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Apple Being Sued for 'Purposefully Slowing Down Older iPhone Models' [Updated]
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All my old games consoles from the NES onwards still run as well as they did when they were new. There are plenty of examples of devices not falling apart after only a few years. I agree that batteries can’t be expected to last forever but it’s the fact that Apple don’t mention they’re throttling performance that has many irked. My 6 Plus was driving me up the wall this year because it was so frustratingly slow, if I’d known a new battery could fix things while I waited for the iPhone X to launch I would have jumped on it.
The Nintendo DS Lite has an amazing battery that seems to last forever. Games don't run any slower as the battery degrades. Unfortunately, Nintendo decided to cheap out with batteries on their 3DS and Nintendo Switch.
That's just covering up the original issue, though, which is from using a very profitable battery but with low capacity and bottom of the barrel quality. With the amount of profit Apple is raking in they should at least be using a high quality high capacity Japanese battery or use the excessive money they're hiding off-shore to R&D new battery technology.
Even charging $80 for a $5 battery is questionable when you can buy a $50 Huawei Ascend XT2 phone that's about 1 mm thicker (about thickness of credit card) with 4000mAh battery that has 15% left after over 9 days and 9 hours of screen-on time. And, the build quality is superb.
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Oke... so Apple silently slows down my device due to degraded battery.... so I can use my phone longer than without and I don’t have to buy a new battery of device instantly... and then all the smart guys on Macrumors.... tell me that Apple has done this to force me buying a new device... how stupid people are or can be 
[doublepost=1514062226][/doublepost]So when you buy a new car, you expect no loss of compression and decrease in performance forever? I'd totally support easy battery swap option, but people's demands from Apple is a total BS. Average iPhone works so much longer than android phone. My 4S, 5S are still operational with minor issues. Go and try to find 6 years old Samsusng with original battery that works reasonably well. Slow phone is still a phone that you can use for emergency call. Dead phone on other end...
What is so smart about the fact that once you upgrade you cannot downgrade anymore and you are stuck with a bricked device? Giving people options would be the smart thing to do imo
What do you mean by "extend the life of the phone"?
Are you meaning
A. Allow the phone to last until the end of the day without a boost charge.
or
B. Allow the phone to work on in a slow manner for months?
If Apple truly cared they would inform users they need a new battery if they throttle the phone. But if it became common knowledge that batteries that are not failing their health check can be replaced and brought the phone back to normal operation, this would work against them in any litigation.
That is why they are refusing to allow users to pay for a battery replacement if the battery passes their health check.
Nefarious is not the word!!
Then all Li-ion batteries in all products are defective, since I've experienced random low battery shutdowns using many old MacBooks, PC laptops, and Android devices. No one has figured out how to make a consistently accurate battery gauge for a consumer-grade Li-ion battery near its end-of-life.
I just tried to recharge a 9 year old iPod someone found in a drawer. Nope. Dead battery. Shuts down as soon as it's unplugged from the charger. No court would force Apple to replace that battery.
I don't think they cheapened out on the Switch battery, that battery takes up about half the system. Any bigger and it starts to compromise the portability.
They thought they had managed to catch the bad batteries and the fact your phone is still working fine is proof that that a good battery is not a problem.
However the battery disease has been found to be much worse affecting up to two years of production, so they are trying to hide the issue with this throttle scam.
He can get it fixed by anyone. His comment suggests that he wants zero support from Apple after buying it.
You fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I have never heard of a device randomly shutting down because its battery was aged, and I've had more battery operated tech devices than I can count. As the battery ages, the battery life is shortened, and typically they've run just fine right up until the battery had zero life and the device had to be plugged in to function. Apple has either got a) a design problem, b) an under spec'd or defective battery, or c) they are full of crap and just trying to get people to upgrade. In each case, its fair to call this a "scandal". If it were all on the up and up, why didn't they expose what they were doing. I believe they found a problem and rather than do a recall like a respectable organization, they came up with this line of crap about trying to extend the life of the device... and the Apple faithful will of course fall for it and defend them. Will be interesting to see these court cases play out, and what they find in discovery.
Maybe you're right about the battery and the price. They are $20 (for iPhone 6 at least) at iFixit, but that of course involves doing the replacement on your own.
Sounds very good with the battery life on the Huawei Ascend XT2. 4000 mAh sounds good, but is it really that good – 9 days and 9 hours and still 15% left?
My Android experience is with a Nexus 7 tablet and I was always disappointed with how much it drained the battery overnight when not in use. Much better on iOS devices in my experience. But maybe that's better now on later versions of Android? I can't have later than version 6 on the Nexus 7.
What is BS is that ignorant car analogy. Cars don't lose more than half their power unless something is seriously wrong. And if something is wrong, it will tell you (check engine, service soon etc.). What a concept huh?
Mike
That's bologna and a bs excuse.
There's many many devices out there with "powerful" CPU's that do not shut off randomly.
Its clearly a battery defect and when they replaced them in those 6S iphones they never had that issue again.
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But you know that you have a battery issue and need to replace it.
Its a very clear indicator right away if it will not even power on.
How hard would it be for apple to tell us that the battery is degraded and needs replacement?
And like you said its happening to a 9 year old ipod, would you expect the same thing happening to an iphone 6S that's less than a year old?
Wouldnt you think then that maybe the battery is defective?
You would have no idea cause Apple would just slow down your device instead.
Welcome to reality. I know you're not ready to accept it but keep fighting the good fight trying to defend Apple
It's also not happening to other iPhone 6S and 7's that have supposedly healthy batteries. Explain the difference if you think it's something the latest iOS update caused.
They don't deserve $80. The battery is worth $25, tops.
I can get an "OEM" battery with a warranty for $30CDN - with opening tools. Apple wants $100 to replace my battery out of warranty. They can whistle for it.
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I'll add a couple:
In Airplane Mode, do you see the same slowdowns?
After a complete backup and restore, do you see the same slowdowns?
Source please, with respect to energy density, and your assertion that it's bottom of the barrel quality. Please be precise on this, with respect to bottom of the barrel quality.
"at least be using a high quality high capacity Japanese battery or use the excessive money they're hiding off-shore to R&D new battery technology."
And, can you provide a link to the equivalent-volume Japanese battery you are referring to, with far greater capacity, that Apple should be using.
My MacBook Pro 2011. Its performance is still as good as it was in 2011. Only thing that has changed mostly is RAM, CPU and GPU requirements have increased, but thats nothing to do with the hardware, or indeed, software throttling. The raw performance of the laptop is still that of 2011.
Your post is nonsense.
Your post is nonsense.
Well, I've had my iPhone 6 (three years old now) quite often shut down at around 20% but thats hasn't been happening for quite some time now, and I still have the same battery. Seems that is due to Apple's down throttling, which I much prefer than having the phone shut down suddenly. Battery life is surprisingly good for such an old battery, I think. I expected it to be worse after three years, an I use the phone extensively.
Different iOS versions, different level of battery health (the percentage of "Healthy" is anything above 80%, from what I gather).
It won't throttle a 95% but it will throttle an 85%, for example.
I wish I really knew all the details of how this was implemented so I could make informed decisions, but Apple thought we best not even know. I'm just glad I didn't yet buy a new phone when it looks like my 6 could be restored (partially) to its original power by replacing the battery.
A little off-topic, but did you notice the shutdown at 20% coincided with you hitting the "low power mode"? If I ignore the low power warning the phone will continue to operate until it gets down to about 5% power. If I accept the low power warning the phone will frequently drop from 20% down to 15% in a matter of minutes and then randomly shut down shortly thereafter.