How Apple updates slow your old iPhone down, pushing you towards a new iPhone.

[fredlaso]

Ever wonder why your iPhone seems to slow down after a few years? Why the once-amazing device gets cranky and struggles to perform basic tasks or load apps?

The answer lies in Apple's software, and it's a key part of the company's strategy to keep millions of people buying new iPhones.

Apple releases a new mobile operating system every year, and that keeps a powerful cycle in motion. Each fall for the last few years, people have rushed to download the latest and greatest version of iOS, which is designed for -- and, as a result, works best on -- the newest hardware that is also released around the same time. In the months leading up to the release, many app developers furiously update their apps for the latest operating system.

Here's how that affects you: If you have an iPhone that's more than two years old, and as Apple recommends, you've upgraded the operating system a couple of times since you bought it, you may find yourself wanting to throw your phone against a wall. It's likely gotten slow and finicky.

For many, the solution is simply to buy a new iPhone.

It's highly unlikely Apple deliberately slows down older iPhones just to get you to upgrade. The company declined to comment for this story. Instead, Apple designs the new operating systems, which have more features, take up more space and require more computing power, for the new iPhones. And a consequence of that is they don't work as well on older iPhones.

The system has been pretty successful for Apple. iPhone owners in the U.S. tend to shell out big bucks for a new iPhone about every two years (which, not coincidentally, is also the length of the traditional wireless contract.)

But with its latest update to iOS 8, Apple hit a few bumps.

Last month, the company made the rare move of pulling an update to the operating system after some people reported it left their phones unable to make calls and their fingerprint sensors useless. Although Apple said the bugs only affected a small number of people, and the company soon released a fix, the episode led to a spate of bad publicity. That, along with the whopping five gigabytes of precious storage space needed to download the update wirelessly, seems to have made people shy away from downloading the new OS en masse. Apple fans are adopting the new operating systemmuch more slowly than they adopted iOS 7, the previous version.

Still, a huge number of people rushed to download iOS 8 in the first few days it was available.

Justen Meyer, a 33 year-old who works in the pro sports industry in St. Louis, was one of those people. He regrets updating his iPhone 4S, which he says is now "slow."

"It's horrible. My apps don't work. Twitter won't open," he said in an interview recently.

Before the update, his phone was "perfect," he said. "I was completely happy. Now it's making me wonder if I'm going to go through this the next time I get a new phone."

Meyer isn't alone. People complaining about their iPhones feeling slow after new iPhones and operating systems come out is nothing new. Catherine Rampell wrote in The New York Times last year that her iPhone 4 felt "a lot more sluggish" after the 5S and 5C were released. Sendhil Mullainathan, a professor of economics at Harvard, noted in another Times story this summer that Google searches in the U.S. for "iPhone Slow" spike when each new iPhone is released.

Part of that could be because so many people download the new operating system at the same time, iMore Editor-in-Chief Rene Ritchie pointed out earlier this year. Apple releases its new OS to everyone at the same time, while Android updates hit different phones at different times. (This is one of the reasons why Android's operating system is so fragmented -- only a quarter of Android owners are on the latest version of the operating system.)

[OrbingStorm]

Yes my iPhone 4 is soo slow to react and load apps now so I will upgrade soon but they are just so damned expensive and the telcos want $80 a month on a plan here if you want one from them.

[CODYQX4]

Yes my iPhone 4 is soo slow to react and load apps now so I will upgrade soon but they are just so damned expensive and the telcos want $80 a month on a plan here if you want one from them.

You guys are crying conspiracy because your old iPhone runs slow, seriously? Not you personally, OrbingStorm, because you didn't blame Apple for the slowness, but I've heard many say Apple was forcing their iPhone 4 (4 Years Old) to be slow.

You do realize you've served your contract (unless you live in a country with no contracts) TWICE over, right?

If you sell your old iPhone it helps pay for the new one, but nobody is going to want an iPhone 4, it is too old.

At least Apple supported the phone that long, some Android phones due to OEMs and Carriers molesting them, don't even get a year of updates.

[rudrax]

Rotten apples :rofl:

[Rok]

Why blame Apple ? At least, they gives OS updates to as old as iPhone 4. Just see, the Android and Windows Phones, they "hardly" gets a single update.

[CODYQX4]

Why blame Apple ? At least, they gives OS updates to as old as iPhone 4. Just see, the Android and Windows Phones, they "hardly" gets a single update.

Yeah, last I remember WP7, even recently made ones, couldn't get WP8, and Android support/fragmentation due to OEM/Cell Carrier tampering is a world of pain and suffering so bad, it makes Windows Desktop OS look like heaven.

These devices, expensive or not, really weren't meant to be held on to for longer than 2 years.

[ronkanon]

IPhone......(almost) everyone wants one but (almost) nobody needs one.

Many complain that the older versions are getting slower and still they buy a new one.How stupid can you be?

If i wasn't satisfied of my car then my next car is another brand.

Do you realy want to pay hundreds of dollars for a product (made in china in terrible conditions) that's worth 50 buck's?

That's a very expensive logo!

And no i don't work at Samsung.

I haven't got a smartphone but an old Nokia cellphone which i use rarely.

I believe in eye contact and real conversations.

Apple is marketing (making you believe you need it,but you don't).

P.S. : If i ever get an IPhone as a gift,i hope it's an IPhone 6 Plus....... so my glass of beer doesn't fall of that easily.

P.S. 2 : For those who are thinking of giving this ahum...qualityproduct a nickname......how about Bender (Futurama).

[OrbingStorm]

I would of gladly updated my iPhone 2 years ago but they are around $900 a phone here for the "cheap"one.And if I get a different brand all those apps and tunes I've got wont be compatible.

[dcs18]

My Samsung upgrade has followed the opposite direction from slow to fast - Samsung ships, pre-installed with the worst bloatware imaginable. It also receives OTA updates quite late compared to other hardware - in fact, too late.)

However, upgrading to a Custom ROM turns it into a blazing modular little piece of awesome sh!t that can be hacked per your personal preference with a plethora of the usual 3rd party support that you see for androids.