Oh I believe your observations reflect your reality. They just don’t align to the reality at large.
I’ve repeatedly stated that I value performance and battery life perhaps more than the average user. If a fully updated device were degraded by 0.05%, I wouldn’t even notice, because it obviously falls within the margin of variability.
Funnily enough, I’ve found that battery life is extremely consistent. Not only is battery life consistent over time regardless of health (which is why I say battery health is irrelevant if the device isn’t updated far enough), but I’ve found that with the same usage, there’s almost no variability.
One example: with my usage, my 9.7-inch iPad Pro gets 2h 40 min of screen-on time from 100% until 80%. This is almost always the same, and I’ve found that the variability on that is negligible (say, with a margin of error of ~ +/- 5 min). It’s the same thing with my iPhone Xʀ. Obviously, heavier usage will alter that, but with the same usage, battery life is extremely consistent. I obviously pay attention to this, and because it was as consistent on iOS 9, I am able to confidently say exactly how much battery life I lost. The variability from 100% to 0% is obviously a little higher than 5 minutes, but with the same usage, I’d say it doesn’t even get to one hour.
A user who does not use a device consistently will obviously not experience this, but should you maintain settings (brightness primarily), and use the same apps, I reckon battery life would be consistent for any device, on any iOS version. This makes it extremely easy to determine battery life loss due to updates.
It’s obviously easier if you don’t track it and therefore don’t know what the difference is, which I reckon is the case for many who deny that iOS updates decrease battery life, including your case. There is absolutely no way that any A12 Bionic iPhone has the same battery life on iOS 17 than iOS 12, but I obviously cannot tell you what the exact degradation is because I haven’t tried an iPhone Xʀ on iOS 17.
Amusingly, I do think that this is a case in which ignorance is bliss: if you keep devices for years and you know you will update as far as it goes, you’re better off never tracking battery life anyway. I’ve repeatedly stated that due to a massive increase in original battery life, updated devices are far more usable than they were (a 13 Pro Max is rated for 28 hours of SOT. Even a 50% obliteration eventually wouldn’t be enough to make it unusable. A 50% reduction - which is even lower than what actually happened - on an iPhone 6s would make it unusable), so while users may obviously notice a 50% reduction, they may say “it’s still usable for me”.
Do note that you’re one of the very few people who inexplicably denies that iOS updates reduce battery life, yet you consistently refuse to share a battery life screenshot of your Xs Max on iOS 17. Not only do you deny the undeniable, but I also think that deep down you know your Xs Max isn’t as good as it was on iOS 12. I think I’d agree with your argument a lot more if it were closer to reality instead of a total fantasy, maybe something like “my Xs Max has seen a degradation after five major updates, due to increased power consumption, features, and concurrency, but it’s totally usable for me”.
“A12 devices onwards weren’t degraded at all” is complete nonsense and you know it.
You’ve historically defended Apple regardless of the argument (you have comments on the thread you linked about the Xs stutters defending Apple with very similar arguments), so perhaps you’re secretly Tim Cook?
Funnily enough, you also defended Apple back when the 6s was the one that was being degraded, and you denied that too. Will you keep shifting the goalposts as Apple keeps degrading devices? Now it’s A12, maybe tomorrow it’s A14?
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