With the launch of the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X and iOS 11, a persistent rumor resurfaced. There has long been speculation that Apple deliberately slows down older iPhones in an attempt to encourage people to upgrade to the latest models.
With the launch of the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X and iOS 11, a persistent rumor resurfaced. There has long been speculation that Apple deliberately slows down older iPhones in an attempt to encourage people to upgrade to the latest models.
Benchmarking firm Futuremark notes that around the launch of the new iPhones, there is was a surge in Google searches for « iPhone slow » — but are people’s fears actually founded in anything? Futuremark is in exactly the right line of work to set the record straight, and its test results really speak for themselves.
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Since 2016, the benchmarking company has gathered information about iOS 9, iOS 10 and iOS 11 on seven different iPhone models. In all, there are more than 100,000 pieces of data and tests were performed with the 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Graphics and 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Physics tests. The results show that the iPhone 5s GPU and CPU performance have remained all but constant with each upgrade, save for very minor variations.
When it comes to the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 and iPhone 7, the story is pretty similar. Futuremark says:
So, what’s the explanation for the spike in searches relating to iPhone slowdown? Are people paranoid?
Futuremark suggests that there is an element of actual performance degradation because of a lack of app optimization, but there’s also the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) effect in action:
Check out Futuremark’s full results over on its website.
