Apple admit to 'Slowing Down iPhones'

[ging84]

audi321 said:

The point is, why is Apple slowing my machine down without giving me a) warning they are doing it and b) the option to opt out?

It's not something they could give you an opt out of.
The batteries after a while can't reliably produce enough power to run at full power, it's a software enforced hardware limitation.

[Saleen836]

cat with a hat said:

Saleen836 said:

The thing a lot of people forget regarding the battery is it will fail/not hold charge after a while, I know people who charge their iphones 2 or 3 times a day due to the stupid amount of time they spend on the damn thing, 18months later the battery is in need of replacing and Apple gets the blame.

As opposed to android users that don't spend a stupid amount of time on their phone?

iPhone 6s battery = 1,715mAh
My Lenovo battery = 5100mAh

It's an engineering and product decision.

No idea I thought we were talking about iphones

[dmsims]

[Yipper]

There is a reason why Apple's value is fast approaching $1,000,000,000,000 and it is sitting on $275,000,000,000 of free spare cash...

And it ain't because they're giving Apple fanatics lots of free stuff

[buggalugs]

Dracoro said:

bhstewie said:

I've got an iPhone and I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro so I'm hardly anti-Apple but it strikes me that doing it isn't the issue so much as not telling your customers you're doing it - the latter is the bit that makes you look as if you're pulling a fast one.

So for me you really want option 3 which is slow down the phone, tell the user why, and that their battery needs replacing.

The risk of option 3 is people will still moan that Apple are trying to get them to buy a new battery when it doesn’t “need” one. I say that as most people may not notice a slowdown (as will depend on how they are using the device, which apps and so on).

More people will notice that the battery doesn’t last as long as it normally does and consider replacing (battery or device) than will notice slowdown.

Edited by Dracoro on Thursday 21st December 16:04

The real risk of option 3 is that it results in a warranty claim against Apple for a new battery, like what happened with the 6s. The only rock / hard place Apple was stuck between was wanting to sell a phone with a smaller and cheaper battery whilst still benchmarking against their competitors, then not wanting to pay warranty claims when it wouldn't last the distance as sold.

[Jimmy Recard]

audi321 said:

No because one is 15 years older than the other. We're talking 2 or 3 years here!

And you don’t think that the model that’s two years newer should be faster? It probably has more RAM and a more up to date processor, amongst other improvements

[chow pan toon]

Jimmy Recard said:

I do see the sense in this, although I don’t entirely agree with it and I don’t think it’s right to expect a phone that’s from a few generations ago to be as “snappy” as the latest model

Of course and I completely agree but to reduce the processor speed from 1400Mhz-600Mhz as has been seen is outrageous.

ETA - If they had flashed up a warning that this was happening due to the battery then that would be fair enough IMO, gives the customer the information and it is up to them whether to buy a new phone or change the battery. By not telling people it just looks like the phone can't keep up with normal life and needs replacing.

[ZesPak]

cat with a hat said:

If anyone in this thread really thinks their less than 2 year old phone needs its CPU clocked to less than 1/3rd of normal operating speed, you deserve to buy apple products

Basically, this.

Apple needed to release a statement as a reproduceable experiment showed this happening.

The reasoning sounds solid, but the fact that they don't give any message on the device as in "your battery health has dropped below X, this might influence the use of your device" or similar, and the fact that they neglect to comment on this until someone showed irrefuteable proof makes everything about this smell really bad.

[Jimmy Recard]

chow pan toon said:

Of course and I completely agree but to reduce the processor speed from 1400Mhz-600Mhz as has been seen is outrageous.

ETA - If they had flashed up a warning that this was happening due to the battery then that would be fair enough IMO, gives the customer the information and it is up to them whether to buy a new phone or change the battery. By not telling people it just looks like the phone can't keep up with normal life and needs replacing.

Well, Apple is underhanded and arrogant. I mean in general, not just regarding this issue.

Where you quoted me I think I was referring to (for instance) a 6 vs an X and both with healthy batteries, as clearly there's no point comparing a brand new X and a 6 with a bad battery

[chow pan toon]

Ah, got you. Apols, I read it quickly.

[Sheepshanks]

Pheo said:

chow pan toon said:

I think you've answered your own question.

From Apple's point of view it makes perfect sense to underspec the battery and then provide a "fix" after, ooh, about 2 years that makes it seem like your phone is too slow to cope with normal work, rather than your battery is knackered. Hardly a surprise to see people defending them, Apple fans are different.

Not sure that’s true - it’ll speed back up, but it’s not an objective test because it’s running a different version of iOS... so differing requirements on the phone vs new.

I think it's perfectly true. It's certainly happenstance (for Apple). At 2yrs people have to decide whether to get a new battery or a new phone. Getting a new phone is compelling.

[hyphen]

2 class action lawsuits filed in America against Apple for this
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/22...

[mike9009]

Dracoro said:

audi321 said:

Missing what point? Do you actually believe they do it to protect the batteries?

As I understand it, it’s to protect the user experience (not the battery).
So the choice is:
1. Do nothing and the phone crash (and all the complaints and support calls that would arise from that!) OR
2. Slow down the phone so it doesn’t crash. The user can then decide to replace battery if it’s an issue.

Or maybe Apple, knowing this is an issue, design an easily replaceable battery for future models, or free battery upgrade through their excellent Apple stores for older tech. The user should not have to bear the burden of this after a couple of years.

I have not used Apple for many years after an IOS update binned my Ipad 1 (slow, frequent crashing, unresponsive). I bemoaned the fact this happened at the time. Then just avoided them as a brand.

Mike

[Cobnapint]

iPhone users and many forums have suspected this for years, and now we know. Apple have been found out.

Saving the battery MY ARSE.

Make no mistake, this is up there with dieselgate, and Apple should be made to suffer in the same way VW have.

[HRL]

I’ve called it planned obsolescence for at least 5 years.

Usually mocked by Apple fans, even though I still own and use iPhones myself. Whole family are tied into the Apple ecosystem and my kids get the hand me downs.

[ZesPak]

Cobnapint said:

iPhone users and many forums have suspected this for years, and now we know. Apple have been found out.

Saving the battery MY ARSE.

Make no mistake, this is up there with dieselgate, and Apple should be made to suffer in the same way VW have.

It is, but apple is probably going to have to pay a couple of billions and that'll be it. The reason is complete BS though.

[Jimmy Recard]

ZesPak said:

It is, but apple is probably going to have to pay a couple of billions and that'll be it. The reason is complete BS though.

To anyone but Apple, that would be a very serious problem!

[techguyone]

Planned obsolescence - Oh how we laughed...

It all began when we were conned into 'removable batteries are bad' so they made units virtually impossible to get into.

Apple though, sneaky sneaky.

Not just by making your device do a go-slow so you lob it and get a new nippy faster one, but over the last few iOS releases they've quietly been removing the sdk's that let you monitor battery stats so you're really in the dark.

Still it's come out now so there will be class action lawsuits and a lot of st to hit the fan, of course Apple will have done it in your own interests and the publicity machine will be working overtime.

'Batterygate' has a nice ring to it

I'm not sure what's worse:

The fact that apples batteries seem to be extraordinarily crap and degrade earlier than uhh ... other makes I could mention. Doubly so as they preen themselves on being a 'premium' brand.

Or the fact that Apple has tried to 'encourage' users to cough up rather a lot of £ for a new device that they may not necessarily need.

Or even that Apple knows best.

They went to st when Jobs carked it, but like a dinosaur it's taking a long time for the news to hit the brain.

[Cobnapint]

This is akin to deliberately programming a car run rough after a certain period, or causing the backlight on your TV to dim down.

Apple have forced their phones to run below the advertised specification after a set period of time to garner more sales. Simple as that.

For that alone the US courts should be blowing great big financial holes in them, just like they do everybody else.

Look what they did to BP - and that was a fking accident...!

[Sheets Tabuer]

ging84 said:

audi321 said:

The point is, why is Apple slowing my machine down without giving me a) warning they are doing it and b) the option to opt out?

It's not something they could give you an opt out of.
The batteries after a while can't reliably produce enough power to run at full power, it's a software enforced hardware limitation.

They said the reason you couldn't change the battery was because they were so good you didn't need to. Now they are saying they slow you down because the battery is not so good. We're they lying now or then?