Yes. Linux does it too. Every single computer company pushes recommended updates directly to users without a warning, and then makes it as impossible as they can to downgrade back to what they had due to DRM-style software locks. I mean, Linux may not actually have any such locks, but hell, just yesterday, Linus Torvalds himself came to my house and said if I tried to downgrade Gnome 2 back to Gnome 1, he would personally send Richard Stallman and a couple of goons to beat up my pet animals. Save your cute pet animals! Buy Apple. They only use software locks to prevent you from taking back with their upgrade decisions Ã" NOT ANIMAL ABUSE.

You did. You totally got me there. You successfully managed to fend off any suspicion that Apple is trying to cynically manipulate users into spending more, by pointing out that nobody has to install their surprise-slow updates. Instead, people could just not trust Apple and check the internet to see what update critics are saying. And that conclusively proves that Apple's motives are not questionable here. QED! BTW I have noticed that you are really smart, with your 'hyperboles' and your 'gotchas'. Do you have a blog or something?

Yes I agree, it's the Overarching Monolithic Network that simultaneously sets everybody's speed across the world for doing anything. Blame The Network. Not Apple. P.S. It's taking forever for me to open this PowerPoint document. Did somebody break The Network again??

You're right. Users always have the option of just not trusting Apple at all and doing hours of their own research before going ahead with Apple's recommended updates that cannot easily be reversed at all. I clearly see your logic now. Apple is not at fault BECAUSE they CAN'T be trusted. Users should be able to figure out for themselves that the widely touted most user friendly computer company in the world cannot actually be trusted with a single update. Then they would understand why Apple is superior.

Yes, I agree. Apple obviously did the only thing it could do when it slowed everybody devices down by pushing more updates than they can handle. This helped them delay complaints from users about not getting upgrades for about a year, until finally there is an update that won't run at all. Pushing all our old phones to the brink of unuseability to delay inevitable complaints by about a year is just Apple's way of keeping its userbase happy, and has nothing to do with forcing people to buy new phones, which Apple isn't interested in AT ALL.

I have been falling all over myself with gratitude for Apple's better support, ever since I updated my iPhone 3G to iOS4. I was so impressed that it was the last Apple product I ever bought. I still have it today... somewhere. I'm so glad that completely user friendly fuck-ups granted themselves as much total control over my hardware as they could technologically muster. That's what USER FRIENDLY means duh

Why would Apple let you DOWNgrade your phone? Apple always knows best. To allow a DOWNgrade would be to question that.

Thankfully for us, in the new improved version, even if your device isn't obsolescing as planned, Apple can send it a command to do so whenever it wants, in the form of a software update. This is right and good because Apple knows whats best for us, and if you end up trapped into a very-difficult-to-reverse update you shouldn't have had, then it's buyer beware. Which has always been the case, right? So nobody should complain when Apple decides their devices have had enough and its time to spend more money. People trying to make old hardware still hunt are just pathetic and just don't understand Capitalism which says companies are just evil by nature and therefore not at fault for anything.

Apple makes friendly human products, so I too, judge their products' performance as if they were people, with no reference whatsoever to the design of the underlying hardware. And as everybody who has studied human psychology knows, the hardest thing for a computer to use is locate the correct file. Therefore those old phones are probably just searching harder and harder just to find their own files on their drives. This is enough to explain everything: no need to fault Apple for this!

That's correct. The explanation is very simple, and it means Apple cannot be blamed for pushing code that requires too many cycles for your device. Even if Apple's update system tried to push OS X Mavericks onto a PowerBook 100, thereby completely bricking it, it would not be Apple's fault, because the simple explanation is, Mavericks is just new code that takes more cycles duh, and as every Apple user knows, the simple explanation that exonerates Apple is always the correct one.

Of course, they could always just toggle the feature of LOADing incompatible feature code into memory in the first place, but that it too complicated for Apple. With Apple, your device Just Works... until the day that Apple decides for you that won't work as well anymore. Don't complain about your slow old phones, OK? That is a conspiracy theory. Anything that does not conclude Apple is totally in the ethical clear for updating old phones into obsolescence, is clearly a Conspiracy Theorist.

Get Greenify. Permanently hibernate every damn thing you aren't planning to use within the next hour. Android's 'any installed app can run in the background whenever it wants' regime is strictly for amateurs. Drove me absolutely insane until I found Greenify. Let this post not be seen as any kind of Google endorsement. Clearly Google is just trying to spy on us all with this system of near-unkillable apps. Unlike Apple, which would never do anything as evil as what Google does. That's why when there are holes in Apple's security, they aren't 'backdoors', because everyone trusts Apple, so if only Apple has access to your porn collection, then it automatically isn't a 'back door' because Apple can be automatically trusted. QED.

You're right. Supporting older devices is more difficult. Good thing Apple has my best interests at heart; it is that special quality of Apple, which is not like other OS companies, that allows it to make a half-assed attempt at such a difficult job and ship the update to me, regardless. That's precisely the kind of move that won Apple my heart.

I do in fact have a most laudable bulk -- thank you for noticing. This page is the first time I have visited Slashdot in many years, and I am very encouraging by how everyone seems to instantly grok my posts. I heard the commenting community had degenerated here, but obviously I was misinformed...

And they still do! And you can put your complete trust in them, EXCEPT for allowing them to put anything new on your computer without at least a 4-hour session of Googling for advice from total strangers. This is how I defend Apple because everyone should know that Apple is not like other companies. They have your best interests at heart.