Petteri Pyyny
10 Oct 2017 7:16
It doesn't require much googling to find all sorts of conspiracy theories about Apple intentionally slowing down previous iPhone models shortly after the company has released new models.
According to Google Trends, the search term "iPhone slow" increases dramatically shortly after each new iPhone model is released.
However, developers of 3DMark testing suite have looked at their database of test results and found out that the conspiracy theories don't have truth behind them.
The "slowing down" effect is mostly psychological - users know that there's a new model available that runs faster, has better cameras, etc so the current phone they're using, suddenly feels like an outdated one. Obviously, each new iOS version also adds new features that are best suited for new models, making the old phones *feel* slow when the users start using the newly introduced features, with old hardware.
But Futuremark's findings are clear: neither CPU nor GPU processing power hasn't decreased from iOS9 to iOS11 on any of the models that support those operating system versions.
So, the apps you used two years ago, provided that they haven't gone slower due updates in functionality, run at the exact same speed they did two years ago. Sure, some apps tend to "bloat" over time, as new functionalities are added, but that isn't Apple's fault.