[orbitur]

> and for older hardware makes sure to let you know that your Mac/iOS device doesn't support this feature.

Where is this case? In my experience, something I saw online simply wasn't available to me, like AirDrop, for instance. I upgraded my mid-09 MBP to 10.7, looked for AirDrop and couldn't find it.

Same for Handoff and the Bluetooth-required new features in Yosemite. Apple doesn't go out of its way to inform me my hardware is out of date; features talked about in the media are just missing.

edit: Also, your post sounds dangerously close to the uninformed "Apple purposefully makes iOS n perform worse on device x", as if that's a smart business move.

[FireBeyond]

Re Handoff in Yosemite... there are hacked kexts that make it work just fine in older (non BT LE/4) Macs (with regular BT) making it fairly clear that an artificial limitation was introduced.

[orbitur]

That's not quite the whole truth. There are two Mac models where you can simply enable it: the mid-2011 Mac mini, and the mid-2011 MBA. Every other model it could potentially work on, you literally need to upgrade the wireless card.

Given that, it makes me wonder how the unmodified Mac mini and MBA perform.

[msh]

Have you considered using non low energi BT might introduce a battery hit that apple dont like?