Apple Addresses Alleged Throttling of iPhones With Degraded Batteries

[vlad_djkax]

The issue is that by not disclosing this, and by throttling versus letting the battery degradation become apparent, they are misleading people into a $700 upgrade rather than a $100 repair.

Apple needs to disclose this information in software now that they have been outed, showing info like battery cycles and whether performance is being throttled in the battery settings menu.

As Panzarino said at the end of his article, after a BIG "However"...

Roughly, the three points for possible improvement I see here are as follows:

• Apple should examine whether the gap is too large between when the algorithm starts smoothing out the peaks of performance and when they’re notified that their performance is taking a hit due to battery age. If a person is noticing (and it seems they are, given the discussion threads and social activity on this) that their phone is running slower, then they need to know why.
• The point at which iOS will tell you that your battery has gone to hell is currently very, very conservative. Perhaps this can be set to be more aggressive. Then, of course, users will complain that Apple is cash-grabbing on battery replacements, but humans will remain humans.
• It’s clear that people just didn’t understand that protecting an iPhone with an older battery was going to directly affect performance. Perhaps this is a failing of Apple messaging or a failure of myself (and other journalists) in not explaining it as clearly as possible.

Reasonable enough for me, both Apple's statement and specially Panzarino's thoughts about the whole thing.

Still, the "sense" that new iOS versions cripple older devices will always be there. And with legit reasons, I should say. So, this will not settle any sooner..

 

[rillrill]

Serious question here. Has anyone here NOT upgraded their OS and still experienced random shutdowns? Like, is there someone that has an iPhone 6 running on iOS 8 and they are not see the same problems that OS-upgraders are having?

 

[bradkrischel]

So in other words: they are selling devices that after a couple of weeks deliver app. 50% of the promised power and call that a feature...

How did you come to this conclusion...?

 

[Hustler1337]

Instead of force-throttling a user's device, why doesn't Apple WARN USERS that their batteries are degrading and give users the OPTION to have their device operate in their 'optimised' experience mode?

Apple are clearly being sly here and it strongly smells like Apple have been doing this not for the claimed primary purpose of improving a user's experience, but to push users into buying a new Apple device.

Their silence spoke volumes and if anything, I've lost respect for Apple.

 

[apolloa]

Nice for them to come out and admit what they are doing - and I think it was probably the best thing to do in their situation. Sadly, those of us who suffered from this know that this was as a result of defective batteries in the 6s 6s+ series (my wife had one). Any amount of CPU load or walking outside in cold weather would poof, pop the phone off. Slowing down the CPU to half is great, but replacing the defective battery would have been better. Taking her phone to the Apple Store just got us the "Sorry, but the diag says your battery is green, we can't do anything." When her 6s+ lasted a quarter as long as mine and shut off randomly (my 6s+ didn't have problems) - yeah, her battery was "green" ... bs - even coconutbattery saw fluctuations in the design capacity (less than 200 cycles!).

The Apple Store initially refused to replace her battery even if I offered to pay.... after some insisting, they let me do it only to destroy my wife's iPhone 6s+ in the process. We got it replaced for free but my $80 went down the drain (they refused to refund).

Then soon after we got the 8+.

Imo, the 6s and 6s+ batches came with some really defective batteries. Apple replaced some of the 6s phones but some of the 6s+ had the problem too. Apple did FAR BETTER than a lot of companies imo so I don't hold anything against it. We got a free 6s+ when they destroyed it attempting to put in the $80 battery we paid and AppleCare+ has paid for itself, for me, handfuls of times over and over.

Hang on.. so APPLE destroyed YOUR iPhone, then refused to give you your money back? Does it have in their disclaimer if you pay them to fix your phone, and they destroy it, they don’t have to refund you? Nice they gave you a replacement phone, despite the fact that’s probably under consumer law like refunding you..
And you still praise them?

I don’t get some people.

 

[MacATDBB]

Might be nice to have the option to either dim the LCD backlight or throttle the CPU. For some users the CPU revs may be more important and for others a maintained bright screen.

 

[itguy06]

Hmmmm I’m going to replace my screen and battery on my 6+ and see if that makes it useable again. I bought the 8+ since my 6+ is 3 years old and was getting to be way too slow.

Thinking about it too. I gave up on my 6+ in March as it was way slow. Gave it to the wife to use and she said how bad it was and "How did you use this POS?". I did have the low battery shutdown effect last year so maybe a new battery will make it better again...

But still it's shady of Apple to do this and not tell anyone. I'd rather have a full speed phone that's unreliable at 20% battery left than one that makes me want to throw it against the all all the time.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Hang on.. so APPLE destroyed YOUR iPhone, then refused to give you your money back? Does it have in their disclaimer if you pay them to fix your phone, and they destroy it, they don’t have to refund you? Nice they gave you a replacement phone, despite the fact that’s probably under consumer law like refunding you..
And you still praise them?

I don’t get some people.

Because I've had handfuls of phones replaced without cost thanks to AppleCare+ so I've come out positive in the end. I'm clearly not happy about how my wife's 6s+ was handled hence my voicing my disapproval in the above post. I've had iPhones since the 4s days, if the 6s+ was the first phone I had and I had this experience, it probably would have affected my desire to buy another iPhone.

But yeah, this pissed me off and has affected my "loyalty."

 

[automactic]

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

A snippet from Dylan Thomas

This reminds me of Interstellar

 

[nviz22]

Tl;dr

Batteries age over time and can affect performance.

Still not grounds to deliberately alter software and the end user thinks their phone battery cannot last beyond 50%. Some people do not want to upgrade to another phone because it is an expense. What is the point of spending $700+ for a new phone to use it for just 365 days or so?

 

[itguy06]

Why are you struggling with this concept?

If the phone shuts down randomly, you're mad.

If you have to replace the battery, you're mad.

If #1 happens I buy the new battery and fix it and keep using it. You really can't get mad at battery replacement. Having a constant slow phone in less than 2 years (like my ex 6+) makes you furious.

If Apple adds power management to prevent this, you're mad because a benchmark that artificially triggers a throttle down makes performance less.

I'll lend you my throttled 6+ and see how you think it's an "artificially triggers a throttle down" in normal use.

Come on over to Android. I had this EXACT problem with my Note, and guess what? No update from Samsung. Phone shut itself off constantly. In fact, in 3 years of ownership, I NEVER received an update from Samsung. Ever. Same OS as it shipped with originally.

So you replace the battery and it will be solved. I call BS on the no update statement though. Even my lowly Galazy S5 got an OS update and plenty of minor updates in it's days. And it still performs the same as it did when I took it out of service for the 6+.

 

[bobafett]

I was ready to toss my 6 Plus but decide to replace the battery. Its like a new phone again!

 

[polbit]

Love it! No matter how you spin it, Apple is downgrading performance of the phone over time. Now it is confirmed by Apple. Love the excuse though. The good-hearted Apple is doing this for us, the customers. I'm sure they have no data showing that most consumers are lazy, and will simply exchange their phone for a newer model when it starts slowing down rather than bother with the battery, especially since they never mentioned they were doing this in the FIRST place...

The stench is strong with that one.

 

[barkomatic]

It's fine if Apple does this, but only if they allow us to pay for replacement batteries upon demand. Older iPhones already struggle sometimes under iOS updates but adding a throttling "feature" can lead to a very frustrating experience.

 

[chrfr]

The part about "Apple offers battery replacement in stores" is not really true. I've gone twice to an Apple store to have them assess my battery. They refused to let me pay them to replace the battery because their diagnostics passed.

I'm in the situation where Apple won't even let me pay to replace my battery even though I have random shut downs and blatant CPU throttling when below 50%.

This is where I'm at too. The battery is obviously faulty but Apple's diagnostic doesn't think so, so they won't replace it. This whole situation isn't going to do Apple's reputation any favors.

 

[Act3]

Instead of force-throttling a user's device, why doesn't Apple WARN USERS that their batteries are degrading and give users the OPTION to have their device operate in their 'optimised' experience mode?

Apple are clearly being sly here and it strongly smells like Apple have been doing this not for the claimed primary purpose of improving a user's experience, but to push users into buying a new Apple device.

Their silence spoke volumes and if anything, I've lost respect for Apple.

eventually we will be to the point where processor speed for a phone no longer matters, and sales will drop to that of laptops and desktops. Heck it can almost be argued if they can cut the speed by half, because of the battery , that the processors are faster than they really need to be

 

[Pauly R.]

This throttling is not just for iPhones with bad batteries. I have a 2 month old iPhone 6S, battery wear is 1%. So battery is in mint shape. If the battery life is below 20% then the CPU drops MHz, this happens with Low Power Mode off.

I could understand the cpu MHz drop when I have the phone in Low power mode, but if I don’t enable it, then my cpu power should be at 1848 MHZ, however that is not the case. Apple throttles cpu power as soon as it sees battery power is below 20%.

 

[Dranix]

Apple is really ****ing us this time. My iPhone6+ was near iPhone5 performance (GB4 of 800), after replacing the battery today its back to peak performance (Geekbench4 of 1552). That is no little slowing. I'm still checking if I can bring them to court because of it.

 

[pat500000]

Holy moly! What’s with the moaning from both sides of perspective? It’s a phone....but maybe it’s time to get updated phone?

 

[Act3]

This throttling is not just for iPhones with bad batteries. I have a 2 month old iPhone 6S, battery wear is 1%. So battery is in mint shape. If the battery life is below 20% then the CPU drops MHz, this happens with Low Power Mode off.

I could understand the cpu MHz drop when I have the phone in Low power mode, but if I don’t enable it, then my cpu power should be at 1848 MHZ, however that is not the case. Apple throttles cpu power as soon as it sees battery life is below 20%.

that sounds like a defective battery. my replacement battery doesn't drop mHZ until it get down to about 1%, just before it shuts down. Stays 1848 the whole way.

 

[Mal Blackadder]

This did not age well... https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/06/apple-doesnt-deliberately-slow-older-iphones/
[doublepost=1513803771][/doublepost]

Holy moly! What’s with the moaning from both sides of perspective? It’s a phone....but maybe it’s time to get updated phone?

Why shell out on a new phone when the problem can be fixed with a $79 battery.

 

[Pauly R.]

that sounds like a defective battery. my replacement battery doesn't drop mHZ until it get down to about 1%, just before it shuts down. Stays 1848 the whole way.

Battery life says the battery is in mint shape. I got a new phone from Apple 2 months ago as a warranty replacement, unfortunately the warranty is now gone so not much I can do.

 

[cale508]

Thats ok, a bunch of 3rd party shops will take your money.

And with that, the warranty is gone.

 

[newtestleper]

A company who took several months to fix the calculator stutter apparently has the technology to allegedly make their internal parts purposely shorten the life of a phone...

 

[Dranix]

Holy moly! What’s with the moaning from both sides of perspective? It’s a phone....but maybe it’s time to get updated phone?

I won't replace a 1000 eur device after just 3 years of usage. Americans are really economically weird x_X