Fruity cargo cult Apple has a novel way of forcing users to upgrade to its iPhone 6 – it issues a software upgrade which degrade's the iPhone4S’s battery life.

Millions of Apple mobile device users now have access to iOS 8 after it released to the public yesterday but users of the iPhones 4S would be advised to give it a wide berth. While the new operating system works, as well as any Apple software can be expected, in the iPhone 4S it sucks your battery life out faster.

Ars Technica has conducted some extensive battery testing on various iOS devices. Each device was tested four times for Wi-Fi browsing on iOS 7.1.2 and on the iOS 8 GM. For some iPhone models the battery life has seen improvements, these include the iPhone 4S, iPad mini, and iPod touch.

However, the battery life for other devices has been reduced, some to more extent than others. The Ars chart shows that these include the iPhone 5S and also to a lesser extent the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5.

The Tame Apple press is rushing to claim that the results are not significant and that users should upgrade to the new version because Apple says it is brilliant and they have to agree or they will never have the chance to print another Apple press release again.

Not wishing to sound too conspiracy nut here, but given Apple is a huge company with a big R&D unit and a quality control unit how did a big issue like this not get spotted? Unless it is all just a cunning plan to force users to upgrade. Of course we are not ruling out incompetence.