I discovered something insideous after being in the iOS ecosystem. Apple still slows down iPhones, but not in the way you think - every year around their iPhone launch schedule, like clockwork, my iPhone 14 Pro Max slowed down just enough to make me think it was ageing, but not enough to suspect - after a lot of tests, it turns out, the reponsitivity of the touch was being reduced in software. So, the "smooth" iOS polished animations feel a bit laggy, but not enough to raise eyebrows. But, this is not even the worst part. I casually - out of pure coincidence discovered that Apple actually reduces the camera's clarity around their new iPhone launches. Particularly low-light performance. I thought I was being paranoid, but I'm a photographer and the hotel I walked across everyday in the evening had these beautiful hanging creepers which combined with golden lighting, always provided a pleasant sight. So, I loved taking pictures of it randomly until one day I noticed that regardless of the camera mode, the noise was insanely high and the pictures suddenly looked like they were taken from an old Android phone from 2015. I cleaned the lenses, had no cover, etc. I copied the images to my computer and the difference was clearly visible.

After a little bit digging, it turns out, I wasn't the only one. A lot of people had complained about the lagginess around iPhone launch dates. This is an old graph from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....

This is actual data from Google trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=iphone%2...

You can clearly see a spike in as recent as September 2025. But, the camera data was the last straw for me. As a photographer who paid $1000+ for the iPhone Pro Max - supposedly their latest and greatest phone of the time, only to get screwed over by greed 2 years later, I had enough.

I sold the iPhone at a loss, got myself a Samsung Note and I actually took pictures of the same hotel again and the difference was stark. That really told me everything I needed to know about Apple's ethics. In contrast, I also have a Samsung S10+ from ages ago and it still functions flawlessly. The trade off clearly is privacy with the Android eco-system, but until we have a decent Apple alternative that's also privacy focused, I'm forced to accept this trade off.

Funnily enough, my iPad and Macbooks never get slowed down, even if it's 5+ years. It's only for the iPhones. I guess they view the iPhone as fast fashion or something, but the ethical component is not acceptable to me.

I wonder if there's a correlation here with new versions of iOS being released around the same time as new phones? Is it possible that OS optimization takes a back seat to bug fixes during the run up to release then subsequent point releases improve performance?

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