A startling new study by a grad student at Harvard has led to the revelation that Apple may be intentionally slowing down old iPhone models to encourage users to purchase new ones. The study by Laura Trucco showed a spike in Google searches for “iPhone going slow” just before launches of new models. The study at Harvard University compared results between “iPhone going slow” to Samsung “Galaxy going slow”. The research found that the search term was unaffected by new releases of similar Samsung Smartphone products.
1Apple is indulging in planned obsolescence
Advertisement
The revealing study has sparked suggestions that Apple is indulging in planned obsolescence by slowing down their services integrated with iPhones to compel users to purchase new models. According to theory, manufacturers integrate a stipulated lifetime to a certain product and there may come a point in time that the software will stop working which then forces a user to purchase a new phone. The new study is reinforcing suspicions that Apple does indulge in such practices which encourages users to buy the latest releases. The study analyzed search metrics in Google for the term iPhone slow and found that search spiked just before a new iPhone was about to be released or launched. When it compared the results with Samsung for terms like “Samsung Galaxy going slow”, they found it was not the case.
Image Source: www.dailymail.co.uk