A New Phone Comes Out. Yours Slows Down. A Conspiracy? No.

It happens every year: Apple releases new iPhones, and then hordes of people groan about their older iPhones slowing to a crawl.

Just look at the recent data. Between September and early November — when Apple made the iPhone 8 available, followed by the iPhone X — Google searches for the keywords “iPhone slow” jumped about 50 percent.