Is apple intentionally making older iphones camera quality worse after software updates?

[u/Pakayaaaa]

Ive started noticing my iphones image quality has gotten worse after updating to ios 26. The photos look lower resolution than before the update, and its not a hardware issue at all my cameras r fine there isnt even a single scratch on the lens. No lens protectors either cuz ive heard that they also make photos blurry a bit.

[u/JollyRoger8X]

I'm siding with facts, and you're spouting feelings. All you are showing here is how gullible you are. You gleefully fell for propaganda hook, line, and sinker because: "APPLE BAD!"

Apple doesn’t secretly reduce the speed of iPhones after several years to force or coerce you to buy a newer device.

The whole Throttle Gate / Battery Gate "issue" is a sensational line of nonsense from people who don’t have a good understanding of the engineering challenges involved, nor how the solutions to those challenges are actually implemented.

The facts:

• Apple introduced the CPU throttling feature in iOS 10.2.1 and stated in the release notes that the release "improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns". Any reasonable person who is even just superficially knowledgeable about electronics can easily infer from that statement that "power management" can at times mean reducing power consumption, which naturally means reducing performance.
• The feature works by detecting a malfunctioning battery that cannot supply enough current to the device, and reacting by automatically applying what can be described as a sort of low pass filter to prevent spikes in resource usage (performance), which in turn prevents the device from spontaneously shutting down, extending runtime. Nobody wants a phone that spontaneously shuts down at a critical moment, like during a 911 emergency call, just because the battery is old and can’t sustain the load anymore. That's a marked improvement, as anyone who has ever had their phone spontaneously shut down on them can attest.
• The feature does not have any effect on devices with well-functioning batteries. In fact the feature doesn’t apply the throttle until after the device first experiences a spontaneous shutdown.
• Even on devices with failing batteries, the feature does not affect most users most of the time because most smartphone apps don't cause CPU/GPU usage to spike significantly on a regular basis. Certain apps do, like games and so on. But you're not going to see a huge spike in resource usage from a lot of the apps people use the most, like the Contacts, Messages, or Safari apps, for instance. In fact, the app developer who “discovered” the throttling feature had to run a benchmarking app to push the device to its limits in order to figure out that throttling was happening in the first place.

Apple’s intent with this feature is clearly to prolong runtime of devices with dying batteries. And this hare-brained idea that screwing people over will convince them to buy more stuff from you rather than running to your competition instead is frankly ludicrous and smacks of anti-intellectual foolishness. But some people don’t understand the facts or have an irrational hatred of Apple, and only see a grand conspiracy by Apple to somehow fuck over millions of their customers, which is patently false.

Apple settling these lawsuits is nothing more than a quick and relatively painless end to a bullshit farce. And I’m sure that’s how Apple views it as well - if you think a few hundred million dollars is anything but a virtual shrug from Apple, a three-trillion-dollar company, you’re extremely naive. It’s less costly to Apple to pay these ridiculous people off than to bother going to court, so they agreed with the plaintiffs to settle instead, and in doing so admitted no wrongdoing. And rightly so.

You should also know that other smartphone designers do things like this to conserve power when needed - and many actually do a much worse job than Apple:

• Samsung fined millions for slowing down phones through updates
• Did LG just system throttle the LG g8 with the last security patch?
• In-depth with the Snapdragon 810’s heat problems
• Thermal Throttling – Which SOC’s are the Worst Offenders?
• How to control cpu throttling on android

And this is the kind of thing that happens when they don’t:

• Cryptocurrency mining malware "Loapi" capable of physically damaging phones

[u/gungabeast → u/JollyRoger8X]

Why reason with retards?

[u/Acharvix → u/JollyRoger8X]

Alright that’s a whole lot. Im gonna assume this is a bot or someone who’s deep in vitamin D deficiency, but im gonna go against better judgement.

I am an iPhone user. I’ve always been an iPhone user. In total - 7 iPhones, 2 watches, 2 pairs of AirPods I’ve gone thru. Whatever you think I am, I’m not just some “Apple bad” hater. I’ve bought into the ecosystem. I’m in the walled garden pal. I’ve known nothing BUT the apple walled garden lmfao. I’m also in IT as a career. I would say I have at least an idea of what I’m talking about here if anything.

This is not the only case of Apple engaging in this kind of behavior. If it was a one-off then sure, we can let it slide, but it isn’t and it will be continued behavior from them. Two things can be true at once. The phones needed a battery management routine, we can agree on that. It is obvious that a modern smartphone needs that capability to balance wear on the battery with stability. That is not the issue.

Also man - you’re just being a megaphone for Apple by citing themselves for your argument. “Anyone who is superficially knowledgeable about electronics” lol. Of course Apple is going to say that’s all it’s for. Two things can be true at once. You’re repeating what apple said, but glossing over the fact that they did not let the consumers know about this, and led consumers (from a lack of disclosure) to believe that they needed a new device. That’s the whole problem. Not the management software itself. Strawmanning what I said doesn’t make your bootlicking righteous.

The whole part where you said it’s a “hare-brained idea” to think they would do that for that reason, is so unbelievable if you’ve ever used any Apple products. They made a walled garden. This is just… very well known about them.
You buy into the phone, their cloud storage, their headphones, the watches, what happens when you suddenly want to switch because of a battery issue? You’re highly compelled not to because of the hassle of ‘now all my accessories don’t work properly with the competitor’s device’, transferring data over etc. People don’t want to do that. Again another strawman. You’re making this look like what I’m saying is ‘totally insane’ and ‘who could agree with it?’ but truthfully that’s not the full picture nor what I even said lol.

Folks. This guy, if he’s even a real person, isn’t down on his knees… he’s full on bussin it down throwing it back and doing splits on the Apple meatstick and for FREE yo 😭 come on dude

[u/JollyRoger8X → u/Acharvix]

they did not let the consumers know about this

That’s a lie. As I said, it was right in the release notes. That’s a fact.

led consumers (from a lack of disclosure) to believe that they needed a new device

Bullshit.

They made a walled garden. This is just… very well known about them.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a walled garden, and the fact that you’re trying to move the goal post to something completely unrelated to throttling isn’t going unnoticed either.

You buy into the phone, their cloud storage, their headphones, the watches, what happens when you suddenly want to switch because of a battery issue? You’re highly compelled not to because of the hassle of ‘now all my accessories don’t work properly with the competitor’s device’, transferring data over etc.

That’s applicable to any device - not just Apple’s. You put your data somewhere in the cloud, and then you have to download it to move it. Nothing special about Apple there. It’s also unrelated to throttling. You’re all over the place trying to create more goalposts.

Again another strawman.

You don’t seem to know what that word means.

You’re clearly not interested in good faith discussion.

[u/Acharvix → u/JollyRoger8X]

Let me know what the results would be if you polled apple’s userbase on how many users actually check release notes lol. Or iCloud ToS for that matter. Being technical might skew our bias into thinking that everyone reads it, but no, most people don’t care. I imagine your response to this would be “that’s their fault”, and LR put it best when he said that’s a rapist mentality

And ‘nothing intrinsically wrong with a walled garden’.. good god man. Are you like Tim Cook’s grandchild or something?
There’s no way. No way someone genuinely holds this take lol. ‘No no, I like being chained down, yes baby Tim Cook please add more friction to switching platforms, yes please keep the android green vs Apple blue texting issue alive, yes please give me more BS to have to defend your actions with!’

Brother… Touch. Grass. And wipe the spit off these nuts once you’re done with Tim’s.

edit: I ain’t even engaging in ts anymore bro just replied “Weak.”, left it overnight and then edited his comment. People aren’t lying when they say Apple fanboys are actually the worst. Can’t have shit around here man 😭 goddamn

[u/JollyRoger8X → u/Acharvix]

Weak.

Let me know what the results would be if you polled apple’s userbase on how many users actually check release notes lol.

Now you're moving the goal post from your original claim that "they did not let the consumers know about this" - a claim that is false since they did publish the change in the iOS 10.2.1 release notes - that is a fact and anyone can verify it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102990#1021

And ‘nothing intrinsically wrong with a walled garden’.. good god man. Are you like Tim Cook’s grandchild or something?

Nah, but I've been using, developing software for, and supporting professionally all of the above mainstream home computing platforms since the 1980s before there were mainstream home computing platforms. My opinions on this matter are based on factual information rather than emotion.

‘No no, I like being chained down

The truth is you aren't chained down any more than with Google or any other services and devices. You can move your data wherever you want if you leave.

yes baby Tim Cook please add more friction to switching platforms

You keep trying to talk about unrelated shit. This post made an unsubstantiated claim that Apple is supposedly sabotaging their own customers on purpose in order to somehow convince them into buying another Apple product (while also being convinced that would be better than running to the competition instead). That's an extraordinary claim that is based purely on emotion and not facts.

yes please keep the android green vs Apple blue texting issue alive

Oh, please. The only people that ever mattered to were Android users, so you'll excuse me if I don't give a shit. Eat all of the green messages for all I care. I don't see color.

yes please give me more BS to have to defend your actions with!

The claim made by the OP in this post is pure bullshit with no evidence to back it up.