Why does macOS slow down with newer versions?

[russell_314]

Has anyone run benchmarks on a clean install of macOS Ventura versus a clean install of macOS Big Sur for example?


I'm not saying that opening a Safari window doesn't take 0.00000013 seconds longer but if we're going to say that then it needs to be measured scientifically and not just some "oh I clicked it and it looks slower" test.

There are so many factors that could give someone the impression of upgrades causing a slowdown to include problems in the upgrade process. It could be animations render differently because that's a big factor on how fast an operating system feels versus how fast it actually is.

The only way to test this would be to take two identical machines and run different benchmarks and tasks that were timed with some scientific method and then show the results. Clicking on the Safari window and one looking slightly faster could be due to user error.


Even if someone does a scientific test and determined that Safari did in fact take 0.00000013 seconds longer to open, the next question would be is the time difference perceivable by a human that's using the computer and does it in any way effect the user experience. Of course at some point if it took say for example 0.25 seconds longer, that might be perceivable and actually effect the user experience.

 

[darkpaw]

Has anyone run benchmarks on a clean install of macOS Ventura versus a clean install of macOS Big Sur for example?

It makes sense to do it, but they have to be exactly the same machine and conditions, or the test is void.

For example:
- If the test is going to check startup times immediately after the clean install has completed, then the two different OSes will be doing different things (including initial setup and calibration), so the test is invalid. Ventura will be doing things that Big Sur doesn't do on startup, and there may be improvements in the Ventura code that makes things quicker or slower.

- If not, and the test is done after a user has been setup, were the two users setup with exactly the same settings? What about new things that Ventura has that weren't available on Big Sur? Differences like this might mean extra things running in the background. While that may look like Ventura is slower it's just the OS doing what it needs to for that user. For example, extra security processes that run in the background.

I have no inside knowledge, but I doubt Apple has slowed down their older machines on purpose. If Apple executives are telling their subordinates to deliberately write code that slows down machines, that would make Apple's employees complicit in a very dodgy scheme that would likely be illegal. And if that's the case, why has no ex-Apple employee mentioned this?

 

[Ceecephous]

Apple slows down my devices because some of the updates aren't available/ will never be released in this part of world but its installed anyways.
Eg: apple finance thingy, some things on the apple maps, store tsa & drivers permit in wallet, track delivery thing etc etc.

I wish i had the option to checkmark which update i want to install ..

 

[RinkDinkus]

FWIW my experience has been a little wonky—I used to think this when I upgraded my 2014 MacBook Pro to Big Sur. Rolled back to Mojave because Big Sur was was practically unusable on it from 11.X-11.7

However, it accidentally updated when 11.7.3 came out and for what ever reason it was noticeably faster than my experience with Big Sur has ever been. Something must have happened when they pushed the fixes in 11.7.3.

Also unfortunately, I don’t think the older machines are on their priority list right now to make them as optimized as possible. They are constantly working on newer versions, newer models behind the scenes.

Also in terms of iOS—I haven’t noticed slow downs since iOS 7 on the 4 and iOS 9 on the 4S. But these devices were very basic compared to the devices we have today. Hell, my iPhone 14 Plus runs the same as my iPhone XS did on iOS 16. Not to say that there were any slow downs, because there were. The issue isn’t the OS slowing down the devices—it’s the fact that the OS isn’t optimized lol.

 

[russell_314]

It makes sense to do it, but they have to be exactly the same machine and conditions, or the test is void.

For example:
- If the test is going to check startup times immediately after the clean install has completed, then the two different OSes will be doing different things (including initial setup and calibration), so the test is invalid. Ventura will be doing things that Big Sur doesn't do on startup, and there may be improvements in the Ventura code that makes things quicker or slower.

- If not, and the test is done after a user has been setup, were the two users setup with exactly the same settings? What about new things that Ventura has that weren't available on Big Sur? Differences like this might mean extra things running in the background. While that may look like Ventura is slower it's just the OS doing what it needs to for that user. For example, extra security processes that run in the background.

I have no inside knowledge, but I doubt Apple has slowed down their older machines on purpose. If Apple executives are telling their subordinates to deliberately write code that slows down machines, that would make Apple's employees complicit in a very dodgy scheme that would likely be illegal. And if that's the case, why has no ex-Apple employee mentioned this?

I agree the test would have to be scientific and controlled to make sense.

The whole slowdown thing was because Apple did a poor PR job handling the iPhone processor throttling issue. Apple throttled the processor if the battery was unable to provide enough current. This prevented the iPhone from crashing and Apple figured a slow iPhone was better than a crashing iPhone. The problem was it came out right at the time conspiracy theories were circulating saying Apple was slowing down iPhones to get people to buy new ones. Apple should have made it where it sent a pop up notification saying the battery is defective and the phone would be operating in a slower mode to maintain operation. If they did this they wouldn't have had any issues.

I kind of wonder if battery health could cause the same issue in a Mac. I suspect they would just make it where the Mac would shut down if it didn't get enough power. This is perfectly fine on a computer, but could be a serious problem with a phone because it's something used for emergency communication.

 

[leman]

Yes there is.

macOS Ventura, released in fall of 2022 doesn't support anything older than "2017"-generation Macs. It even dropped support for some machines that were sold as brand-new by Apple as recently as 2019 (such as the 2017 MacBook Air and the Mac Pro). That gives a period of 5-6 years of supporting the newest macOS release, plus an additional 2 years of security update support.

Ventura dropped support for machines with processors that are not supported anymore by Intel. Considering the fact that Skylake was known to be notoriously buggy, I’m not surprised that Apple doesn’t want to incorporate low-level workarounds for hardware that has been officially declared end of support by its manufacturer. No need to look for conspiracy where a simple technical explanation is available.

BTW, Windows 11 doesn’t support Skylake or even Kaby Lake CPUs.

 

[bearinthetown]

I agree the test would have to be scientific and controlled to make sense.

The whole slowdown thing was because Apple did a poor PR job handling the iPhone processor throttling issue. Apple throttled the processor if the battery was unable to provide enough current. This prevented the iPhone from crashing and Apple figured a slow iPhone was better than a crashing iPhone. The problem was it came out right at the time conspiracy theories were circulating saying Apple was slowing down iPhones to get people to buy new ones. Apple should have made it where it sent a pop up notification saying the battery is defective and the phone would be operating in a slower mode to maintain operation. If they did this they wouldn't have had any issues.

I kind of wonder if battery health could cause the same issue in a Mac. I suspect they would just make it where the Mac would shut down if it didn't get enough power. This is perfectly fine on a computer, but could be a serious problem with a phone because it's something used for emergency communication.

I don't believe in any of this "saving the battery" bs. My iPhones before 2020 were slowing down after about a year from purchase. And don't even get me started on how you can make the OS snappy if you want to, even when saving resources. There are so many wrong thinking patterns leading to this belief that it's normal to have slow software on one or two years old device, it's actually sad. Apple knows that their customers believe in these lies and go with it.

 

[leman]

I don't believe in any of this "saving the battery" bs. My iPhones before 2020 were slowing down after about a year from purchase. And don't even get me started on how you can make the OS snappy if you want to, even when saving resources. There are so many wrong thinking patterns leading to this belief that it's normal to have slow software on one or two years old device, it's actually sad. Apple knows that their customers believe in these lies and go with it.

That Apple was throttling devices with old batteries is pretty much an established fact. The way they managed the PR on this backfired rather badly on them and it left them being blamed for pretty much any reason, whether real or imaginary.

I mean, I get it, you have a strong opinion about these things. But already the fact that you have failed to provide anything substantiable to back up your point should be enough to make you stop and think.

 

[FeliApple]

You can go back on Macs. That’s the main difference with iOS. Apple’s updates on iOS are malware, but on the Mac, you can go back if you don’t like it. That is just golden.

My Mac is a 2015 MacBook Pro running El Cap, I don’t have experience with updates on Macs, and while yes, people have said that 2015 MacBook Pros are far worse on later versions, again, the fact that you can go back is golden, unlike iOS. I think that difference is massive.

 

[bearinthetown]

That Apple was throttling devices with old batteries is pretty much an established fact. The way they managed the PR on this backfired rather badly on them and it left them being blamed for pretty much any reason, whether real or imaginary.

I mean, I get it, you have a strong opinion about these things. But already the fact that you have failed to provide anything substantiable to back up your point should be enough to make you stop and think.

You haven't provided any proof that they didn't neither. I know how much resources the operating system requires and it makes NO SENSE to expect these requirements to go up indefinitely. Apple hardware's power is increasing faster that what macOS requires.

 

[panjandrum]

Never experienced slowdowns with any of my updates.

And I don’t have slower perception.

People's expectations and perceptions, however, can be very different. Steve Jobs himself, for example, clearly had massive patience for latency in terms of how computers responded to user-input. I have none of that. Zero. Having cut my teeth on vastly more responsive computer systems (mostly Atari ST/TT/Falcon and Amiga systems), I have no tolerance for a computer that does not respond immediately to my inputs. I clearly remember watching Jobs at his keynotes happily sit there for agonizingly long periods of time waiting for whatever he did to actually begin doing *anything* whatsoever.

So my experience is probably very much on one end of this spectrum, and yours is on the other. To me, every single major revision is likely to being a noticeable difference in responsiveness. Especially with iOS devices, Apple seems to make sure that the last 'supported' OS runs unusably slow (to me.) I'm the same way with cars, I perceive light and nimble cars as being 'fastest' because they respond immediately to my inputs. Other people see cars I find unbearably ponderous to be 'fastest' because they accelerate more quickly.

But while my experience and yours are probably at the extreme ends of this issue, I will suggest that your experience is far, far from the norm. Either you have somehow purchased miracle computers that are somehow immune to the bloat that slows down our computers with every major OS revision, OR you simply aren't *at all* perceiving something that most people do perceive. Kind of a blessing, really, for you.

 

[Smartuser]

Yes there is.

macOS Ventura, released in fall of 2022 doesn't support anything older than "2017"-generation Macs. It even dropped support for some machines that were sold as brand-new by Apple as recently as 2019 (such as the 2017 MacBook Air and the Mac Pro). That gives a period of 5-6 years of supporting the newest macOS release, plus an additional 2 years of security update support.

Mac OS X 10.15 Catalina, their last pre-ARM OS, released in fall of 2019, on the other did include support as far back as 2012 models. Mac OS X 10.13 High Sierra, released in 2017, included support for 2010 and even some popular late 2009 Macs (iMacs, Macbooks).

2022 - 2017 = 5 years (or 4 for the unsupported legacy non-Retina 2017 MacBook Air)
2019 - 2012 = 7 years
2017 - 2010 = 7 years (or 8, if you're counting the supported 2009 models)

EDIT: To expand on this, let's look at the oldest supported model generations among iMacs, MacBooks, MacBook Airs, and MacBook Pros (discounting the Mac mini, iMac Pro and Mac Pro, since those have much lower volumes and have had much longer release/update cycles, often staying in Apple's lineup for 4+ years) by calendar year:

year of macOS release (in fall) - year of release of earliest supported iMac/MacBook models for that OS version
2022 - 2017/2018 = 5/4 years
2021 - 2015/2016 = 6/5 years
2020 - 2013/2014 = 7/6 years
2019 - 2012 = 7 years
2018 - 2012 = 6 years
2017 - 2009/2010 = 8/7 years
2016 - 2009/2010 = 7/6 years
2015 - 2007/2008 = 8/7 years

It's fantastic what you did, thanks.

I shouldn't have written "Ventura". The overall point was that while Ventura may be an outlier, we have yet to see if this will continue. In addition to that, support doesn't end when you can't get the latest version of macOS for a machine. My 2015 iMac is running Monterey which is still supported and by all indications will keep being supported until the Fall of 2024, 9 years until after I bought it.

 

[AppliedMicro]

No need to look for conspiracy where a simple technical explanation is available.

I didn't say it was a big conspiracy, did I?

 

[russell_314]

I don't believe in any of this "saving the battery" bs. My iPhones before 2020 were slowing down after about a year from purchase. And don't even get me started on how you can make the OS snappy if you want to, even when saving resources. There are so many wrong thinking patterns leading to this belief that it's normal to have slow software on one or two years old device, it's actually sad. Apple knows that their customers believe in these lies and go with it.

It wasn't about saving the battery or snappiness so not sure where you got that from. It was about the battery being defective and not able to provide necessary peak power.

Your post just proves Apple's PR failure that even today, almost six years later, people don't understand what actually happened. Apple has this "we know best so we don't need to tell you what we're doing" attitude and it bites them in the rear end sometimes.

 

[russell_314]

You can go back on Macs. That’s the main difference with iOS. Apple’s updates on iOS are malware, but on the Mac, you can go back if you don’t like it. That is just golden.

My Mac is a 2015 MacBook Pro running El Cap, I don’t have experience with updates on Macs, and while yes, people have said that 2015 MacBook Pros are far worse on later versions, again, the fact that you can go back is golden, unlike iOS. I think that difference is massive.

You can go back and it's good if you're using it for retro purposes like older games or what not, but inadvisable to use it for modern purposes. It's the Mac equivalent of using Windows XP in the sense that there are so many unpatched security vulnerabilities.

 

[bearinthetown]

It wasn't about saving the battery or snappiness so not sure where you got that from. It was about the battery being defective and not able to provide necessary peak power.

Your post just proves Apple's PR failure that even today, almost six years later, people don't understand what actually happened. Apple has this "we know best so we don't need to tell you what we're doing" attitude and it bites them in the rear end sometimes.

No, they have the "we pretend that it's not possible otherwise while we make more money through this lie" attitude. It's always about more money. For them.

 

[FeliApple]

You can go back and it's good if you're using it for retro purposes like older games or what not, but inadvisable to use it for modern purposes. It's the Mac equivalent of using Windows XP in the sense that there are so many unpatched security vulnerabilities.

Sure, but the user can choose. On iOS, the user cannot choose. I have to stay behind on iOS because once I update I can never go back. And as iOS updates amount to malware, well, I don’t have much of a choice. If I want a good experience, with good performance and battery life, I have to stay behind. Always. On Macs? I can update, Internet Recovery, and I’m back.

 

[russell_314]

No, they have the "we pretend that it's not possible otherwise while we make more money through this lie" attitude. It's always about more money. For them.

Yes, that's one conspiracy theory, that it's all made up by Apple just to get you to buy new hardware.

I completely agree that Apple is just another money, making corporation like any corporation is and should be. Corporations aren't these nice fuzzy things. They are entities to make money and sell products. This even more so makes the conspiracy theories about Apple purposely slowing down devices to convince people to buy new products sound silly. By purposely sabotaging their own devices, they would cause customers to look at other brands. This is the equivalent of making a defective product that will break after a year. Sure one way to look at it is the customer will need a new product after a year, but on the other hand, they're extremely unhappy that that product broke so they're going to look at other brands instead.

It's in Apple's best interest to give the customers the best possible experience and convince them to buy new products with new features on the new products. This is why businesses give good customer service. It's not because they like you. It's because they want you to come back with more money.

 

[bearinthetown]

Yes, that's one conspiracy theory, that it's all made up by Apple just to get you to buy new hardware.

I completely agree that Apple is just another money, making corporation like any corporation is and should be. Corporations aren't these nice fuzzy things. They are entities to make money and sell products. This even more so makes the conspiracy theories about Apple purposely slowing down devices to convince people to buy new products sound silly. By purposely sabotaging their own devices, they would cause customers to look at other brands. This is the equivalent of making a defective product that will break after a year. Sure one way to look at it is the customer will need a new product after a year, but on the other hand, they're extremely unhappy that that product broke so they're going to look at other brands instead.

It's in Apple's best interest to give the customers the best possible experience and convince them to buy new products with new features on the new products. This is why businesses give good customer service. It's not because they like you. It's because they want you to come back with more money.

It's not a conspiracy theory that corporations play VERY dirty to make more money. Many of them have been caught red-handed, including Apple. With such history lies, it's funny people still give them the credit of trust. It's delusion.

 

[russell_314]

It's not a conspiracy theory that corporations play VERY dirty to make more money. Many of them have been caught red-handed, including Apple. With such history lies, it's funny people still give them the credit of trust. It's delusion.

Of course, companies can play dirty to make money. Microsoft sabotaged their competitors to put them out of business. I'm fairly certain Apple would do the same if given the opportunity. Every business out there you interact with has one goal. That goal is to convince you to give them money in trade for you something you want. They want you to keep coming back because you keep wanting that thing. There is no friendship in that business relationship and I think if people understand that then they know what to expect.

There's a difference between believing corporations can do bad things, and believing in conspiracy theories that don't make sense or not supported by at least some evidence.

Trust is an earned thing based on past interactions. No one or company gets trust because they seem cool or I like them. Apple has earned and lost different portions of my trust with them. Do I trust them with my data that they're not going to share it with the government? Hell no because they've done it before (I doubt my data but with others) and they will continue to do it. Do I trust them to make good products that work well? Absolutely because for the most part every Apple product I bought has worked well, and if I had any issues they've taken care of.

 

[leman]

I didn't say it was a big conspiracy, did I?

No, but you are describing it as an arbitrary decision while there is a very clear business reasoning — the hardware is not supported anymore by its original manufacturer (Intel).

Your post just proves Apple's PR failure that even today, almost six years later, people don't understand what actually happened. Apple has this "we know best so we don't need to tell you what we're doing" attitude and it bites them in the rear end sometimes.

What I find most hilarious about all this is that throttling performance on battery (especially when it's low) is standard business practice in the laptop world, and nobody seems to mind. But Apple does something similar to prevent smartphone crashes and it's an outrage. Yes, they botched the PR on this and should have been more transparent, and they deserve criticism for that. But the shier idiocy of the average customer's reaction in this story is shocking. Paradoxically, people prefer their phones to crash. No wonder we can't have good things.

 

[Realityck]

It's also not a case of "planned obsolescence"

Ventura was optimized for M1 and most likely M2 chips as well. It is not optimized for a 2017 Intel MacBook Air. It may have been tested on one to make sure it works and can be supported on it, but each new OS that Apple develops is always optimized around their current and/or coming processors. So, quite simply, the older gear just gets less able to keep up with the demands of the newer OS's, until they make a decision that forces end of support for old gear (like using Metal 2).

This has been the case of comparing each beta cycle up to the latest MacOS 13.4 beta 2, as for the OP's example of a 2018 MBA - using 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz, with 4MB L3 cache. Thats comparing a dual core i5 versus say in my example a M2 8 CPU/8 GPU core where the MacOS optimization is now turning the Mac off in 3- 4 seconds. Start up is quite fast too. Anyone that understand the nature of how OS progress would recognize the thought that the latest platform is what you strive to optimize best. Here in 2023 that is literately the Macs that are part of the AS transition is that target. Is it really planned obsolescence, not quite but just a good example of how fast a M1 or M2 is compared to a 1.6 dual core i5 MBA that the OP has observed getting slower and slower.

We all knew this would be what most observe as future MacOS occur. Intel based Macs need to be even more recent, more capable versions to maintain good performance, not like the 2018 MBA is still a good example. Usable yes, slower yes. It is what it is.

 

[Ifti]

Ive come to the simple conclusion that I will be keeping my current MacBook running the OSX it was pre-installed with upon purchase (Monterey) for as long as I possibly can.

 

[Realityck]

Ive come to the simple conclusion that I will be keeping my current MacBook running the OSX it was pre-installed with upon purchase (Monterey) for as long as I possibly can. Provided you Mac can be updated.

You can do that, however you are ignoring the security patches that come with more recent public MacOS updates. Ventura has made the spotlight search that more fast and useful. It not like this belief of slower and slower Intel Mac performance is that great a difference compared to you ignoring any security issues by doing what you are now doing. Ventura is not something that is noticeable slower, more like for you barely noticeable. Plus you need to just make sure you are backing yourself up to an external backup volume in case of some accident. We call that volume a ASR in which migration assistant file transfer completely restores you configuratio.

 

[russell_314]

What I find most hilarious about all this is that throttling performance on battery (especially when it's low) is standard business practice in the laptop world, and nobody seems to mind. But Apple does something similar to prevent smartphone crashes and it's an outrage. Yes, they botched the PR on this and should have been more transparent, and they deserve criticism for that. But the shier idiocy of the average customer's reaction in this story is shocking. Paradoxically, people prefer their phones to crash. No wonder we can't have good things.

I don't think it's so much what people want but lawyers just trying to figure a way to squeeze a few million dollars out of a big corporation and news outlets just want a sensational story for ratings. I think the average consumer, if they were explained the reasoning behind it, they would just be like OK. You're always gonna have a few dense people, but the majority would understand.

I still blame Apple for not handling it better. They could've just put a simple notification letting the person know that the battery was defective and this will cause their phones to go slower. That's all they had to do but Apple is just Apple in the sense they treat their customers sometimes like children. If you ever had to work in the tech field, or even just help a friend with a computer, sometimes that approach is needed, Simplifying things or even leaving out details that are unnecessarily confusing can be beneficial, but you can't do this as a corporation. Corporations have legal concerns and there's a lawyer that will sue if they can figure an angle