Replacing the battery in a throttled phone resulted in increased performance, conclusively shining light on Apple’s throttling shenanigans. The phones weren’t the problem—old batteries were. Public outcry and lawsuits ensued. Finally, Apple publicly admitted to CPU throttling for aging batteries.

Despite the shadiness of the ordeal, this change was actually made to lengthen the lifespan of these devices. The sentiment (and conspiracy) I continue to see is that there are software updates made to intentionally cripple devices and frustrate their users.