Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Addresses Alleged Throttling of iPhones With Degraded Batteries
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Well I currently get 901 MHz of the almost 2 ghz Apple advertised my iPhone 6s for. It got pretty slow 3-6 months after I got it (sadly no warranty anymore because it’s a replacement due to faulty battery). To me that seems like less than half even...
It really reminds me of the Volkswagen story. They just decrease your fuel efficiency so that it now is as clean as advertised
LOL. This is the iOS equivalent of when people were running around insisting that Apple's Mac OS X memory management was broken and inefficient because of all the Inactive Memory in their Activity Monitor, with no working knowledge of what Inactive Memory does or is.
https://www.google.com/search?q=speed+up+free+inactive+memory+purge
No wonder they changed Activity Monitor.
https://www.google.com/search?q=speed+up+free+inactive+memory+purge
No wonder they changed Activity Monitor.
Hopefully MacRumors will let us know how to get in on this
You don’t expect such degradation 12 months on though, and calling it a “feature” is laughable.
The average user won’t think, “My phone has got slower and laggier I better change the battery to get 50% of my CPU back.”
They’ll think, “My phone has got slower and laggier, I better buy a new phone.”
#Throttlegate
(Don’t know if this has been created already - but I hope it has because I don’t want Apple throttling anything else.)
(Don’t know if this has been created already - but I hope it has because I don’t want Apple throttling anything else.)
Would be good if its 11 months. For the iPhone 6/6s it’s more around 6-9 months when it starts slowing down
Why would you have to wander on down to the Apple store if you could buy a generic battery and change it for yourself? That's what I meant.
But if the throttling, as you say, is occuring long before the battery depletes does this mean Apple are using crappy batteries in their premium priced phones or do all batteries show the same gradual decline? But then: How do other manufacturers deal with this?
I think the user should be notified about the CPU throttling. It isn't a bad idea to slow down the phone in order to preserve battery life, a slower phone is better than a one that shuts down every now and then, but you should be aware of that.
A simple popup like "You battery is too old we're slowing down the phone to preserve it, please consider to replace it" would be nice. Some users may just keep the slow phone, other may go to the AS and have their battery replaced.
A simple popup like "You battery is too old we're slowing down the phone to preserve it, please consider to replace it" would be nice. Some users may just keep the slow phone, other may go to the AS and have their battery replaced.
I think you're misunderstanding the point I was making.
Apple is throttling the CPU while the battery is considered "Healthy" and above 80% so not in need of replacement.
Why would they throttle it if its A-OK?
And why would they make all this hidden?
Most likely so you don't notice a battery-related issue. Instead you get poor performance, but that's just written off as something that happens as the device gets older and iOS updates bog it down (which they do).
And we all know how "well" that ended up for VolksWagen. I hope Apple gets hit on its head by this even more.
I'm surprised their answer, to question why are they doing this, wasnt "courage!"
Time to put the throttle on any future Apple purchases. Balls in your court Apple!
This actually should be traced back to Ive's relentless obsession with thinness. A larger capacity battery on a slightly thicker iPhone 6 and onwards could've avoided all this.
I just catched me watching Android phone review. Despite having a iPhone X 256, somehow now it feels bad for having bought it. Gonna think about all my Apple gadgets, and check for alternatives. Maybe I switch sooner than later.
I had been considering upgrading from my iPhone 6 to an iPhone 8 or X because my 6 was just so slow. Was constantly waiting for basic iOS things like spotlight search, typing on the keyboard, loading apps. Much more so than when I first got the phone all those years ago.
Having read some of the stories online about this being connected to battery quality/life, I took a gamble and bought a 3rd party battery replacement kit and installed it 5 days ago.
I can quite honestly say that it's like having a new phone. Everything is fast and responsive again.
Saved myself a LOT of money by extending the life of a decent enough phone.
Just wanted to share in case others were debating "new battery" vs "new phone". I didn't believe it till I tried it myself.
Did some before and after benchmarks. There wasn't that much in it (5-10%) in terms of scores, but in terms of real usage, i'd put the percentages much higher. Easily double, and in some cases triple figures. For exanple, loading Fantastical 2 used to take >5 seconds, but now loads in about 2 seconds. Less than half the time is easily >100% improvement.
Having read some of the stories online about this being connected to battery quality/life, I took a gamble and bought a 3rd party battery replacement kit and installed it 5 days ago.
I can quite honestly say that it's like having a new phone. Everything is fast and responsive again.
Saved myself a LOT of money by extending the life of a decent enough phone.
Just wanted to share in case others were debating "new battery" vs "new phone". I didn't believe it till I tried it myself.
Did some before and after benchmarks. There wasn't that much in it (5-10%) in terms of scores, but in terms of real usage, i'd put the percentages much higher. Easily double, and in some cases triple figures. For exanple, loading Fantastical 2 used to take >5 seconds, but now loads in about 2 seconds. Less than half the time is easily >100% improvement.
of course, once the repair programme went out, it was very smooth. My point was that it took months for apple to acknowledge a problem with the phones, costing me money, if you fell into the group post apple acknowledging the issue, you are fine. Its just frustrating when apple will not accept a blatant issue for as long as possible.
And notice how Apple bans apps that tell you battery cycles on your iPhone. I hope there is a class action suit, this absolute abuse.
Well this happens when you let the marketing department design your phones. It's all about thinness..
I suspect Apple identified batteries were not up to standard and to save the cost of a mass recall implemented this 'feature.'
It's not required for the 5S and below (most likely a different battery manufacturer).
Something very fishy about all of this.
It's not required for the 5S and below (most likely a different battery manufacturer).
Something very fishy about all of this.
I think you gave Apple a lot of money for an "up to xxx times faster" processor, they usually dont advertise exact specs.
The same goes for Consumer-DSL (at least here in Austria), you pay for "up to xxxMBits download" and there is no guarantee that you will get that top speed consistently.
My 5S currently shuts off when left for a few minutes in the cold (above 0°C, full battery) so it may not slow down but to be honest I would prefer that because I can not turn it back on without connecting it to power. The only thing that Apple did/does wrong for me is not telling the user, I let Apple support run a battery diagnostic and they said my battery is bad and shows over 1000 cycles but I never ever got any message from iOS about that. Thats to "conservative" for me.
I was making the same point. Users should be notified about the throttling and decide whether to replace the battery, keep the slow phone or buy a new one.
I think the real issue here is the lack of transparency on Apple's behalf. Personally I think the device should alert you when the battery in no longer performing in an optimum way and allow you to chose between full speed with decreased battery life or reduced speed with improved battery life. You would also know when a battery replacement would be of benefit. Either way this doesn't look great on Apple.
Also, due to the cost of the iPhone X I no longer plan to replace my iPhone every year for incremental updated features. Personally I don't want my £1000 device slowed down after just a year when a software update decides its time.
This could have been incorporated into the low power mode that we already have, but instead it came as a stealth update.
Also, due to the cost of the iPhone X I no longer plan to replace my iPhone every year for incremental updated features. Personally I don't want my £1000 device slowed down after just a year when a software update decides its time.
This could have been incorporated into the low power mode that we already have, but instead it came as a stealth update.