Maybe I'm entirely wrong: isn't this the forced obsolescence that Apple is famous for?
Apple does not and never has practiced forced obsolescence. In fact, quite the opposite, as iOS is supported in iPhones for much longer than any version of Android ever is.
The "famous" story is about Apple keeping your phone alive by (necessarily) throttling the CPU when your battery was worn out, so that it wouldn't shut down due to lack of power.
If they did anything wrong, it was not explaining this well enough.