Apple is reporting record breaking sales for its newest iPhone. But some who have older phones say, they’re seeing slowdowns on their devices.
A recent Harvard study raised the question of whether Apple deliberately slows down its older models just before a new launch. Harvard found Google searches for “iPhone slow” just before a new Apple launch have spiked over the years every time a new phone is released. The research dates back to the 3G model.
Researchers did a correlating search for “Samsung Galaxy slow” to compare. And while there has been a general increase in the number of searches, there are not correlating spikes to new releases.
Cell phone repair expert Sam Marcos doesn’t think it’s a planned plot. Instead, it might be linked to upgrading to the new operating system.
“The software is too much for the hardware to handle, when your iPhone is too – I don’t want to say too old—but old,” Marcos said.
The best advice is to skip the iOS update that comes out with the latest phone is you’re more than one model behind.
“You’ll see the software update. It’s says one pending. Don’t open it, cause once you open it and it starts to download, you can’t stop it,” Marcos said. “And then, you can’t roll back. Once you get the update you can’t reverse it.”
Efforts to contact Apple for comment were not returned.