Apple throttled devices that had a weak battery, because the alternative is the CPU trying to draw more power than the battery can deliver, the voltage sagging, and the phone rebooting.
By itself, this throttling is a good thing and keeps phones usable for longer, because a phone that is slow is better than a phone that randomly reboots.
The problematic part was that they a) didn't disclose it, and b) did this for phones within the warranty period, so instead of the phone visibly crashing and you returning the obviously broken phone, it just lost performance which you might not have noticed in time to get a free replacement.
The Nexus 6P had the same issue with random shutdowns, and although Google refused to do anything about it some users on XDA developed a patch that disabled all the performance cores completely.
> XDA user XCnathan32, along with assistance from two other users, created the fix and put it up for anyone to give it a whirl. Without getting too technical, the fix shuts down all four of the Nexus 6P octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor’s performance cores that seemingly prevent the phone from properly booting
Funny how no one really complained about the random reboots but everyone noticed throttling and assumed their phone was "too old" and they needed to buy a new one. Interesting how this move greatly benefited apples bottom line versus improving actual quality of life for the user considering a reboot is 30 seconds perhaps and a slow phone is slow for every second you use it.
> Funny how no one really complained about the random reboots
People definitely complained about the random reboots, especially on the Nexus 6P, since that phone wouldn't boot again until after it was connected a charger plugged into a power outlet.
Heaven forbid you had a medical emergency away from a power outlet with a phone that unreliable.
OK but if an iphone reboots randomly it just restarts. They still reboot randomly to this date or at least mine does with presumably the modern throttle patch. It is a non issue because you are back in action in 30 seconds or so.
By itself, this throttling is a good thing and keeps phones usable for longer, because a phone that is slow is better than a phone that randomly reboots.
The problematic part was that they a) didn't disclose it, and b) did this for phones within the warranty period, so instead of the phone visibly crashing and you returning the obviously broken phone, it just lost performance which you might not have noticed in time to get a free replacement.