Apple's new iOS 7 operating system has had mixed reviews thus far, and now more and more people are raising one important question: Is your iPhone slower or is it just mine?

At least three quarters of iOS users have made the switch to iOS 7, and with that has come several reports of people complaining about their iPhone working slower than it used to. This has become so commonplace among users of older iPhones that it wouldn't be out of the question to start wondering whether Apple rigged the new operating system with the intention of slowing down the older phones to push users towards buying the newest iPhones.

Catherine Rampbell wrote about this very topic this week in the New York Times in a piece titled, "Why Apple Wants to Bust Your iPhone," and tried to put herself in the shoes of the powers-that-be at Apple to find some justification for the problems with the older iPhones on iOS 7. She even going as far as comparing it to the way companies operate in the fashion industry.

"To conspiracy-theory-hungry observers (and some of the rest of us), it might make sense that Apple would employ this business strategy," she said. "The tech giant, after all, has reached near-saturation levels in the U.S. smartphone market. If iPhones work forever, people who already own the devices­ won't buy new ones. Furthermore, selling products with finite life spans can be good for consumers, depending on their tastes and how informed they are. The fashion industry, whose entire mission is to essentially render products obsolete long before they cease to be functional, does this regularly.

Apple's next order of business in the iPhone world is likely going to be the iPhone 6, which is expected to be released in 2014. Of course, the company wouldn't be announcing a release date anytime soon, but perhaps the date will depend on how the current iPhones fare in the coming months and into 2014.