At what point was Apple operating like the first quote here? I've never seen them as a revenue growth chasing business. Sure they print cash, but that doesn't say anything about how they go about earning it. I would like to see some actual proof that Apple works/worked that way, rather than concluding the cause from the outcome.
This is the latest example and they have had previous lawsuits before about intentionally throttling devices which leads to people buying the latest devices.
Their earnings reports depend on volume of iPhone sales, so the incentive exists to push for more.
> I've never seen them as a revenue growth chasing business
Apple is always chasing revenue growth. They're notorious for it. Most businesses are..
Apple throttled devices to prevent devices shutting off unexpectedly when an aging battery couldn't sustain the power draw. And they later added a setting to led users control this.
If this was done out of nefarious reasons, don't you think doing nothing (devices switching off when the battery degrades) would have driven more sales of new devices?
> intentionally throttling devices which leads to people buying the latest devices.
As the battery ages, internal resistance goes up, leading to voltage sags under high CPU usage, which is called "brownout." By lowering the maximum CPU frequency when they detect voltage sagging, Apple prevents the device from crashing or randomly rebooting. The iPhone gets slower, but it keeps working, and replacing the battery restores it to full speed.
It allows you to use an iPhone without replacing the battery significantly longer than you would be able to otherwise. It was customer and environmentally friendly.
At the time I bought this computer - now eight years ago - one of the reasons I bought it was because the battery was a new type that was rated to have 80% or better capacity after 1500 cycles. It exceeded that, by the way, handily.
About the only laptop that could manage similar battery durability would be a Thinkpad, with its min/max battery charging controls.
