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New software may burn out older iPhones

It recognizes your face, you can use manipulate animojis, and it's shiny.

It recognizes your face, you can use manipulate animojis, and it's shiny.

Still, not everyone ran out to buy the new iPhone 10 right away.

But are you maybe thinking about it now?

Have you noticed your iPhone 6 or 7 suddenly slowing down, losing battery power faster or locking up on apps?

And, if so, could Apple be doing this to your older phones on purpose?

"What's really happening is the software updates," said Tishin Donkersley.

You may have notices that a new operating system is released near the release date of a new iPhone.

And Donkersely says new software can be tougher for your phone's older hardware to handle.

It's a double-edged sword: App developers are always trying to keep up with the new software, and "the apps will outdate the hardware and they won't work as well," she said.

So your iPhone that's a year or two old gets hit from both directions.

A group called Futuremark verified a phone's overall performance doesn't change much for a while.

The company took 100,000 measurements from seven different iPhone models, with a mix of iOS 9, 10 and 11.

There was very little measurable difference across the board.

Older than iPhone 5S, it essentially becomes useless, according to Donkersley.

"I have a lot of expensive paperweights at home," she said. "Some people think that Apple has some conspiracy theory behind it, that we want you to go purchase the new iPhone, and that's not true."

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