> I don't believe so - I don't think they ever explained that older phones were being throttled, but I don't think they denied it in the face of accusations, did they?

The "battery slowdown" was only in place for a year or so before it was widely known.

Not really. Based on your follow-up responses, it seems that you're conflating the slowdown on older hardware running new software versions (which is standard with any software update as new features will never run as quickly on older hardware as they would on new hardware) with the throttling done for older batteries. This wasn't done intentionally to slow down the devices so that people would buy newer models it was done for the opposite reason - to extend the daily longevity of phones whose batteries were nearing an efficiency target where they would require service. The mistake Apple made was not directly stating that this was being done to conserve battery life as the alternative was for the phones to simply shut down completely.