Could that possibly be because they expect their phone to be slower in low-power mode?
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Apple Addresses Alleged Throttling of iPhones With Degraded Batteries
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It might not be the lower MHz that makes effects feel less smooth. It might be a lower frame rate or skipped frames to allow the processor to sleep longer between core animation display updates. Do you see a jittery update? Or a long pre-delay and then a smooth presentation?
Given some descriptions of how crippled people's devices seem to be if simple throttling on the level that Low Power Mode does would result in that I'm petty sure we'd see a lot of discussions about it with people saying that Low Powe Mode is often not really worth such noticeable performance degradation.
People understandably have emotional attachments to the products they interact with on a daily basis. Especially from companies that have aligned with their beliefs or aesthetic. And though Apple has been incredibly successful in hacking its way into many hearts, they are a multi-billion (soon to be trillion) dollar corporation at the end of the day. I can’t say I’m disappointed or shocked. Of course their primary objective is to sell you a new phone every year. They aren’t flipping a kill switch on these devices. In fact they are extending their lives in a way. And sometimes I think we lose perspective as consumers. A marginally slower modern iPhone is still about 10x faster than a maxed out several thousand dollar desktop computer from only a few years ago.
Transparency is always preferred, but Apple was probably aware of the public backlash this info would create. Especially from your average consumer who only understands half the story. Not that I’m justifying it. But it brings to mind an old co-worker. I had recently returned to iPhone from android with a used (and faulty) iP6. It was shutting down unexpectedly quite a bit (faulty logic board) and before I knew the root of the problem I was griping to said co-worker about it. She confidently took my phone, opened the app switcher and closed out of all of my apps. She said “here, this will fix it. Leaving apps open is bad for your battery”. I can only imagine how she’s feeling since this story broke...
Transparency is always preferred, but Apple was probably aware of the public backlash this info would create. Especially from your average consumer who only understands half the story. Not that I’m justifying it. But it brings to mind an old co-worker. I had recently returned to iPhone from android with a used (and faulty) iP6. It was shutting down unexpectedly quite a bit (faulty logic board) and before I knew the root of the problem I was griping to said co-worker about it. She confidently took my phone, opened the app switcher and closed out of all of my apps. She said “here, this will fix it. Leaving apps open is bad for your battery”. I can only imagine how she’s feeling since this story broke...
A bit less zippy is miles away from the type of things various people are describing in association with this.
I had a similar experience: store #1 refused entirely to replace my battery when it tested at 86% capacity; store #2 finally agreed to replace battery after I spoke to a manager. They were definitely trained to fight the swap, even though I was happily paying for it.
Apple does specify that the iPhone 6s has 70% faster CPU than the iPhone 6.
However, I have an iPhone 6s that is now even slower than a 5s with 919sc and 1268mc score on geekbench!
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Similarly, “miles away” can be miles away from anything that is factually 2 or more miles apart.
New(er) iPhones, 7/8/X, can probably run iOS 11.x like butter even in low-power mode. Low-power mode clogs iPhone 6 on 11.x. Perhaps we’ll have a lot of unhappy iPhone 7 users that Apple can happily ignore, when iOS 12+ catches up to their hardware.
I can understand why this has to be done due to the battery tripping past the cutoff voltage for the phone to shut down when the draw is high enough but this happens even when plugged in, which doesn’t make sense. There is something else that’s contributing to neccesitate this.
My phone was constantly running at 700MHz for a long time. Apps stopped running smoothly, things took forever to load. I saw this article a few days ago and replaced my battery and suddenly my phone is again at 1848MHz.
I hated when the phone turned off randomly but IF I knew that was solely due to the battery, i’d gladly replace it. Slowing down my phone and CREATING a crappy user experience isn’t something any company should be forcing onto their customers.
For those who say it’s overblown, unless you have experienced this, you can’t decide whether it’s okay or not. My 6s was slower than my wife’s 5s which was a year older and definitely had more charges on it. Same apps would be noticeably slower on my 1 year newer phone and stuttering while running.
For those comparing this to laptops - that analogy is so far off from this. Firstly you can clearly see the speed drop. Second, it’s well understood. Third and most importantly, when plugged back in, speed is back up. Which one of these points pertain to this situation?
My phone was constantly running at 700MHz for a long time. Apps stopped running smoothly, things took forever to load. I saw this article a few days ago and replaced my battery and suddenly my phone is again at 1848MHz.
I hated when the phone turned off randomly but IF I knew that was solely due to the battery, i’d gladly replace it. Slowing down my phone and CREATING a crappy user experience isn’t something any company should be forcing onto their customers.
For those who say it’s overblown, unless you have experienced this, you can’t decide whether it’s okay or not. My 6s was slower than my wife’s 5s which was a year older and definitely had more charges on it. Same apps would be noticeably slower on my 1 year newer phone and stuttering while running.
For those comparing this to laptops - that analogy is so far off from this. Firstly you can clearly see the speed drop. Second, it’s well understood. Third and most importantly, when plugged back in, speed is back up. Which one of these points pertain to this situation?
Depends on your phone. As article explains, for various models it was introduced in an iOS 10 update. And it doesn't just apply to those models automatically, only in cases when the battery can be unstable.
I have to admit I don't understand why the throttling needs to remain in place when iPhones are connected to a charger. Maybe it's a software bug nobody noticed until now? But I imagine Apple has been looking into this already and would have said something today in their statement to calm crazy people down. It's a strange one.
As I recall the phone still mainly runs off the battery even when plugged in while the battery can charge basically.
If that’s the case you will forever be living with a slower phone after Apple decides arbitrarily to slow down your phone? When do they do this? 5 charges in? 10 charges in?250 charges in? Batteries of this kind have a discharge curve that is evenly distributed with some variance. What do they consider a break point for them to start their throttling?
How about something like "You should consider a new battery. See here for the instructions on which model to get and how to swap it." The user experience Apple is so proud of is heavily deteriorated by their sealed boxes and proprietary components.
I would agree to forever run my iPhones in low-power mode, if I could just see their source code! Oh man, that would be glorious.
Companies the size of Apple want to say as little as possible. Liability is a biaatch.
The message would be great, except that you'd wander on down to the Apple store to find the battery is in good "Healthy" status and not below the threshold that they change them out.
The throttling is occurring sooner.
Hmm interesting. I never knew that, if it's true. I knew once your battery was fully charged Apple would allow discharge a little and top back to 100%, and apparently this is good for battery health.
I think Apple should have not throttled any phone ever, let the phone tank when the battery capacity is shot, replace customer batteries if the phone has battery issues within the warranty period, and advise that out-of-warranty batteries can be replaced in-store for a few $$. Be honest, direct, with no discernible BS. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to expect to have to replace a phone battery when it’s dead or dying.