In 2020, Apple released the best iPhone they had in years: the iPhone 12 mini. Everyone who tested it loved it, many preferring it to large devices. Women, with smaller hands and pockets, were overjoyed to finally have a phone that actually fits into their lives. Even men were happy to have something that could fit in a pocket better and operate with one-handed use.
However, Apple did next to no advertising for it. Many people thought it was like the iPhone SE, an iPhone with lesser stats than the other iPhones. And it wasn’t a “pro” model iPhone, so it was missing a lens and some processing power, but plenty of people bought the iPhone 12, with the same limitations, thinking it was more than size that differentiated the devices.
That’s because, for decades, Apple differentiated device capabilities based on size. You couldn’t get a MacBook Pro in the 13-inch size for years, and when you finally could, it was basically a slightly thicker MacBook Air with a few more ports. It’s not comparable to the larger MacBook Pro. The best iPhone never came in its smallest size either, despite handheld devices being best when they can be, you know, hand held.
Apple did nothing to change the perception of this device, in a time when people couldn’t even get to an Apple store to try it out due to the pandemic. Likely because, while it was less expensive, it still used the same parts of the larger model, making it less profitable for Apple. People will pay hundreds of dollars more for a larger device that costs Apple a few fractions of a cent more to make, and Apple didn’t want to change that.
The iPhone 13 mini would be the last upgrade the best iPhone would get. The iPhone made to actually be used comfortably would die with the iPhone 13 mini. I went from buying a new iPhone every year (a wasteful habit I’m glad to be rid of) to never upgrading again. I did buy another iPhone 13 mini, but only to ensure I had a device that could last me at least another two years.
But Apple doesn’t seem to want that.
My iPhone 13 mini is slower than ever, and it’s because Apple keeps forcing new features and hidden processes you can’t turn off that make the device an annoyance. You may feel compelled to upgrade to be rid of these slower processes. It’s taken me years to admit it, but I believe this is an anti-consumer process that isn’t addressed specifically to drive updates.
With Apple’s AI coming in iOS 18, this may get worse than ever this year.
In This Article:
Forcing New Purchases
Let’s say you buy a car in the early 90’s. You commute to your job, you just need something usable. You buy a small car. Maybe it’s a convertible Geo Metro? It’s fuel efficient, fun to put the roof down on a warm day, and it is small enough to fit into tight parking spaces in town. You keep it in good shape, you’re still getting over 40mpg in it, and you love the little guy. But one day, a (fictional) GM representative comes to your town, offering to subsidize the building of a new highway. The roads you took to work before are no longer ones you can travel, they’ve been closed down and replaced with a super highway and 75mph speed limit. Your poor Metro can’t even do 70! You decide that, after decades, you’ll buy a new car. Of course, “Fictional GM” will only sell you huge SUVs, because they are basically just tall cars, ready to roll over, but they can charge far more for them. You get 30mpg now. You can’t park anywhere. But you can do 85mph on the highway.
Now, what if this hypothetical version of GM came in to build that highway specifically to drum up sales of new cars? It wouldn’t be anything new for American car manufacturers, it’s how we got from having reliable rail travel all over the country and handy streetcars in towns to having nothing but highways, stroads, and hundreds of thousands of vehicular deaths and life-altering injuries every few years. It’s wasteful, worse for consumers, but profitable. Car manufacturers wouldn’t be able to push their new vehicles on you if you still had the options of back roads, streetcars, or trains, so they push officials to pave over all of that. Replace green spaces and small stores with parking lots for all those large SUVs. You hate it, but it becomes so ingrained into life, marketing, and your idea of success, that you never escape it. You just complain about car insurance pricing and gas prices not realizing that you’re trapped in a cycle made by a company forcing you to participate.
Planned Obsolescence Through Updates
So, let’s say you’re Apple and you want people buying your new, more profitable devices. They’re bigger, cost an insignificant amount more to produce, but you can charge far more for them. People think they’re getting more. They need a large device because… it’s good! You can see… more? Nevermind that a small iPhone held at arm distance is the size of a 50-inch TV, it’s too small!
Apple can’t really force you to update. After all, one of their strong selling points is that they continue to update old devices 5 years or more after release. So, hypothetically, if you were a corporation and cared only about profit, how would you get people to update?
You make sure the upgrades they’re forced to download slow their device down.
Hypothetically. No one’s saying that’s actually what Apple’s doing. I’m just considering a hypothetical situation while dodging any potential takedown requests or lawsuits… hopefully.
For example, let’s say you have some new photo processing features. Every time someone takes a photo, it’ll go through a lengthy process to make it “better.” This will happen automatically every time a person takes a photo. You build a new processor that can handle this specific calculation with blazing fast speed. Other devices will have software-based workarounds and it’ll take longer. The older the device, the longer it’ll take. When a person with an older device could once take a photo and immediately open and edit it, now they get loading screens. When they could send a video to someone immediately after taking it, now it takes minutes to “process.” Trying to take a photo and quickly edit it? They’ll see a loading screen for a few seconds where it used to be instant. That’ll drive them to upgrade, if it was happening.
But no one’s seen something like that, right?
I have.
The photos issue is the place it’s clearest, but many things, from sending photos and videos, navigating the app, closing out apps, unlocking the phone, all takes a little longer with my iPhone 13 mini than it did when I first got it. And you could say that devices age, but this iPhone 13 mini is less than a year old. I bought this new less than a year ago. It’s not running with damage or a reduced battery capacity, or garbage data filling the drive. It’s practically new, just an older design.
People rarely buy a new version of their exact same device years after it has been released. Normally they’d buy something newer, so they wouldn’t notice this. But I bought an older device and found its performance still was slower than I’d expect. I was the rare case where there might not be another explanation for the slow-downs.
What happened? New features. Apple says they don’t purposefully slow down devices, but if that’s the case, why can’t I turn off their photo processing? Why can’t I choose to keep more unprocessed raw photos? Why can’t I turn off the features slowing down my device? Why does it do tagging and labeling immediately for photos instead of in the background when I’m not trying to interact with them? It seems like Apple has prioritized their fastest devices, with features that slow down older devices, and made no considerations for performance.
On the surface, that wouldn’t be a problem. If they had no choice, it would be fine. But they don’t optimize their software for older devices, and that is likely an intentional decision. It would cost them the potential updates, and they’d be spending some small amount of development time optimizing for devices they likely don’t even want you using anymore. It’s effort on Apple’s part for, what, reduced profit? That doesn’t sound like a good deal for them. Great for consumers, less so for the company making money from them.
With zero incentive to do the right thing, and a financial incentive to ignore these issues, why bother?
Hypothetically, of course. Apple would likely not take kindly to accusations, which I, of course, would never make. We’re just talking about possibilities here!
The Intel Mac Problem
Control is a visual masterpiece. Thanks to an eGPU and Boot Camp, I can play it on my Mac. Even Apple’s newest MacBook Pro models may not be able to do this.
My Mac is 5 years old. It’s a 2019 MacBook Pro. It’s a beast though. 64GB of memory, Intel Core i9 processor, and an eGPU. The GPU in it is a bit dated, admittedly, an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT with 8GB of dedicated memory. Still, it was more powerful than anything Apple could fit into a Mac for many years, because Apple got rid of the ability to use an eGPU. It has allowed my 5-year-old Mac to remain relevant for years, despite its aging GPU and older hardware. Apple’s chips could be capable of using an eGPU, but why support a feature that could lead to people keeping their machine longer when you can sell something that will make them update more frequently? Why get companies to work on drivers and put together a system that would just reduce the frequency of upgrade purchases from users?
Apple has a unique problem with the Intel switch and holdouts. The truth is, thanks to our eGPUs and Apple’s own chips not improving much between generations since the M1, they haven’t been able to make features that operate poorly on Intel Macs. The newest Macs are definitely faster, but not so much to make these old machines feel dated. My work computer is an M2 Pro MacBook Pro, and it’s not that much faster than my personal MacBook Pro. Not so much that I am frustrated when I switch back to my personal machine, anyway. Instead, they’ve withheld some more “advanced” features that they simply never compiled for the Intel Mac. However, this has lead to an interesting problem. When my previous MacBook Pro was around 8 years old, it felt ancient. I had been suffering through its poor performance for years and simply didn’t have the money to upgrade until about 2018. Even then, these things are expensive. I knew I’d need another 8 year investment, and I got that, a maxxed-out Mac with an eGPU.
Apple’s not pushing new features onto Intel Macs. And, while demands for performance have increased, my machine is more than capable of keeping up, largely due to the control I had over customizing its specs and adding an eGPU.
The next version of macOS will have a tighter integration with iOS, allowing you to mirror your screen and even your notifications onto your Mac. It will even allow these features on Intel Macs. It feels like a trap. It feels like perhaps it’ll slow down my machine to use the feature and I’ll be pushed into a new Mac. However, we can at least dodge all the AI features, right?
Is Apple Using Planned Obsolescence?
I can’t say for sure. The only way I’d know if I was a developer or product manager at Apple and then? Well, then I wouldn’t tell you. I know, it might be hard to hear, but I need a paycheck, and if I worked at Apple, I wouldn’t say a damn thing about Apple news, products, reviews, anything. This site would change a bit, but I’ve been distancing myself from Apple-specific tech news for some time anyway. The truth is, the only people who could say are in the same spot. They need a paycheck and can’t afford to be blackballed by the industry, so they keep their mouths shut.
But wow, does it feel like Apple’s sabotaging my iPhone. It has gotten slower and more frustrating to use to the point that I’ve actually considered getting an iPhone 16 Pro when it comes out, despite the fact that it will likely so large I’ll just hate it for a different reason. I remember there were times I’d fumble my huge iPhone 11 and think, “Just let the damn thing fall, who cares?” I hated it so much, and I hadn’t even used an iPhone in a reasonable size for years at that point. Going back to that after I knew the greatness of an iPhone 13 mini would be awful. I’d buy an iPhone 16 Pro mini in a heartbeat, of course, it would be my perfect device, but I think Apple knows that. I think they know that the perfect device stays in your hand too long.
Maybe that’s why they stopped making them, and started forcing updates that slow devices down in exchange for features and security you do want or need.
Hypothetically.