
Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones - empressplay
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-27/apple-faces-lawsuits-after-saying-it-slows-down-aging-iphones/9287216
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chipperyman573
I really like Linus' (Sebastian, not Torvalds) thoughts about this:
[https://youtu.be/TJUeHmdzSx4?t=11m22s](https://youtu.be/TJUeHmdzSx4?t=11m22s)

Basically, Apple chose to tune the phones to run at a dangerously high
configuration to increase benchmarks, knowing that the battery will degrade
like this (and that when the iphone X2 comes out, nobody will be talking about
this, instead they'll be talking about how much faster the X2 is than the X).

His exact quote is that "they are running them so close to the red line that
surely they must know, when they're shipping these things (Because it's not
like LiOn batteries are especially new tech at this point, and Apple has done
TONS of research in this field), Apple knows pretty much exactly what's going
to happen with this, pretty much perfectly, and they're making the conscious
decision to do this"

Before I heard this I thought "Oh come on, Apple truely is protecting your
phone here", but after hearing his argument I changed my mind.

~~~
simonbarker87
If Apple slowed the phone down upfront then people would complain that Apple
were throttling as the user is “too dumb to look after their battery properly”
so instead they are doing when they can point to a proven need to throttle the
device. This feels like a no win situation for Apple unless they had/will put
in “throttle my phone so it doesn’t go weird” switch in settings.

Side note: we’ve known for years that hammering a battery day in day out
causes problems, my wife and I have had our 6S phones for the same amount of
time - I plug mine in as much as possible (over charging is not a problem
anymore) and she runs hers into the red all the time. After 2 years my phone
runs fine and, when needed, I get a days charge out of it but she barely gets
4 hours and is noticeably slower. If people looked after their batteries
better this would be less of a problem.

~~~
canuckintime
> This feels like a no win situation for Apple...

If Apple fucked up, why should there be a 'win' situation for them?

The obvious solution would be Apple replacing the batteries for free. Instead
Apple won't even let you pay them to replace the battery if it's not in EOL
mode — despite throttling starting well before then.

~~~
ako
Why should apple replace batteries for free? Do you expect a car company to
replace car-batteries or tires for free?

Some components just wear and need to be replaced. Apple just provided a
workaround that ensures your device doesn't crash due to the worn out
component.

~~~
mmjaa
Apple decided to not let the consumer have the choice or ability to swap their
own batteries. They've painted themselves into a corner here - and I think
they should pay for this, indeed. Its clear that these moves were made solely
to maximise profit for Apple, not to protect the consumer and provide them the
best-quality experience.

~~~
lostmsu
Why do you keep insisting there's a problem with a battery? There's no problem
with the battery, it behaves like any other battery in any other phone. The
problem is that phone's compute ability stops matching its advertised value
soon after purchase.

~~~
ddlsmurf
Because before apple came along, batteries were considered the consumable and
were user replaceable. Now apple wants the whole phone to be the consumable.
This not good for users nor the planet. Only people who would want a
marginally thiner phone in exchange for buying a new one every year and
apple's profit margins benefit.

~~~
lostmsu
I fail to see why is it relevant to the current issue. Its not like you know
100% that if the battery would be swappable easily, they would suddenly decide
to tell you instead of silently slowing the phones down.

Honestly, it feels like people, who have grudge on manufacturers for making
non-swappable battery, just need an excuse to bring the swapping topic afloat.

It is also important not to affect any potential lawsuits against Apple by
implying, that swapping batteries on affected phones would solve the problem.
Because it would not: Apple should also cover damages to people, who had to
buy new iPhones after being misguided.

~~~
mmjaa
The point is that we wouldn't have a need for these slow-downs if we could
just replace the batteries ourselves.

The whole thing is geared to make Apple more money, and consumers stupider.

~~~
lostmsu
I understand your point, but now you can see how my fear of talking battery
replacements came true. Probably millions of people bought new iPhones this
year because they were deceived. Next day after my comment and all the
discussions Apple announces they will make replacements cheaper. But those
millions are still basically f*cked. And Apple will get away with it because
most people complained about replaceability of the battery, while the only
real issue is straight up illegal deception. Talking about battery
swappability only serves Apple by driving conversation away from it. They will
never make battery swappable unless there's a regulation to force it.

~~~
ddlsmurf
I disagree this is "straight up illegal deception", in fact, I find the
slowing down perfectly rational and a desirable feature. The problem isn't the
slowing down, but it is shining light on the irreplaceability, which IMHO is
the true crime against the planet. That our legal infrastructures haven't
caught up to it is irrelevant, planned obsolescence is a cancer, and if this
is the only time people will notice, damn straight I'll use it

~~~
lostmsu
It's quite selfish to assume what's OK for you is ok for everyone else in a
same situation.

~~~
ddlsmurf
It is, but I don't think I did here. I'm saying it's bad for the planet
because of the ecological cost of making an iphone being artificially pinned
to that for a battery, in spite of their having very different lifetimes. If
people in general thought those lifetimes should be equal, there would be no
uproar to this revelation (the slowing down thing).

------
izacus
Note that this goes well with Apple fighting against right to repair and 3rd
party repairers - if they can make your phone slow over time and prevent you
from cheaply and easily replacing the battery, they essentially force you to
replace your pocket computer every two years or so - the pesky "iPad Upgrade
Problem" disappears for them.

I think we shouldn't look at this issue in isolation - Apple (earning bulk
their money with hardware sales) has tried quite hard to make planned
obsolescence an accepted thing. Soldered components, special screws, lobbying
against legislation to allow you to maintain electronics.

~~~
mch82
$79 for a replacement battery seems reasonable,
[https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-
power](https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power)

> If you're covered under AppleCare+, we'll replace your battery at no charge
> if it retains less than 80 percent of its original capacity.

> If your iPhone needs battery replacement and it’s not covered, the service
> fee is $79.

I agree that I wish it were easier to repair and upgrade Apple products.

~~~
izacus
Yes, of course it does. If you know that the battery is faulty. Doesn't really
change the fact that Apple is actively fighting against any legislation that
would make electronics repairable though.

------
alecthomas
My wife and I both just upgraded our iPhone 6's because they became unusably
slow after iOS 11. Prior to the upgrade they had been running fine with no
issues.

We tried many things including disabling all background app usage, full wipe
and restore, etc. My wife eventually took hers into the Apple store and they
said they didn't know why it was slowing down but that she shouldn't have
upgraded and that there was nothing they could do.

So faced with unusably slow phones, and no resolution, what other choice is
there? We both upgraded. She bought an iPhone X and I bought a Pixel 2 XL. We
would have both been happy sticking with our iPhone 6's as they were under iOS
10.

The crux of the matter is this: our phones were fine before iOS 11, then
unusably slow. We upgraded because we were forced to (unknowingly at the time)
by a software update.

~~~
izacus
Well but you DID buy another iPhone right? Apple got exactly what they wanted
- you spending another 700$+ to replace a perfectly functional device after
just a few years.

The iPhone now goes to the garbage bin adding to pollution even though it can
run the OS just fine without being crippled via update.

~~~
blocked_again
Holy shit. You people just throw away the old iPhone after buying a new one?
That is a luxury almost no one in my country has. So weird that the people get
to live the life on basis of how well the seed generator of Universe performed
during their birth.

~~~
leonroy
No one in the West (that I’ve ever met) literally throws away old iPhones.
They either get handed down to a kid (merits of which are for another thread)
or a friend or relative.

Some folk do trade in their old phone and a lot flip them on the used market.
I think getting more life out of those devices for the original purchaser is
of paramount importance though if we are to stop polluting our environment
with the consequences of smartphone manufacture.

~~~
philjohn
I upgrade my iphone every 2 years, and put in a sell order with a mobile phone
recycler just before the keynote for the new phone starts, that gives me the
best price (it goes down super quick once people see the keynote and decide to
upgrade), and I get more than the upgrade on a new 2 year contract will cost
... win win.

------
fredsted
When I first heard about this, it was apparently due to Apple throttling the
CPU when the battery started getting old and losing capacity. When the battery
gets older, it keeps less charge and therefore, if you want the battery to
last a reasonable amount of time, you'd need to lower the power usage.

I recently got my iPhone 6S battery upgraded since it started shutting off
randomly below 40%, especially in the cold. I got my battery changed for free
due to the Apple 6S battery exchange program.

Today the phone feels just as fast as I want it to. I have zero incentive to
upgrade, and I'm even on iOS 11 which I've had zero problems with. I know of
other people whose phones got faster after switching out the battery.

In my opinion, after 2 years or so, you just need to change the battery.

I wish Apple made it easier to see the health of the battery, and maybe a
button that would send you a package with a return sticker so you could mail
your phone in and get the battery changed in a day or two.

~~~
specialist
coconutBattery.app (for the Mac) will show you the battery health of connected
iOS devices.

[http://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/](http://www.coconut-
flavour.com/coconutbattery/)

[Another commenter shared this trick after I voiced the same feature request.
I had been using coconutBattery for a while, but didn't know it had added this
feature.]

------
lapdanz
The elephant in the room that no one addresses is that Apple offers 3 year
extended warranty programs for which they refuse to fix the malfunctioning
batteries by claiming that they pass their tests. This is despite the fact
that the tests ran by the phone obviously fail (let's assume that Apple indeed
checks the status of our batteries and is not applying blanket throttling)
leading to the frequency limits.

~~~
marklyon
I actually encountered this with my 6+, which I eventually upgraded. It was
quickly depleting the battery, but the tests showed it was fine. The tech
urged me to upgrade to the latest iOS, which I was hesitant to do, since I'd
heard doing so would slow my phone. I didn't want a slow phone with a battery
that died quickly. He assured me that the slowness had been addressed. Wanting
to fix my phone, I upgraded. [0]

Immediate slowness, to the point of being unusable, demonstrated to the in-
store techs. Launching Twitter, for instance, would take minutes and crash
half the time. I then found there was no supported method of reverting the
upgrade, though one tech told me that if I browsed YouTube I could find a
tutorial. I didn't want to DIY a downgrade and still have the short battery
life, so I ended up selling my phone for a very low price and buying a new
one. If I'd known replacing the battery would have revived it, I'd have
happily done that.

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/OYZr7zd.png](https://i.imgur.com/OYZr7zd.png)

------
wojcikstefan
Before iOS 11 my 3 year old iPhone 6 behaved perfectly fine. After the upgrade
it's so painfully slow it's basically unusable. For example, the Messages app
maintains a lag of a few characters when typing, the Camera app freezes for ~5
seconds every time you open it, each tap on the screen has a perceivable
delay, etc. My battery life hasn't been a problem over the last 3 years and I
have not experienced my phone overheating or crashing (which I could interpret
as signs of overclocking).

I do not believe Apple shipped the slowdown to "protect my battery". Even if
that truly was their desire, I'd much rather protect my UX instead and let the
battery die (though, again, it didn't show any signs of severe degradation).
This underclocking should at the very least be a customizable setting.

Is there a reasonable chance Apple will revert this change after losing some
of the lawsuits?

~~~
scarlac
> I do not believe Apple shipped the slowdown to "protect my battery"

So you believe they only slowed down your phone to have you buy a new phone
and hoped not to get caught?

My GF and I were affected by the voltage issue on iPhone 6 & 6S. If Apple can
fix it by limiting voltage, it will give a better experience. Alternative is
literal data loss which I consider much worse. BUT: They do need to tell users
about this slow down. This is where they made a mistake.

I don't see them reverting this change. I do see them paying a hefty fine for
covertly downgrading, and being forced to inform their users of the downgrade.
I do see them pushing software updates to refine the "battery management
system" going forward.

~~~
wojcikstefan
> So you believe they only slowed down your phone to have you buy a new phone
> and hoped not to get caught?

I don't feel comfortable speculating about their real intentions. Regardless,
my main qualm is that they made my user experience worse without warning me
about it during the upgrade nor providing the exact reason for it. I guess we
can both agree then it's primarily a communication issue.

------
crypt1d
As far as I'm concerned, this is a deal breaker. I've been an iOS user since
3GS and now I'm ready to jump ship. Apple has been disappointing me since few
years now, and I've postponed migrating to Android mostly because I'm
accustomed to its UX. But this is enough of a push for me to make an effort to
give Android a try.

I'm looking into Oneplus 5T and Pixel 2 XL. Any other suggestions?

~~~
goldenkey
I have the Pixel 2 XL. Had the Pixel 1 XL before. Pixel 1 was great. But 2 is
meh.. The screen quality is lackluster. The lack of a home button is annoying.
Its not a great phone in terms of build quality especially for the high price.
I dont know much about the OnePlus but I had a Galaxy Note beforehand and I
absolutely loved it. Samsung has been making really great phones other than
the battery explosion blip. If I was gonna buy a phone today Id probably buy a
galaxy s or galaxy note.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Samsung's Nexus phones were the worst of the series. Samsung's own phones
don't get monthly security updates, so I would avoid them.

Stick to Pixel or Android One devices if you're getting an Android phone.
Blackberry and Nokia have promised fast updates as well.

~~~
goldenkey
I was talking about the Galaxy series. The note is an excellent phone. I used
both the Note 4 and 5 in the past. Much better than the Pixel 2 in terms of
build quality. The Pixel was great but the Pixel 2 is garrish (screen quality
and build quality.) I have no opinions on and have never used the Nexus seres.

------
williamscales
Can someone explain to me how this can reasonably be considered fraud? I don't
think Apple makes any guarantees about the performance an iPhone will sustain
over time.

~~~
duncanawoods
Apple's strategy has been to sell devices in an unstable overclocked state
with marketing based on benchmarks and then secretly downgrade to a stable
configuration later in life.

Its ultimately a bait and switch deception driven by fraudulent marketing.

~~~
tomduncalf
Is Apple’s marketing driven by benchmarks? I don’t think it is. They rarely
talk about concrete performance or specs and focus more on the user
experiences the device enables. Might have missed some campaigns though!

~~~
duncanawoods
They used to show charts comparing new iPhone vs. old iPhone speeds in the
launch presentations. Kind of necessary when the S versions were just speed
bumps. The iPhone 6 presentation had a chart crowing about "sustained
performance". It was about thermal throttling but kind of ironic thinking
about it now.

I don't recall any charts from the recent launch - they just seemed to lean on
putting the word "bionic" in the chip name.

~~~
jurip
Which S generation was just a speed bump?

------
jackvalentine
Now the cat is out of the bag I hope Apple adds a "your phone performance is
being reduced because of a degraded battery" message to the settings app or
something.

Sad that they had to be sprung on this one and not more forthcoming though.

------
inertial
On the "slowdown with old battery" issue, does an old iPhone speed up when
it's connected to a charger.

P.S. Just asking out of curiosity, in case someone has an old device and wants
to run benchmarks.

------
dba7dba
So apple iphone was not magically faster than other phones because of better
engineering?

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
I don't think the is the case. The SOCs are faster. The batteries can't keep
up. So they need to throttle the performance to draw less power if the
batteries degrade too much. Which is why swapping out the old battery restores
things. A new battery can provide enough power.

------
hoodoof
If it isn't fraud then it should be a user option. "Slow down phone as battery
ages" yes/no

~~~
zwily
Or “Randomly turn off with lots of charge as battery ages yes/no”?

