), and suddenly people with older iPhones are reporting their phone has stopped working.

iphone 11 was announced YESTERDAY and my phone is already acting up

I find it awfully convenient that the camera on my iPhone stopped working the day Apple announced new iPhones with fancier cameras

It would be easy to just dismiss these as bad luck, except two years ago Apple deliberately throttled down the performance on their older phones, giving the excuse that they were extending the battery life.

So, perhaps they're up to their old tricks again, this time randomly causing buggy performance in the hopes of getting people to upgrade?

My iPhone 6 started muting and unmuting itself, I don't even have to touch the button. Also, less than a year after replacing the battery it's already underperforming and dying fast. Last but no least, GPS not working anymore and very weak wifi signal unless I'm close to the router.

Not really a secret

2 words "Planned Obsolescence"

Apple getting busted in 2017

Apple just got smacked with a class action lawsuit after the tech giant admitted it slowed down older iPhones.

No no its all coincidence!

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan


Two words come to mind...

Welllll duhhhh!

Third that.

It’s been known Apple sabotages older phones when new ones come out.

I’ve been using them for over a decade. They turn to sh!t, right at the anniversary of its 3rd year. It’s like clockwork every time.

I still deal with it though. They are a superior smart phone to the competition. User friendly.

And yes, that means I upgrade every 2-3 years. You have to.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

As phones get older, they develop problems. Like most things (including people).

Also, I’m on an old iPhone 5s and it’s still working fine (after 2 screen replacements and a new battery last year).

Lesson: don't buy Apple products.

I'm trying to do the same with Google but they're just too damn big. How are monopoly laws not applying to these giant corporations?

People paying top dollar to a company that cheats them.

America.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

Apple are rumoured to have done this several times to there phones in the past as have other manufacturers, usually it takes the form of a security update which is not a security update, you need the updates obviously but they are also the perfect vehicle to crap out the older model's.

Microsoft were also accused of doing something similar with there older versions of windows in the past.

So it does not surprise me, the corporate model has you addicted to something that has become an essential part of your life just as they intended it to be, they then have a captive market and to exploit that market they have to find a way to force you to buy the new model whenever it comes out even if there old model was just as good or sometimes even better than there new model as may have been the case with windows 7 versus windows 10 were Microsoft are concerned and as may have been the case with several mobile phone models made by various manufacturers that were then superseded by apparently inferior model's.

I don't think Apple can be accused of this but they can certainly be accused of hobbling there older model's in order to force people to buy the new model though if they are ever caught out the fine's from group's such as the EU would be enormous so if they are then it is a calculated gamble and one that may happen more in some regions of the world than others.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

I thought something was strange with my iPhone 8 after the last update, the battery would randomly drain to 10% in about 8 hours without ever using it. I had extended warranty with Best Buy but they said they can no-longer repair iPhones and I would have to ship it back to Apple for a new battery. Best part is I would be without a phone for 2-3 weeks or longer, I need my phone so I bought the iPhone 10. Boy do I feel like a sucker now.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

i started on PC then in 2003 got a macbook for school, it was just a 2500 type writer and music player.

im back to PC and ive always been an android person.


Apple is nice for people with very little computer knowledge or video/audio editing and their phones are nice but just to expensive and fragile for the cost and the constant minor upgrades are extremely thinly veiled cash grabs.

its obvious Apple's 'updates' after a new phone comes out are more virus than update.

if you have cash to burn and don't use a computer for anything but editing then get an apple but for the same price ypou can get a very very nice PC.

i have an ASUS ROG laptop that i got two years ago and it works better than my sisters brand new maxed out iMac.

They absolutely do this. I had an iphone 5 up until around March. Phone was ancient by iphone standards but it functioned just fine for what I used it for. Had no problems with it. Then out of the blue, my phone was suddenly forced to update. Immediately after the update, my battery started rapidly draining. My phone would get very hot and it's battery would drain from 100% to 0% in 50 minutes. It got worse and worse to the point where the phone would drop from 100% to 1% in 15 minutes. The battery would drain out while the phone was off. The battery meter would jump from 100% to 50% back up to 90% and down to 10% over the course of ten minutes. Eventually the phone started telling me my charging cable wasn't supported and the phone refused to charge anymore.

That forced update fried my battery, I have no doubt. And I believe it was deliberate. Now my iphone 6 is suddenly having shoddy service. Almost constantly at 1 bar this past week.

Not sure how it is now but I know a few years back I would root my phone and put custom firmware on it. Pretty sure this is still a thing but I haven't tried in a while cause I've been lazy. The nice thing was those updates that crapped put other people's phones never happened to me and I could also remove all the bloatware that came with the phone I didn't want. I had a lot more customisation options too. Just saying you don't have to be bent over a barrel.

a reply to: RickyD

i bet it is a physically destructive 'update'.


there are only so many ways to drain a battery super fast in a small cell phone before the heat will damage its guts or maybe damage is done by some other means like overclocking to burn out or something

I don’t use my phone often enough to notice any changes, but I have no plans to buy a new phone. I have considered getting a flip phone with minute cards for my next phone.

Apple releases new products every single year.
If you have a device and it has issues, nothing lasts forever.
Every year, new devices. Every month, new software.

Correlation is not equal to causation.
If you have an issue, by the odds, they either had a software update recently, because they regularly update their software, or they may have released new products.

You are pretty much guaranteed to have car trouble, within 10,000 miles of your last oil change. Did your oil change have something to do with it?
Not necessarily, but if you had an existing issue, you might find out about it, at an oil change, or an oil change would make the issue more clear. (Loose gaskets, loose hosing, sensor issues, etc...)

Complex systems don't generally break one piece at a time.

I worked for that company from 2010-2012.

They don't sabotage devices. Their customers have high expectations of the company. So, when something DOES go wrong, the first question is what? The second question is why? The third question is how?

After that, everything else is discontent until the issue is resolved.
In the interim, people gravitate towards whoever is speaking the loudest, online, about the issue.

Apple's customers are their most valuable asset.
Customers dictate the value of the brand.
Risking their brand image for the meager revenue that allegedly "sabotaging phones" would somehow give them? (It really wouldn't give them anything of note, relative to their store assets, company value, stock, nor computer sales.)

Not a chance. Absolutely zero. The idea is ludicrous, but you're free to say whatever you want.

I was on the inside of their support team, in multiple positions during my time there. Customer appreciation value, is the core concern, 24/7.

That company gives far more than it takes, but the expectation bar is so high, there is no limit to what individuals believe Apple owes them.

a reply to: penroc3

It's pretty difficult to push your update to a firmware that it's not meant to interface with. Making a hardware update like that to a phone with custom firmware would need you to make versions of your update to interface with them I would expect...not too hard for big tech...but if that firmware is open-source it would probably be noticed by someone and wouldn't really be secret. Maybe I'm wrong but I am pretty sure I'm not. Also I never had those issues with a rooted phone running custom firmware so theres that.

a reply to: Archivalist

Riiight you know cause you were customer support that they wouldn't do that. Cause they would tell people like you knowing they could trust none of their customer support people would ever go public with it and get them in trouble over it...really???

a reply to: Archivalist

Seriously did You not look at My post or link...They F'ING Admitted It!!

Apple just got smacked with a class action lawsuit after the tech giant admitted it slowed down older iPhones. This act is also known as planned obsolescence.

a reply to: RickyD

I did more for them than that, but please, tell me more about how you're an expert in Apple's internal SOP.

Sounds like you spent some time doing support for a competitor.
Trust me, I've worked support for a major OEM PC manufacturer, and I worked for Apple.

Apple is light years ahead of their competition on sharing internal company procedures and general information, fluidly.
That includes information regarding claims and issues of misconduct of any type.
If there was some kind of issue of that magnitude, it would have been broadly known.

Software and hardware obsolescence can not really be pinned on any one source, as technology improves the new tech can not always be backwards compatible.
Apple doesn't directly make every single piece of everything. They work with partners and other equipment manufacturers.
Not all new software works with old hardware, end of story. True for every single company.
Not all new technology can be implemented with old hardware. True for every single company.

I haven't worked for them in like 7 years, I own NO stock in Apple at all.
I have no current bias on my statements. Hardware and software obsolescence is a side effect of new technology research and development.