Apple Being Sued for 'Purposefully Slowing Down Older iPhone Models' [Updated]

[balcis]

Good. This could all be avoided if apple instead put in higher quality battery cells (apple watch's battery life is 1000 cycles), or if they make it easier to replace the batteries.

or at least for battery worn situations offering free battery replacements.

 

[ibuyufo]

Typical apple dick move. We all know that this is just a P.R. excuse they're using because they got busted. The only reason they would slow down the cpu is pure greed. It's just a ploy for them to force you into purchasing a new device because they know you're neck deep into their ecosystem.

In my case, after installing iOS 11 into my iPad Pro (2016), the animation seems very jerky whereas the previous iOS 10 was smooth. If the battery presents to be a problem in the future, they should let customer change it rather than slowing down the cpu. In the future, if this same phone or iPad will still have the cpu throttled regardless if it had been replaced with a new battery.

 

[balcis]

... and if your phone shut down periodically you would be complaning about that. What Apple is doing is smart. Where they failed is being transparaent.

except that they weren't until all these came out. if they can detect this and slow down cpu's so they can offer battery replacements for people.

but the point is they are doing this for people to change their phones, not batteries.

 

[steven4570]

Typical apple dick move. We all know that this is just a P.R. excuse they're using because they got busted. The only reason they would slow down the cpu is pure greed. It's just a ploy for them to force you into purchasing a new device because they know you're neck deep into their ecosystem.

In my case, after installing iOS 11 into my iPad Pro (2016), the animation seems very jerky whereas the previous iOS 10 was smooth. If the battery presents to be a problem in the future, they should let customer change it rather than slowing down the cpu. In the future, if this same phone or iPad will still have the cpu throttled regardless if it had been replaced with a new battery.

"he only reason they would slow down the cpu is pure greed"
How is that in their long term interest? Like how? This would lead to a revolt, plain and simple. They do NOT do this with the sole intention of getting people to buy newer hardward, that thinking is plain suicide.

 

[mcdj]

About time. What they are doing is highly unethical. Their involvement with my property stops after payment.

Lemme guess, you’re still on iOS 1.0.

Amazing how quickly people show their narrow mindedness and short sightedness 10 seconds after they hear about something that doesn’t affect them.

Thanks Internet. You’re making us great.

 

[KiwiAdventure]

I'm a big Apple supporter but Apple stuffed up. They lied when asked many times if they slow older iPhones down. I believe my 2016 iPad Pro was slowed down by Apple and now I'll be asking Apple the question if they did slow my iPad down.

 

[jamesrick80]

Exactly the reason why I have my signature the way it is. Once again...shame on Apple. I remember my Note 4 staying speedy for like four years.

 

[jarman92]

About time. What they are doing is highly unethical. Their involvement with my property stops after payment.

So they shouldn’t issue software updates then? Security patches? Should they stop maintaining the servers your iPhone connects to? What an incredibly asinine statement.

 

[mackinmike]

What does unexpectedly shutdown mean? Does that mean if it's has 25% juice left, it'll shutdown?

 

[Abazigal]

I'm a big Apple supporter but Apple stuffed up. They lied when asked many times if they slow older iPhones down. I believe my 2016 iPad Pro was slowed down by Apple and now I'll be asking Apple the question if they did slow my iPad down.

Apple does not deliberately slow down your device with the express intention of forcing its users to upgrade. That much I believe.

Maybe the way they went about it wasn’t the most clever in hindsight, but I am not sure what exactly you hope to get out of a lawsuit.

 

[tylerthomas28]

Apple doesn't do this with the intention that people buy new phones. Is that your initial reaction if you buy a car and in 3 years it breaks and slows down is to go buy the same car? No. you wouldn't touch that car with a 10mile pole. Phones are not any different, it isn't in Apple's long term interest to do this with that intention, it would be suicide.

You really are trying to compare a car to a low cost electronic device . Phones are vastly different and slowdowns/depleted batteries are good for Apple’s sales. Have to do something to get users to upgrade frequently.

 

[jarman92]

Why do people on here with iPhone 4S and a battery that’s 50% degraded still have full speed?

Looks like this wasn’t an issue before the iPhone 6, and all previous iPhones also used batteries.

Because the throttling was introduced in 10.2.1 I believe, and the 4S didn’t get that update. Also I imagine that the power requirements of that phone were much less relative to the battery capacity so the problem isn’t as noticeable.

 

[ibuyufo]

"he only reason they would slow down the cpu is pure greed"
How is that in their long term interest? Like how? This would lead to a revolt, plain and simple. They do NOT do this with the sole intention of getting people to buy newer hardward, that thinking is plain suicide.

Then what's the reason that they come out with a new iphone/ipad every year? If they don't force people to buy new hardware, their business model would not be sustainable. Apple knows how to create hype for their product and they have the art of manipulating their customers down to a science. They tell you how fast and magical the device is and everyone eats it.

 

[baldwyn08]

It always amazes me at how people are so willing to take the side of massive corporations over individual consumers.

Anyway, my own experience with iOS 11 is that it has absolutely destroyed the performance of my iPhone 5s, which was humming right along before the update.

You're kidding, right? Some people would defend Apple even it was found their precious iPhones were single-handedly causing cancer.

I think that it wasn't that Apple did anything to their phones, it was that they constantly said, "we are NOT slowing your iPhone down. Trust us."

 

[KiwiAdventure]

Apple does not deliberately slow down your device with the express intention of forcing its users to upgrade. That much I believe.

Maybe the way they went about it wasn’t the most clever in hindsight, but I am not sure what exactly you hope to get out of a lawsuit.

I never said Apple slows down products just so sell new phones. What I said was Apple didn't tell the truth when asked if phones were slowed down. All Apple needed to say was the truth.

 

[blake2]

Interesting. But I remember from the iPhone 6 battery issue back then that some people complained of premature shutdown of iPhones in cold weather, even iPhone 5’s and 4’s. I had an iPhone 4 and 5S that didn’t last in the cold, too, so I don’t think this is limited to the 6S.

I think this was Apple’s solution to the premature shutdown thing. Too bad they didn’t let us know about what they were doing.

 

[majkom]

This was clearly inevitable and I'm surprised the story hasn't blown up even more.

They can't go around saying their processors trounce SnapDragon's and give specified speed improvements over their previous models when they only perform at the advertised speeds for a year or so. The whole narrative has been false. John Gruber's response was totally uncritical in its thinking. It's not about whether they are intentionally trying to force people to upgrade. It's about whether the product was sold with the specifications it was advertised to have.

And there is so much missing in Apple's explanation about this being about balancing battery vs. performance. If that were the case, why does my fourth generation iPod touch work quickly and without random shutdowns? It's so old I can't even put a number of years on it.

There is either bad battery tech that is particular to Apple's phones or they have designed processors that require a power source that is unsustainable in a phone.

Of course that people like Gruber or Ritchie are uncritical, thats how they earn invitations to apple events... stopped reading/listening to these two (and few others)

 

[ibuyufo]

So they shouldn’t issue software updates then? Security patches? Should they stop maintaining the servers your iPhone connects to? What an incredibly asinine statement.

There is making software updates and making software updates that purposely throttle the CPU. That's the big difference. If through the diagnostics Apple can see that the battery is degraded, they could have put a message that the battery should be serviced. But we know that's how how Apple works. They're a hardware company and they want you to buy a new phone.

 

[ke-iron]

All this crying and complaining is just none sense. Next you’re going to sue them for throttling your MacBook Pro? There is virtually no difference in throttling a MacBook Pro and an iPhone performance, and Apple have been doing the former for as long as I can remember.

The only mistake I see here was not giving a toggle option in setttings for this.

This is an easy win for Apple, but a waste of time and money.

 

[BvizioN]

About time. What they are doing is highly unethical. Their involvement with my property stops after payment.

Such a BS and you know it. The reason why iPhone's are usable for years is because they get supported.
But that is America, where people sue over a hot drink being hot, What can you expect! There is one thing on peoples mind.... SUE SUE SUE

 

[dampfnudel]

It always amazes me at how people are so willing to take the side of massive corporations over individual consumers.

Anyway, my own experience with iOS 11 is that it has absolutely destroyed the performance of my iPhone 5s, which was humming right along before the update.

Looks like Apple wants you to hum right along to the nearest Apple Store.

 

[ersan191]

All this crying and complaining is just none sense. Next you’re going to sue them for throttling your MacBook Pro? There is virtually no difference in throttling a MacBook Pro and an iPhone performance, and Apple have been doing the former for as long as I can remember.

The only mistake I see here was not giving a toggle option in setttings for this.

This is an easy win for Apple, but a waste of time and money.

Apple has never throttled MacBook Pro's other than downclocking once your battery reaches 5%

And if they ever did choose to, which would incite just as much outrage as this has and assuming they didn't make a change after the slew of lawsuits that would inevitably come their way, there would be ways around it because macOS is a relatively open platform.

 

[bobob]

15 seconds to open the camera. Utter crap. SLOWER than a 10 year old NOKIA

Wasn't this claim posted on the other thread? Has a video showing this behavior been posted yet?

 

[dampfnudel]

There is an article with some speculation as to what went wrong on Anandtech. Here is a quote from it:

"The second question comes to regard to as why it came to the issue in the first place as this should be a universal issue affecting a greater number of smartphones, not just Apple iPhones.

The first unique characteristic separating Apple iPhones from other smartphones is that Apple is using a custom CPU architecture that differs a lot from those of other vendors. It’s plausible that the architecture is able to power down and power up in a much more aggressive fashion compared to other designs and as such has stricter power regulation demands. If this is the case then another question rises is if this is indeed just a transient load issue why the power delivery system was not designed sufficiently robust enough to cope with such loads at more advanced levels of battery wear? While cold temperature and advanced battery wear are understandable conditions under which a device might not be able to sustain its normal operating conditions, the state of charge of a battery under otherwise normal conditions should be taken into account during the design of a device (Battery, SoC, PMIC, decoupling capacitors) and its operating tolerances."

The problem probably is Apple took two more things into account when designing and sourcing their batteries: cost and pushing customers to upgrade.

 

[lcribas58]

Hate to urinate in your chips, but battery technology is consistent between all manufacturers and it sucks.

Apple is being disingenuous, because they know they're screwing customers when 1) they don't tell you, when you buy it, that your phone as bought will only last about three years (they can make those batteries last longer if they really want, but they don't)... and 2) they are, maybe unlawfully, messing with your internet access. So, why do you have a super modern computer-in-your-hand if you can't use it as such? Why have (and pay for) fast internet if your phone is slow? What gives them the right to f*** with a product that is ours and we fully paid for? Do we accept GM throttling down our cars, or changing engine configurations through OnStar? Basically, who the hell do they think they are?