Apple To Give iPhone Users Option To Turn Off ‘Feature’ That Slows Older Devices

Apple has announced that a new update later this year will allow the users of older models of iPhones to turn off the ‘feature’… it introduced in December that slows them down when their batteries become old. 

The new option will become available in next update to iOS 11. “If you don’t want it, you can turn it off”, Apple CEO, Tim Cook told ABC News in an interview. Cook also said however, that Apple “don’t recommend” its users disable the deliberate slowdown.

When is a feature not a feature?

“We’re going to give people the visibility of the health of their battery, so it’s very, very transparent. This hasn’t been done before…We will tell somebody we’re slightly reducing your performance by some amount in order to not have an unexpected restart and if you don’t want it, you can turn it off. Now we don’t recommend it because we think people’s iPhones are really important to them and you never can tell when something is so urgent.”

Apple found itself at the center of a ‘controversy bomb’ in December when news emerged that the company had been deliberately limiting the performance of some older models of iPhone when the operating system found signs of age related degradation.

News that Apple deliberately limited the performance of some older models of iPhone, did not please users.

A feature? Hmm, right…

That’s a fair point. The December update (and now referred to as a ‘feature,’) was supposed to counter the increasing issue Apple had with its older phones shutting down randomly when the batteries began to age and degrade. The company was met with a veritable storm of fury however by the media, the internet at large, and most notable by iPhone users with many complaining it was all part of a ploy by Apple to force its users to upgrade.

All apologies

Apple released an open letter in December after the hail of negative press explaining that the updates could have been better signposted, and promised a number of changes, including the upcoming software update and a significant reduction in price of the company’s battery exchange program.

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