In the EU we’ve had energy labels for years and for a TV or fridge those labels have a function as a better label is better for your wallet. But phones don’t use a lot of energy. If the difference between A and C category is 1kwh/year that’s just € 0,10 - € 0,50 more a year. Even in low income countries you can’t buy anything for that. For a major appliance or a TV you can maybe save 100kwh a year and now we’re talking real money € 10,- is a new T-shirt of for low income families an extra day food. € 50,- will get you a good dinner in a restaurant if your electricity is expensive.
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Apple Adds Energy and Battery Labels to iPhone and iPad Pages in EU
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Most consumers aren’t that technically savvy. They see “more energy-efficient”, and everything else being equal that’s a plus then. Note that this system has existed since the 1990s. It’s only a few years ago that the European Commission assed that based on past experience, it would likely lead to increased energy efficiency also for smartphones and tablets, hence this new (2023, actually) regulation. From the preamble:
“In total, smartphones and slate tablets consumed 36,1 TWh of primary energy in 2020, including all life cycle
phases. The preparatory study showed that, without regulatory action, these values are likely to increase to 36,5
TWh of primary energy in 2030. The combined effect of this Regulation and Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/
1670 (2) is expected to limit the energy consumption of smartphones and slate tablets in 2030 to 23,3 TWh,
meaning 35 % of primary energy consumption is saved compared to what would happen if no measures were taken.”
I hope, they are that reasonable. I usually have a huge poster in 9point characters in about 50 languages.
I can confirm the labels are now also placed in Apple Retail Stores and APRs and it looks unapologetically hideous.
Or, rather, they would will still producing results that are worse than those coming from a merely ice cube melting competitor
Self downgrade? That's interesting and makes the rating useless if they were utilized by marketing teams as a product differentiator.
This is what happened with the UTQG (tire wear) rating for tires, with some companies purposely derating a specific tire line's UTQG even though it could be higher to make their expensive tires look better, which made them useless for wear comparisons.
This is what happened with the UTQG (tire wear) rating for tires, with some companies purposely derating a specific tire line's UTQG even though it could be higher to make their expensive tires look better, which made them useless for wear comparisons.
This has got to be it. Apple has never in its history given an inch when it comes to marketing, unless there's something in it for them.
I am genuinely baffled by how people here will invent anything to dismiss what is effectively just... more information to end users. But I guess, okay? So many instances of whataboutism it's genuinely wild. I don't applaud of all EU rules but this is about having a standard way of rating phones and tablets, what' wrong with it? And despite what some of y'all are saying here, the testing is standardized.
If anything that’s more of a reason. The US has all utilities, fridges, microwaves, water heaters, and etc, list the yearly power consumption because they are “needed to survive”. Because if you need something, and cost is an issue, comparing yearly cost of ownership, might be the only differentiating factor for you.
I’m not saying I agree with this though.
so, an iPhone 16 has about a 16Whr battery, lets just say that charging it 0-100 uses 20Whr, do that every day and in a year you'll need 7300Whr, or 7.3kWhr, heck, let's just say 10kWhr, in a year ...
What the EU shows in their preamble is sheer growth of number of devices.
historically, shrinking nodes in semiconductor have led to less power consumption, new tech, eg GaN does it's share, over a 10 year period technology advancement has probably increased efficiency by 2-3%, there is not really that much more to gain in efficiency ...
It is another example where bureaucrats think they need to regulate stuff and justify their existence.
BTW, "energy labels" exist in the US too for decades, and yes, people made purchasing decisions eg on appliances based on "$50 saving per year" on a new fridge and such...
as I said in the post above, a smartphones uses may 10kWh per year, so that makes maybe $5 per year in charging cost, hmmm ...
Often times, people complaining about this are just dumb, or rather, just don't think more then 1 second about the why. The reason for this is because there's something like physical stores where it cannot be displayed on the website. It also means that if the device is handed down or sold to someone else, they too can check the label.
When the EU revamped the energy label for devices like TVs, television sales plummeted because almost every TV got an F or E rating on the new scale. As a result, OEMs have been forced to work their way up through these ratings, and now we've got more energy efficient TVs while the trent was actively heading in the opposite direction. It's not just about pushing consumers to buy more energy efficient devices (it isn't even strictly about energy efficiency of the device itself, but also about its production, etc. in case of smartphones) but also to push OEMs to want to have a good rating.
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It's a phone, not a gigantic appliance, not that anyone cares about these energy ratings on them either. This is just nanny state, dogooder, "hey look at us, we're doing something", tripe. 0% of customers in the EU or anywhere else, will buy or not buy a phone based off these labels, just like nobody will buy or not buy a washing machine or a refrigerator, because of the "Energy Star" labels we have in the US. The reason? Because usually the ones that use less power, don't do the job as well.
You must live in a parallel universe if you think that 120 Hz screen is a real differentiator for most people. Everybody I know can’t tell the difference between a 60 Hz and a 120 Hz screen, and often don’t even know what it means. Everybody I know however care about battery life, and efficiency is tightly linked to it.
In EU at least, for what I know: Packaged food (not yet mandatory, intense vendor lobbying). Washing machines. Houses now (in some countries). Fridges and most other electrical appliances (see pic). To answer another question "Why are tests ambiguous?" : (1) they don't know devices as intimately as the vendor (esp. Apple), so they need to polish and adjust for fairness. (2) They can only publish thresholds, not test protocols. At first, they issued test protocols for fridges, and what did vendors do? they
"And I am lead to believe that modem performance, 120Hz screens etc are the real differentiators and buying decisions…" that was my comment - it is what MR people say, they know it all, don't they?
Re battery life/efficiency - read my other post, to charge a smartphone every day from 0-100 takes about 10kWhr per year ... yes, everyone on MR is concerned and obsessed with battery life yet even here I have never read a post complaining that it cost $5 per year to charge your phone ...
These labels are useful for a fridge but not for a TV. For a good rating TVs now come with dimmed down, low contrast settings by default. These settings would have a low energy consumption but no one is actually using them.
I bet I can save a bit of power usage from the phone speaker; just power up your car and do a hands free call on your car. /s
Or AirPlay video to your 85” TV. It’ll save you some phone power usage. /s
Everyone knows battery life is better when charging it at a cooler temperature; turn down your home AC temperature by 20 degrees to improve battery life. /s
Despite my sarcasm, there is a point to be made here. Trying to force optimization of a heavily used but already extremely efficient device is chasing diminishing returns. A tiny increase in efficiency of big power usage items will make a much bigger difference. In the EU phones may use 36.1 TWh but vehicles in the EU use 2,778 TWh.
Or AirPlay video to your 85” TV. It’ll save you some phone power usage. /s
Everyone knows battery life is better when charging it at a cooler temperature; turn down your home AC temperature by 20 degrees to improve battery life. /s
Despite my sarcasm, there is a point to be made here. Trying to force optimization of a heavily used but already extremely efficient device is chasing diminishing returns. A tiny increase in efficiency of big power usage items will make a much bigger difference. In the EU phones may use 36.1 TWh but vehicles in the EU use 2,778 TWh.
Well here in Australia I can safely drink the water from the tap anywhere in the country, so yeah I do. Governments serve a purpose. Anyway, how is the drinking water going for you over in the deregulated free enterprise utopia you live in?
A label, as in an adhesive-backed sticker? Where is someone supposed to stick this up? Or by "label" do they really mean "little printed sheet" or "pamphlet"?
Can't wait to see iPhones meeting level B drop proofing and then level A after that. The C grade gives a bit of motivation to improve the repeat drop performance.
If you are buying a phone to replace a phone that was dropped and broke, you might think twice seeing Apple's claim of a C grade for the iPhone. I'm sure this will lead to improved drop performance in future phones from many manufacturers.