[iabacu]

I think it's clear Apple intentionally* degrades software quality on older iphone/mac models in order to drive purchase of newer hardware.

I've been considering switching away from Apple hardware, not because of hardware quality, but because of software.

* By pushing software updates optimized to new hardware with obvious regressions on older models.

[thirdsun]

> I think it's clear Apple intentionally* degrades software quality on older iphone/mac models in order to drive purchase of newer hardware.

I don't think that's clear at all.

> * By pushing software updates optimized to new hardware with obvious regressions on older models.

New software can come with increased hardware requirements, yet customers want to benefit from new software. It's a compromise. You could simply not update if you're worried about that.

> I've been considering switching away from Apple hardware, not because of hardware quality, but because of software.

I'm sure software updates long after your device's release won't be a concern with the competition. You probably simply won't receive any.

[iabacu]

Sure, then freeze the software of older devices and only release security fixes.

No revamp of look-and-feel and other random software features that only makes sense for the new models.

[audunw]

But this case shows the exact opposite. They updated phones to last longer without unexpected shut-downs. If they didn't do that update, many people who experienced these shut-downs outside of warrenty would change their old phone for a new ones. You can usually live with a slightly slower phone when the battery is low, but a phone that randomly dies on you? Not so much.

To be clear, Apple still messed up, because they didn't communicate this at all. They could have also put in a slightly larger battery to begin with.

But in the tech world, Apple isn't the worst in pushing people to upgrade hardware, which is illustrated by the fact that people use iPhones longer before upgrading than Android users. That's the one upside of Apples crazy App Store margins... they really don't need to push new hardware on you to make a shitload of money (while for Android that money goes to Google rather than hardware manufacturers)

Apple could do better - WAY better - but I think it's a bit naive to think that this could possibly change, and is worth complaining about. The only way it would, if there was somehow significant money in spending lots of time optimizing OS updates for old devices. But most people like upgrading their phones anyway. For Apple to change, consumers must change first. I don't think there's much hope for government regulation here either. It's a problem that's too complex to regulate.

[iabacu]

Not quite.

Users who complained about things being slower were hinted that perhaps the new models would be faster.

It was not a communication issue that damaged Apple; but the contrary, it helped sell more units. The only "bad" thing is that it got a lot of scrutiny.

[iabacu]

To clarify, since I think this is not obvious to the other commenters here.

(1) The company ships software updates that happens to be near the launch of a new model. It's not by accident, there are often major software changes to take advantage of the new hardware that is soon to be released.

(2) Users start complaining that they are seeing regressions: everything seems a bit more slow, or it's less reliable (things crash or freeze more often), other bugs requiring the device to be rebooted, etc.

(3) After the product launch, some of the users try the new model, and that runs very well compared to the older device with the degraded software (because the software was just optimized to it and extensively tested)

(4) Executives get reports about the user complains on older models. Some internally wonder if better software practices or better QA would avoid such regressions on older devices. Others quickly point out that doing so would be bad in two ways: it costs more; and it reduces revenue by removing an incentive for users to buy newer models.

[mlindner]

> I think it's clear Apple intentionally* degrades software quality on older iphone/mac models in order to drive purchase of newer hardware.

Completely false. What's clear is that most posters on hacker news don't understand basic battery chemistry. Apple made a decision to help customers and got blamed for it because they didn't properly explain what they were doing. You can only please people so much.