Apple slows down older iPhone handsets as their batteries age to prevent unexpected shutdowns. The company hadn’t disclosed this when it first started doing it, and faced much outrage when it was discovered. It then apologised, offered reduced price battery replacements, and gave users control of this so-called Performance Management feature.
Now, a report claims that in part due to the lawsuit Apple lost in France over iPhone slowdowns, the company appears to be disabling Performance Management on older iPhone models if the device’s region is set to the country, making them run smoother and faster.
According to the report by MyDrivers (in Chinese), users of older iPhone models, such as the iPhone 7, were reporting increased performance after changing the region to France.
The publication was also able to replicate a jump in AnTuTu benchmark performance on their iPhone 7 model, which had degraded battery health (81 percent). It is not certain however if that’s all that changes when the device’s region is changed.