[petra]

From the link: "The important distinction is of intent. In the benign explanation, a slowdown of old phones is not a specific goal, but merely a side effect of optimizing the operating system for newer hardware"

When we try to judge intent we do judge the context. So let's look at the context: people do know that iPhone updates will probably slow their device(even though Apple doesn't tell them that). And there's no way to stop the nagging update notification (aside from jailbreaking).

So let's not be naive. Maybe it's hard to prove at the legal level, but there's a pretty decent chance that this is intentional by Apple.

EDIT: if you upvote, please explain why you think this is wrong.

[mikeash]

Software getting slower with updates is a fact of life. It's been an obvious and expected thing since I started being aware of computers and updates in the late 1980s and I'm sure it was a thing even before that. The odds that Apple is doing this on purpose, rather than as a standard side effect of cramming ever more features into their stuff, are so low it doesn't bear more than a moment's consideration.

What's next, people say Apple deliberately destroys batteries after a few years, rather than being a natural consequence of battery chemistry? Apple deliberately makes their screens shatter when dropped?

[petra]

I'm not arguing against the update making the device slower. But the fact it's built so people would upgrade(via irremovable nagging), even when it's clearly not what's best for them.

[mikeash]

Huh? Of course you're not arguing against the update making the device slower. You're arguing that the update not only makes the device slower, but that this is a deliberate action by Apple to make older devices slower. And I'm saying that's ridiculous since it happens to pretty much all software anyway and all Apple would have to do to make this happen is just develop updates the same way everyone else does.