Tim Cook says the next iOS update will allow users to disable intentional battery slowdowns

Apple CEO Tim Cook noted in an interview that the company will update iOS with a new feature that will allow you to prevent your iPhone from automatically slowing down performance as your battery ages. The move comes after Apple last month admitted it intentionally slows down iPhones as they get older to prevent issues that may arise as the batteries depreciate.

While the company previously explained that the feature was a measure to prevent unexpected freezes and reboots on devices with older batteries, it raised a question about whether the company intended to make customers feel like their phones were getting slower, so they might want to upgrade to a newer model sooner than actually necessary.

Speaking to ABC News, Cook explained:

In addition to giving everybody a very very low price on a new battery, we’re also going to give people the visibility of the health of their battery. So it’s very, very transparent. And, we will tell somebody that we’re reducing your performance by some amount in order to not have an unexpected restart. And if you don’t want it, you can turn it off.

Cook also tried to allay concerns about the company’s motives to render older iPhones obsolete before their time was up. He continued:

Now, we don’t recommend it, because we think that people’s iPhones are really important to them, and you never can tell when something is so urgent, and our actions were all in service of the user. I can’t stress that enough. Maybe we should have been clear at a point in time that our actions were the purest.

 “If you don’t want it, you can turn it off,” Cook says, though he maintains that this is not recommended — something Apple stands by in its apology letter that addressed consumers after the backlash in December. Apple currently faces multiple class action lawsuits after admitting to intentionally slowing down iPhones.

The next iOS 11 developer beta is expected in early February, the new feature will become available in an upcoming version of iOS, along with the aforementioned tool to monitor the health of your device’s battery. Which means a public release will follow some time in March.