Harvard Study Proves Apple Slows Down Old Iphones to Sell Millions of New Models

(Editor’s note: Snopes made an effort to debunk this article. They claim it is misleading to quote the work of a student as a “Harvard Study,” but we specifically said she did “what any person with Google Trends could do.” The original article was published in 2014, and it is still relevant today. The purpose of this article is to get people questioning the incentives and behavior of powerful corporations.)

If you were Apple, what tricks would you utilize to increase the sales of your latest product?
If you know corporations, you’d know they use any possible trick they can as a generality to increase their profit: think of how huge a factor it would make in the sale of new iPhones if the old ones became slower.

People have made the anecdotal observation that their Apple products become much slower right before the release of a new model.
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Now, a Harvard student’s study has done what any person with Google Trends could do, and pointed out that Google searches for “iPhone slow” spiked multiple times, just before the release of a new iPhone each time.

The study was performed by student Laura Trucco. The study also compared the results to “Samsung Galaxy slow,” and found that the same spike in searches did not occur before the release of a new Samsung phone.

This isn’t the first time the theory has been put forth. Surprisingly a New York Times writer suggested Apple might configure its new operating systems to only really work properly on new devices.

Writer Catherine Rampell said:

When major innovations remain out of reach, and degrading durability threatens to tick off loyal customers, companies like Apple can still take a cue from the fashion industry.

The public has to get wise to the way corporations generally operate. They hire efficiency experts and people who can maximize the profit made from any product they produce. Not every corporation is the same, but the inherent incentive must be understood, or people will continuously be played by the corporations.

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