The millions of extra customers who took advantage of the $29 replacement offer -- which was available throughout 2018 -- may have been happy to hold on to their iPhone instead of upgrading. With the swap reducing the impact of throttling on older models, iPhone users suddenly found that CPU performance was better, meaning an older device was faster and longer lasting. The resulting dent to Apple's bottom line "wasn't apparent until after the iPhone XR and XS models were available," claims Daring Fireball 's John Gruber, who leaked the tidbit from Cook's meeting.