Apple got caught artificially degrading performance and battery life after a period of time. That really isn't "planned obsolescence" so much as irt is "planned crippling"
Planning for a device's software to be unsupported after a certain period of time, ideally a predefined time made clear up front, is totally reasonable though. Thatjust gets to the question of whether you own a functional phone or a block of hardware that is useful only as long as the company wants it to be.
That is not correct. Apple got caught degrading performance because the batteries were degrading.
This was when Apple was so focused on thinness that they used very small batteries. After a couple of years the batteries were not able to supply enough power to the SOC under full load, so Apple had to underclock the SOC to prevent the phones from crashing.
*I'm not saying that was OK. Apple absolutely should have explained what they were doing instead of hiding it. But after this happened it did force them to install bigger batteries in the newer iPhones.
Did apple ever actually release details on specifically what they were seeing and how underclocking "fixed" it?
Lithium cells can have increased voltage sag, but they should have well over 1000 cycles before any noticeable decrease in capacity of voltage potential. Even then the total capacity might drop on the order of 5-15% and the voltage say shouldn't be impacted.
Planning for a device's software to be unsupported after a certain period of time, ideally a predefined time made clear up front, is totally reasonable though. Thatjust gets to the question of whether you own a functional phone or a block of hardware that is useful only as long as the company wants it to be.