[roc]

Who in the world would run right out and buy a new iPhone if their last one became unusable in one year?

People switch to the iPhone because of their longer usable life compared to the competition. People pay more for old iPhones compared to the competition because of their longer usable life. Not only is it not in Apple's interest to make self-destructing phones, to even accuse them of that requires ignoring the entire history of iPhone adoption and resale value.

Further, there is no "one year" for batteries. Batteries with more charge cycles degrade faster. Batteries that push peak performance more often degrade faster. Batteries that spend time in extreme heat and cold degrade faster. Because of this, a simple anecdote of "throttling after a year" means even less than usual.

No-one has data on how much throttling is going on, but Apple. The best proxy we have is the aggregate purchasing decisions of people who had iPhones, and the prices of used iPhones. And people with iPhones overwhelmingly keep buying iPhones. And the prices of used iPhones aren't going anywhere. This "Apple makes self-destructing phones" theory needs a rest.

[leerob]

> Who in the world would run right out and buy a new iPhone if their last one became unusable in one year?

A lot of people? I'm sure there are tons of people who do this where cost isn't an issue.

[roc]

Let's assume some measurable number of people might do this, purely for arguments sake. Why does the resale value of old iPhones not reflect these devices being "unusable?"