
Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life - lyk
http://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=572538593
======
djrogers
It's not only to make them run longer - they're reducing the peak demand on
the batteries to avoid spontaneous shutdown when the aged battery can't handle
the load.

This seems like a good idea, and it appears to be well executed (ie it's not
apparently based just on age or milage like a crappy car maintenance
reminder), but Apple should probably have something in iOS that tells people
their phone is running slow because the battery is 2 years old.

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-addresses-why-
people...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-addresses-why-people-are-
saying-their-iphones-with-older-batteries-are-running-slower/)

~~~
basseq
This comment deserves more attention. And, in fact, means the headline is
wrong.

Apple is _not_ slowing down devices to extend battery life. Apple is slowing
down devices _to prevent the thing from crapping out entirely_ ("unexpectedly
shutting down"). Arguably, this does more to _prevent_ obsolescence than
_plan_ it.

Agreed with @djrogers suggestion to alert the user to the situation. It should
not be a user choice.

"Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to
smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from
unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions [cold, low battery, battery
age]."

~~~
mempko
Strange, I have an old HP veer That is 6 years old and it doesn't
spontaneously shut down. I have a 3 year old android phone that doesn't
spontaneously shut down. What is so special about iPhones and why do they crap
out in 2 years?

~~~
esmi
This post gives us an estimate for what percentage of the iPhones are getting
throttled by this issue. I think it's reasonable to use this as a proxy to
estimate how many units were at risk of shutting down and it is the minority
of units. Happily it appears both of your devices are in the majority of units
which don't exhibit this issue.

[https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-
an...](https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-and-battery-
age/)

~~~
valuearb
If I read that correctly, is it 25% of two year old devices (6s) that are
getting throttled?

------
invisiblea
Had the battery in my iPhone SE replaced about an hour ago to test this out

Geekbench 4 benchmark before
[https://twitter.com/invisiblea/status/943439761066397696](https://twitter.com/invisiblea/status/943439761066397696)

And after
[https://twitter.com/invisiblea/status/943891561661812736](https://twitter.com/invisiblea/status/943891561661812736)

~~~
bluetidepro
What app or site are you using to test that?

~~~
unreal37
Geekbench
[https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/geekbench-4/id1130770356](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/geekbench-4/id1130770356)

------
macns
I don't get it. An old iPad 2 was running fine card games until we upgraded to
IOS 9 a few weeks ago. Now it's almost unusable. Pretty sure we had the same
battery before we upgrade, so why wasn't _cpu throttled_ before we upgrade?

This looks more like Apple needed to slow down devices to sell new ones and
found a really good excuse for it.

~~~
compiler-guy
There are two issues with older phones running more slowly, and you are
probably encountering both of them

1\. Newer versions of iOS demand more processing power because they do more
(or perhaps do it less efficiently).

2\. Old batteries can't deliver as much power.

So an old phone will new version of the OS mores slowly than a new one,
regardless of the battery situation.

But, if the battery was marginal but hadn't hit the limit before the upgrade,
then you get a double whammy

1\. The phone simply can't run a more demanding OS as fast as the old one

2\. The increased demand pushes the battery over the limit

At some point, the battery was going to age out anyway, so it was only a
matter of time until you hit the second issue. But the upgrade made you hit it
sonner rather than later.

~~~
verytrivial
> 2\. Old batteries can't deliver as much power.

Does anyone have a citation for this? I know capacity falls, but what fraction
of peak current is lost with age? And what fraction with throttling just the
CPU to 50% save in total load?

~~~
verytrivial
I guess we'll find out during Discovery!

------
oger
How come that the MASSIVE slowdown of my iPhone 6s occurred after upgrading to
iOS11? TBH the spin that Apple is sending out to make us believe that this was
all a clever implementation (which it still might be) does not match with the
reality that iOS 11 was creating the slowdown of a device that was working
'fine' before. And yes - this 6s is eligible for the battery replacement
program and the Geekbench scores also indicate that this device has an issue.
tl;dr: it seems that this is not the only explanation of the slowdown. Any
thoughts?

~~~
unreal37
You can see that a LOT more devices were affected on iOS 11. I assume they
tweaked the algorithm as to when it's triggered.

[https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-
an...](https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-and-battery-
age/)

------
chrislomax
My wife had a phone replaced off Apple about 6 months back because it was
shutting down for no reason about 40% battery life.

She’s recently upgraded from 10.x to latest version. She’s noticed an actual
decrease in performance to the point where she’s nearly punching the phone. It
just locks up for no reason.

I’d like to blame this on the battery or age of the phone but I can’t. It is
an iPhone 6 but it is only half a year old.

I believe that this phone should be able to handle the latest release just
fine.

She’s now looking at upgrading the phone.

~~~
valuearb
Was her replacement phone a refurbished or new unit? Either way, she can
probably get a brand new battery just by taking it in to the Apple Store.

Also, battery age isn't actually time based, it's cycle based. If your wife
uses her phone so heavily that she has to recharge it multiple times a day,
she's putting more cycles on the battery. Still should last more than 6 months
though.

~~~
chrislomax
I’m not 100% on whether it was refurb or brand new. It came in a non branded
box without a charger etc. The phone looked brand new.

I’m going to install the app to check what the CPU is running at.

It’s still ridiculous that she was running 10.x fine, she only updated because
someone sent her some emojis that her phone didn’t understand and now is it’s
running like crap

~~~
valuearb
The last time I heard of someone buying an iPhone in a non branded box, she
ended up getting a box filled with potatoes. Your wife is already ahead on
that person.

~~~
chrislomax
She didn’t buy an iPhone in a non branded box, it’s how Apple sent the
replacement phone.

I thought it was weird when we got the replacement though.

~~~
thegayngler
I ve gotten these but never had an issue with any of these phones or iPads.

------
Multicomp
WOW. Conspiracy was real the whole time!

Devil's Advocate to spark discussion (I'm not an iPhone owner so no dog in
fight):

Apple did the right thing by not putting a switch in to toggle this
slowdown[1]. For many iPhone users, the phone is a magic box that gives them
videos and apps and (unlike our HN audience) don't have a clue about how it
works, nor do they care. If such a switch existed, these same people would see
a twitter comment saying "speed up yuor (sic) IPhone by turning off this
setting~~~!!!!1" and would just do it.

The result? iPhones dying at a faster rate. Even today, as Android phones are
barely updated at all, it is still a desirable selling feature of an Apple
iPhone that it will be supported for years. People turning that switch on
without understanding the consequences would shorten the life of their devices
and then //still// complain about how the device didn't last that long.

I would think that a jailbreak-locked option would work IE you have to know
enough about how your phone works to make the change, thus increasing your
chances of making an informed decision on whether to shorten its life or not.

[1]Which is different than not telling people about it, which IMO is shady

Edit: remove italics

~~~
mfoy_
Or make the battery replaceable...

It pains me that I effectively have to choose between replaceable batteries
and IPXX ratings.... T_T

~~~
nradov
The Samsung S5 is IP67 rated and has a user replaceable battery.

~~~
randac
It also has a headphone jack while being IP67 and is still reasonably thin,
which is an insurmountable design feat according to some opinions I've seen
here.

"User replaceable" barely does it justice either. I just had the battery in my
hands in under 5 seconds easily. People earlier in the thread stating iPhone
batteries are easily user replaceable are ridiculous, when the process can
take upward of 20 minutes, and can leave the phone temporarily inoperable if
any of the multiple connectors aren't quite seated correctly. I'm also
intrigued as to where all this imaginary extra weight and bulk is coming from
when implementing specifically the S5 battery enclosure design, because having
stripped down hundreds of iPhones and dozens of Galaxy variants I just don't
see it.

------
wnevets
Remember it wasn't until someone ran benchmarks before and after replacing
their battery that apple decided to let the world know this was a thing.

~~~
MollyR
This is probably the most scandalous part about this.

------
trynumber9
Should be a switch in the settings. Prefer battery life or prefer performance.
One more setting won't kill anyone.

~~~
roc
The whole problem is that the batteries _can 't deliver_ that performance.

They can throttle the chip to what the battery can deliver or it _will_ crash.
Maybe Apple's more conservative on the throttling, and some amount of
performance could still be achieved without a crash, but there's zero chance
Apple's putting a "make my phone unstable" switch in Settings.

~~~
jlmorton
That doesn't pass the sniff test. The available voltage from a lithium ion
battery will decrease as it is discharged. When your phone turns off, that
does not mean there is no more energy in the battery. It means there is no
longer enough voltage to power the phone.

Over the course of many discharge cycles, the battery will lose capacity, and
the point when the voltage is no longer sufficient to power the phone will
come sooner.

But this is overly pedantic. People generally consider this point to be simply
an "empty battery."

Android phones do not suffer these performance changes. Instead, the phones
lose battery life over time, and within a year or so, you might be lucky to
get 12 hours of life out of a full charge.

You can make an argument that we should optimize for duration or performance,
but the difference is that casual Android users are aware that their battery
is deteriorating, while casual iPhone users believe their phone is itself
deteriorating, or else much slower than the newer models.

~~~
jtbayly
Wrong. The peak demand from the phone can exceed the available voltage even if
you're at 30%, causing an immediate shutdown. That's what we saw a year ago.
Now they no longer shut down unexpectedly, but the performance of the phone
sucks, even with a battery that holds 87% of its original capacity.

~~~
jlmorton
I don't dispute that, but that does not explain the observations that a fully-
charged, reduced-capacity battery performs poorly on a standard benchmark test
versus a new battery.

It's not just smoothing out a peak demand. It's reducing the peak performance
all of the time, and that is unique to iPhone.

~~~
unobtaniumstool
That's not entirely accurate. They observed that with a fully charged battery
it performed as expected. The CPU wasn't throttled until the battery was
depleted.

~~~
jtbayly
That's not my experience. Unless depleted means 95% charged and 87% capacity
compared to original spec.

Mine runs at 50% CPU speed under those circumstances. I wouldn't call that
"performing as expected."

------
LeoJiWoo
Not a good implementation, this feature should be been far more explicitly
stated in some sort of alert rather than buried.

This is something that is burning the good will towards apple. Something that
is in shorter supply since the days of Steve Jobs. You can see the
polarization about it on social media.

Again whether the feature was good/bad, there is clearly something to be
learned from the shitstorm that it is causing. Something I hope Tim Cook
learns quickly.

~~~
the_gastropod
I'm not sure what the right move is here. Apple _does_ have a notification
once the battery reaches some threshold of "bad". But maybe it's too
conservative? Clearly, notifying an iPhone customer that their battery is
going bad when they're throttling CPU by 1% is too aggressive. 75% is too
late. Where the right number lies, I don't know.

~~~
nwndarkness
I ran the benchmark and my phone is affected (showed 1650 and 3000 when it the
average for my phone is 2400 and 4000). I went into the battery menu people
are saying that this notification shows up and there is nothing there about my
battery needing to be replaced or serviced.

------
bec123
Dear one of the richest damn companies on the face of the earth:

MAKE . IT . EASIER . TO . REPLACE . THE . BATTERY !!!

~~~
nephrite
Yes. Also make the batteries standard, like they did with the chargers.

~~~
valuearb
Yes, lets have lower battery capacity, and heavier thicker phones so that 2
years from now a user can save $30 replacing their battery.

------
szajbus
Why doesn't it run on normal speed when connected to the charger?

------
greedo
This isn't a new thing with smartphones, nor limited to iOS/Apple smartphones.
Android does/did it too:

[https://plus.google.com/+YgorCortes/posts/CZ2GhoxgHk3](https://plus.google.com/+YgorCortes/posts/CZ2GhoxgHk3)

------
JustSomeNobody
Sounds to me like Apple didn't factor the degradation of battery into the
design of the phone and instead focused solely on their relentless push for
thinness.

~~~
cjensen
All modern batteries degrade past the point of usefulness. It doesn't matter
how big the battery is if you leave it in the Sun long enough it will die. The
question is, "what then?"

Many people are reasonably asking that they be made aware of the problem
instead of quietly kneecapping the phone.

------
forkerenok
I'm somewhat impressed that such a detail hasn't leaked through Apple's walls
in all these years. Tells a lot about secretive culture at Apple.

~~~
ouid
My reading of the article was that it's a pretty new "feature". I'm running
iOS 9.1 on a 5s, and it neither shuts down in the cold, nor runs slower than
it used to.

~~~
EpicBlackCrayon
I have a hunch that it isn't, and they tweaked the algorithm around iOS 10,
which made it a lot more noticeable.

------
Neil44
Let's get real here, they did this to reduce battery related warranty claims.

------
walterbell
Has it been confirmed whether Apple stops slowing the phone when the phone is
plugged into AC power, i.e. the battery is not being used?

~~~
jtbayly
It has been anti-confirmed by me. My iPhone 6S continues running at 50% CPU
speed, even when charging from the OEM adapter. Only thing that makes it run
(a little bit) faster is if the battery charge gets above 97%.

(Also worth noting that the battery in my phone still holds 87% original
capacity.)

~~~
starky
That this is happening when the cell is still at 87% capacity is really the
problem here. How do you justify degrading your system's performance when the
cell is still soundly in the healthy region?

~~~
cjensen
Capacity is not power. Old batteries produce less power (volts times amps) no
matter how full they are.

~~~
walterbell
What threshold(s) are used by Apple to determine when to throttle?

If a new battery is purchased today, how many months of daily usage will cause
Apple throttling to begin?

If a Samsung and Apple phone are purchased on the same day, used the same
amount and benchmarked each day for 24 months, would their performance graphs
look similar?

------
Codestare
Alternative title: Apple uses crappy batteries

------
chrisdbaldwin
Planned obsolescence

------
ChiliDogSwirl
The ability of HN readers to rationalize Apple's consumer-hostile practices is
nothing short of breathtaking.

------
heisenbit
Maybe, just maybe the batteries should be larger even if the case is slightly
thicker.

It is one thing for Apple to compensate for weaknesses of current phones in
the field. It would be another story if they plan to do this going forward
without telling consumers at the time of sale. Car companies got in trouble
over mileage...

------
verytrivial
Is it ALL old phones based upon aggregate statistics and a heuristic, or are
they monitoring supply voltage. Apple have not, to my knowledge, provided any
data to support their claim. And even if they did, batteries vary in quality,
even from the same batch. Why not a setting you can override? It is a MASSIVE
performance hit. This feels a lot like Epson or whoever blocking old or third
party supplies to "assure peak performance". People hate that but put up with
this?

Edit: In case the subtext wasn't clear, without battery wear data, evidence of
these power related resets, or active opt-in to the throttling, this behaviour
is identical to an artificial hobbling of old phones to encourage future
hardware sales. Yadda yadda lawyers.

~~~
verytrivial
Not that it look deep insight, but I am vindicated. Here come the yadda yadda
lawyers.
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/22/apple_sued_iphone_c...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/22/apple_sued_iphone_cpu_speed/)

------
laurentoget
I hope they will do the same with their cars. When the tires get old, just
slow down the car to keep it safe. Having a light come up that tells me my car
needs maintenance is so old school.

~~~
cjensen
"A run-flat tire is a pneumatic vehicle tire that is designed to resist the
effects of deflation when punctured, and to enable the vehicle to continue to
be driven at _reduced speeds_ " [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-
flat_tire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-flat_tire)

------
iwcai
Even if any of this is accurate and true, replacing a battery in my older
phone did absolutely nothing for increase in performance. This is undoubtably
planned obsolesce.

------
vbezhenar
Is it widespread issue with other phones? I have a suspicion that either they
have faulty batteries or they just got bitten by their tiny batteries. I think
that battery should have some real life time (not one year, at least 3 years,
preferably 5 years) and should be able to provide all the energy phone needed
for functioning. Sure, capacity might be reduced, it's understandable, but
that's all.

------
rkapsoro
Does anyone know if any Android vendors are using a similar approach?

I have an Android phone which apparently has a 40% degraded battery (60% total
capacity remains, at least according to a battery health estimation app that I
used since Android does not appear to surface battery wear via API) that is
always _painfully_ slow, even if I'm careful to ensure that at least 10 gigs
of free space to avoid storage slowdown.

------
expertentipp
My iPhone 6s had two iOS updates in recent months. After these updates the
iPhone is significantly slower, occasionally the screen doesn't respond to
touch events, occasionally the screen is becoming black with little round
loader in the center. Safari hangs. No other incident happened with the phone
meanwhile, the only reason of the deteriorated behavior I could think of are
these iOS updates.

------
francisofascii
So they started this with the Iphone 6, so I guess my Iphone 5s became slow
for other reasons?

------
raincom
\- Apple has disabled to check how many cycles the battery has. \- Battery
recall over shutdown issues \- Software to slow down the phone to save battery

All these three should explain Apple's behavior.

------
pweissbrod
If the phone OS was open source there would be no need for all the conjecture,
black box research and revelations, all of this would have been available
knowledge

------
songco
Maybe provide an option in settings is a better idea...

Or even better, provide a level of battery saving.

------
Mizza
Much more importantly to me: Does this happen in MBP/OSX?

~~~
cjensen
My 2008 MacBook Pro has a removable battery. Apple documents that without the
battery (i.e. on AC Power) the CPU is underclocked because there is not enough
power available.

So it wouldn't be unprecedented. And I wouldn't be surprised if other
manufacturers do the same.

~~~
randac
> Apple documents that without the battery (i.e. on AC Power) the CPU is
> underclocked

This is an utterly absurd apology on behalf of Apple, something very common in
this thread it seems.

Alternatively, perhaps Apple should sell their high-end model with an
appropriately powerful AC adapter, regardless of the absence of the battery?

------
mandeepj
do you recall "low power mode" in your iphone? This is exactly what it is. So,
even your new iphone will operate slowly during low battery

------
bitL
...and this somehow coincides with new iOS updates.

After an explanation, everybody applauds this wise choice, protecting their
phones from not working at all!

------
Upvoter33
THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. I always thought I was going crazy, thinking my
increasingly "old" phone seemed slow. This is really irritating and
disingenuous on Apple's behalf - as said above, they should at least add a
switch.

~~~
gdulli
My smartphone in 2008 was an iPhone. It slowed down unacceptably and I never
bought another piece of Apple hardware again. My 3 phones since then all
remained usable past 2 years until I was ready to replace them on my own
schedule.

~~~
C6C6C6C
Same experience, but I went back to the iPhone once, only once, with the
iPhone 5s, and then already deeply regretted it after updating iOS to the
latest. I should have known they'd do it again after what I experienced with
the iPhone 3g last update, which made the thing so slow it was unusable.

The iPhone 5s should have hardware that is much faster than what's in a Moto
G2. Yet, my friend's Moto G2 feels smoother in use, transitioning between apps
and the like, than the 5s. I bought the Honor 8 to replace it, a somewhat
cheap, midrange android device. Everything on it feels so fast I probably
won't replace it until its battery gives out completely. On the paper, the
hardware of the Honor 8 is not as fast as modern iPhones. In practice when I
open apps it's pretty much instantaneous. The device has enough RAM to keep
everything running.

People keep complaining android manufacturers aren't updating the OS fast
enough. I'd say good on them to make sure they only give us an OS build that's
actually usable on said hardware. Apple doesn't even let you install previous
iOS versions. Unlike iOS, most of Android's platform APIs are updated through
the Play Store. Things like your web browser are also updated through the play
store. So unlike iPhones where refusing new iOS updates means being stuck with
browser engines that can't keep up with the web, your android handset stuck on
older android is not actually becoming obsolete.

No matter how much nicer Apple's hardware looks and feels in the hands, I
ain't ever giving them more of my money again. Premium prices should command
more durability in time than this. Chosing to stay on an old iOS means you
can't install new apps built on newer SDKs or get newer browsers and so on, so
you really have to suffer the slow down treadmill with Apple. You don't have
to on Android.

------
johansch
So this might be the largest scam, ever? We're talking trillions USD. (Their
yearly revenue is around $200B, most of it iPhone.)

(Wow, that was downvoted almost instantly.)

~~~
mfoy_
Apple's _total_ revenue since 2000 has been less than 1.2T, and it's not like
they provided _no_ value.

Calling it a "scam" in any capacity is already a stretch. Calling it a scam in
"trillions" is utterly hyperbolic, and equally stupid.

~~~
johansch
I clearly owe you an apology. It's not a trillion-dollar scam, it'a half-
trillion-dollar scam. That totally changes everything.

------
yehosef
Seems like a good idea.

------
golemotron
Well, that makes me want to upgrade.

~~~
mmcconnell1618
What makes you think that Android isn't subject to the same physical limits of
older batteries? You have more ability to customize the Android phones
response to the battery condition but that doesn't change the underlying
reason for the slow down: The battery can't handle the requested load anymore.

~~~
C6C6C6C
The battery can't handle 1 year of use because they undersized it. A 1 715 mAh
battery will, once aging, be less able to provide the voltage asked by peak
CPU usage than a 2900 mAh battery that has aged for about the same amount of
charge cycles.

iPhones are the only device sold by Apple that are only rated for 500 charge
cycles before degradation starts. Macbook, iPads and Apple Watches are rated
for 1000 cycles. In the case of the Apple Watch I'd guess it's because despite
being tiny, the SOC also doesn't ask for as much peak voltage as the phone
SOC.

I've had the Honor 8 for a year. It's still holding a great amount of charge
and running fine and as fast as the day I bought it. And unlike my 5s, no
phone update is coming to turn it into a slow crawl.

The iPhone battery problem with regards to the topic, spontaneous shutdown at
30% and less battery remaining, is probably exacerbated since the evolutions
that made those SOC more powerful than before. There wasn't a large wave of 5s
owners having spontaneous shutdown requiring an OS update to throttle the CPU.
That only started with the iPhone 6. A combination of paltry battery and
modern SOCs having peak power usage that stress such battery more than before.

~~~
dep_b
> And unlike my 5s, no phone update is coming to turn it into a slow crawl.

That's one way to celebrate being an Android user.

