Apple Addresses Alleged Throttling of iPhones With Degraded Batteries

[nviz22]

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?

Oh, this narrative again? Some people do not want to spend $ unnecessarily on a new upgrade. The 6 can make calls, send messages, web browse, download apps, take photos, record video, provide music and video playback, offer GPS services, etc. If someone can get 6 to work well in 2017 for them, why should they spend $350 or $400 to get the iPhone 7? Not everyone upgrades frequently as some of us do. I am not getting a 2018 iPhone myself included if this issue occurs next year.

 

[daniesy]

Replacement battery from Apple is $80. Filing fees in small claims court are probably $100.

Perfect case for some lawyer to do a class action lawsuit.

True, this is what i was suggesting.
[doublepost=1513804113][/doublepost]Won't replacing the battery on the iPhone 7 (and older) remove the waterproofing?

 

[DynaFXD]

And with that, the warranty is gone.

Others are saying that Apple won’t replace your battery even if you are willing to pay them (out of warranty) to do it. If you are already out of warranty, what’s the issue for letting an after market shop do it?

ETA: won’t take the replacement request IF their diagnostics do not indicate a problem, that is.

 

[69Mustang]

As far as I am aware, Apple has been upfront about what it does, even if they haven't gone into painful detail on everything they do each and every time, so as to placate many forum and Reddit users.

I have no problem raking Apple over the proverbial coals when I think it is warranted. In this scenario, I don't think it is.

When you want to see darkness, darkness is what you shall find.

How do you see Apple being upfront about what it does in this particular situation? There's really nothing up front about how this situation evolved imo.

 

[VulchR]

So... this is why my 4S is slowing down...

In all seriousness I have 3 points to make:

1. There is nothing wrong with what Apple is doing, but they should have warned people so they did not faff about with restoring etc. in a vain attempt to recover the speed of processing of their iPhone. Apple has even defended lawsuits in which they denied throttling in order to make people buy new iPhones, but they could have mentioned this phenomenon to clear things up.
   
2. I wonder if this vindicates those of us who have been saying all along that Apple should drop their thinness fetish and put in larger batteries. I am no engineer, but it makes sense that larger batteries that take longer to discharge will have fewer charging cycles over time and therefore degrade less rapidly relative to a smaller battery. (If anybody has technical knowledge about this, please correct me if this assumption is wrong.)
3. This kind of performance decrement begins to make the iPhone look like a disposable consumer item, which means the resale value must drop sharply unless Apple commits to providing replacement batteries. Also, this makes the iPhone look much less ecologically friendly. I am indeed using a 4S that I hope to retire to a music-player/GPS-device when I get a new iPhone, but it's getting hard to find replacement batteries and that does begin to smack of planned obsolescence.

 

[emulajavi]

This is something that didn’t exist prior to iPhone 6.

SEVEN iPhones before the 6, always performed at 100% and if it you experience poor battery duration you replaced the battery and that’s all but performance was never throttled.

Now you can’t have an iPhone that always performs at 100%. It’s ashaming Apple! This is truly planned obsolescence or battery $$$$$$$. You can only enjoy 100% with new batteries. You are forced to buy a new battery to regain 100% performance. What the hell is this!

Maybe for me it’s enough to have 5 hours of battery life if the phone runs at its 100% performance instead of Apple keeping the 10 hour advertised battery life but slowing the phone.


Remember that apps are normally designed and updated for the latest device (that’s why app size always increases and increases), and are designed taking into account the more GHz given by the new processors. If iOS reduces the phone performance, most Apple struggle to run properly.

With this throttling thing if you have an iPhone 6 for example, apps may be running like if you had an iPhone 5.

 

[Jcxa]

I prefer the option to undo Apple's throttling. If my phone has unexpected shut downs then I know to replace the battery. I prefer performance over battery life; I can replace batteries but I can not do much about performance. Perhaps Apple was trying to save people with this power management scheme, but they actually made matters worse. They could have taken ownership of the problem and said Iphone owners have two options, a software patch that allows the user to activate the new power management software with the resultant hit to performance or replace the battery. Hiding the problem was a betrayal.

 

[daniesy]

more like the battery... not the iPhone. sometimes paying for AppleCare is worth it. but youre suing Apple for what... because you bought a $79 battery? so youre going to pay thousands of dollars for a $79 battery? what?

Well my iPhone 7+ is already slow and it's less than one year old.
I propose suing because they're reducing the performance of the devices on purpose. The battery thing is just a pretext. I don't hear Android users complain about this.

 

[ArneK]

what do you mean after a couple of weeks? you go through 500 charge cycles in "a couple of weeks?" yikes. what are you doing with your device?

mine is doing that with 150 charge cycles...

 

[Wags]

I don't think it's sinister. It's like if you were running super low on gas, you would drive delicately and not slam the gas, in hopes of extending your mileage.

More like you take your car to the dealership and has maybe factory defect but they just run software update without your knowledge but the effect is lower performance or gas mileage that you never really correlate.

 

[nt5672]

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%.

Get over it, its not your phone. Never has been never will be. Apple is way smarter than you are and they know best about all things. Welcome to the nanny world.

 

[kemal]

Best customer experience: Make you think your phone is too slow so you buy a new one. How about a message on the screen informing the customer that the phone is throttling back to avoid battery failure. "You should consider a new battery from your nearest Apple Store. Would you like to have Siri create an appointment for you?"

 

[Carlanga]

lmao I can't believe some of the applelogetic replies here.

 

[daniesy]

I guess now it's official, the lifespan of iPhones is exactly one year, until the new iOS comes out.

 

[jimbobb24]

All sounds like a reasonable attempt to balance competing issues. People may disagree with apples approach but nothing sinister to see.

 

[daniesy]

lmao I can't believe some of the applelogetic replies here.

You should see the comments in my country: if you complain you're a poor person and you should ****.

 

[thadoggfather]

To “deliver the best experience for customers” it would help to offer a free battery replacement for customers experiencing degraded performance as the red flag.

Tho This shouldn’t be a problem in the first place. That would really be the best experience: Sustained performance and no shutdowns over time for such an expensive device.

I like how they double down on planning to issue an update for this “feature” for devices newer than 7 in the future. (8/8+/X) And have quite literally “extended the feature” to 7 starting with 11.2

HURRY UP AND GET A 7 ON <11.2 while you can!!

What arrogance.

No reality distortion field whatsoever.

 

[daniesy]

All sounds like a reasonable attempt to balance competing issues. People may disagree with apples approach but nothing sinister to see.

Maybe just use better batteries? You don't hear Android guys complaining about this

 

[JFCL]

So after a year the only way to guarantee your phone runs at it's specified CPU speed is to get a third party battery or a new phone. That rubs me the wrong way!

 

[chrfr]

what do you mean after a couple of weeks? you go through 500 charge cycles in "a couple of weeks?" yikes. what are you doing with your device?

Mine does it after 350 cycles, which is far fewer cycles than Apple's rated lifespan of the battery.

 

[cale508]

Others are saying that Apple won’t replace your battery even if you are willing to pay them (out of warranty) to do it. If you are already out of warranty, what’s the issue for letting an after market shop do it?

ETA: won’t take the replacement request IF their diagnostics do not indicate a problem, that is.

If you are already out of warranty, why take it to Apple in the first place? It will always be more expensive with Apple.

 

[Zaft]

All sounds like a reasonable attempt to balance competing issues. People may disagree with apples approach but nothing sinister to see.

Its not the approach, its Apple not telling anyone. A warning on the iPhone screen stating the battery is bad and will degrade performance would have been fine and upfront.

But when you hide something like this, its fishy.

 

[BigSky20]

We were holding the thoughts in our mind about throttling wrong!

 

[MH01]

Doesn’t seem to be any real conspiracy as implied in other threads/blogs. My 6s did qualify for the battery replacement program and for that kudos to Apple.

As did mine. The problem is that it took Apple quite some to admit fault, I bought the apple battery case , and in time Apple replaced my battery . Definitely not kudos , if you were like me caught up in this early in the cycle .

 

[daniesy]

Its not the approach, its Apple not telling anyone. A warning on the iPhone screen stating the battery is bad and will degrade performance would have been fine and upfront.

But when you hide something like this, its fishy.

They can't do this, because it's them admitting they're using crappy batteries. They're hoping people won't notice or just buy new phones.