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Apple yesterday confirmed that it has implemented power management features in older iPhones to improve performance and prevent unexpected shutdowns as the battery in the devices starts to degrade, and this admission has now led to a class action lawsuit, which was first noticed by TMZ.

Los Angeles residents Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas, represented by Wilshire Law Firm, this morning filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California accusing Apple of slowing down their older iPhone models when new models come out.

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According to the lawsuit, Bogdanovich and Speas have owned the iPhone 7 and several older iPhone models and have noticed that their "older iPhone models slows (sic) down when new models come out." The two say they did not consent to have Apple slow down their devices, nor were they able to "choose whether they preferred to have their iPhones slower than normal."

They're seeking both California and Nationwide class action certification, which would cover all persons residing in the United States who have owned iPhone models older than the iPhone 8.

Apple yesterday addressed speculation that it throttles the performance of older iPhones with degraded batteries, confirming that there are power management features in place to attempt to prolong the life of the iPhone and its battery. Apple implemented these features last year in iOS 10.2.1.

When an iPhone's battery health starts to decline, the battery is not capable of supplying enough power to the iPhone in times of peak processor usage, which can lead to shutdowns, Apple says.The lawsuit seemingly misrepresents Apple's original statement and suggests the plaintiffs and their lawyers do not understand Apple's explanation for how iPhone power management features work and why they were implemented, given the lawsuit's suggestion that it's tied to the release of new devices. As explained by Apple, when certain iPhone models hit a peak of processor power, a degraded battery is sometimes unable to provide enough juice, leading to a shutdown. Apple says it "smooths out" these peaks by limiting the power draw from the battery or by spreading power requests over several cycles.

Lithium-ion batteries degrade over time by nature, and this eventual wearing out addressed by the power management features is unrelated to the release of new iPhone models.

Apple does not deny that iPhones with older batteries can sometimes see slower performance, but power management is a feature that Apple says has been implemented to improve overall performance by preventing an iPhone from shutting down completely rather than a feature that's been implemented to force users to upgrade by deliberately slowing devices.

As many people have suggested, Apple has done a poor job of explaining why it has implemented these power management features and how the state of the battery ultimately affects iPhone performance. More transparent information about battery health should be provided, and customers should be better informed when their batteries start to degrade so they can choose whether or not to pay for a replacement. Apple may also need to relax its policies on when customers can pay for a battery replacement, as currently, a battery can't be replaced unless in-store equipment registers it as near failing.

An iPhone's battery is designed to retain 80 percent of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles. A defective battery that does not meet those parameters can be replaced for free for customers who have AppleCare+ or who have devices still under warranty.

For out of warranty customers, Apple offers a battery replacement service, which costs $79 plus $6.95 for shipping.

The lawsuit is demanding the replacement of the old iPhone and compensation for loss of use, loss of value, the purchase of new batteries, ascertainable losses in the form of the deprivation of the value of the iPhone, and overpayments because Plaintiffs and Class Members "did not receive what they paid for" when Apple interfered with the usage of their iPhones.

Additional class action lawsuits have been filed against Apple in Chicago, New York, and Northern California. All three lawsuits allege that Apple slowed down iPhones in an effort to get customers to upgrade to new devices.

Article Link: Apple Being Sued for 'Purposefully Slowing Down Older iPhone Models' [Updated]
[doublepost=1514118513][/doublepost]What a sad litigious society we live in.
 
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Short answer, No.

Long answer, Lithium Ion battery tech hasn't advanced in the last few years, and if it did it's just marginally, like a few percent.




Yup, I did now, read over it.:oops:
I don't really think Apple was aware of it, they might have known or not.

Most of us here love Apple products. This whole revelation hit us like a brick and has everyone I know worried. We all want answers. I'm not sure we will ever know but Apple has to realize they need to earn back our trust. I have bought many products from them over the years and will likely continue, but Apple needs to give us answers and correct this situation somehow. I can't keep investing until they rectify this.

I don't expect anything free from Apple and I have taken measures to stop all updates until further notice on my iPhone 8. However I own a 6s that I am having issues with prior to all this mess that started sometime in iOS 10...now I'm afraid to update it even further. I'd like to pass this down to my sister at some point.

Apples greatest losses in all this is trust from some of their customers and their reputation. You can't put a dollar amount on that.

I highly doubt these lawsuits go anywhere but IF we get anything out of this I hope that Apple reverses what they did somehow and never tries anything like this again. As to Apples motives ..who knows. If they fix this mess I really don't care either.

They don't need to give me a free battery but allowing me to get it replaced for the $79 fee is the least they can do. I do not want to get it replaced in one of those cheap repair centers we have locally in my area.

Anyway I hope I made myself clearer. :)
 
So, at deposition, Apple will bring in a busload of their PhD computer scientists and engineers specializing performance analysis and clock management to show that they didn't drop the actual processor clock frequency that much, if at all, and also describe 100 other things might make an iPhone appear slow, other than any throttling.

And the guys filing the class action will show some screenshots of geekbench and dasherX ??? That will really impress a judge.

Few simple questions to scientists and engineers by plaintiff's attorney will help the judge.
Though there is will be no judge to impress at deposition, I guess you mean watching tape.

Question 1:
Were the engineers and designers high when they come up with this out of box solution?
Question 2:
Were you PhDs high when you did the analysis?
Question 3:
Is anyone of you boat of scientists and engineers high right now?

Let the record should everyone showed up here is high.
 
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And I think the anti-Apple hysteria here has gotten so out of hand that people are chomping at the bit to hand Apple the death sentence for any misstep, real or perceived.

Apple is guilty of lousy communication and poor oversight in this case, nothing more. I continue to stand by my initial assertion that any possibility of improved profit from selling more iPhones wouldn’t have been the primary driving motivation. It was a deliberate decision to slow down the iPhones so that users wouldn’t have to experience random shutdowns and reboots which to Apple, would have been the worse alternative. That’s all there is to it.

Why would Apple even go so far as to admit that they intend to introduce this “feature” to subsequent iPhones down the road if they knew that what they were doing was wrong? It’s clear from their perspective that they 100% believed that what they were doing was genuinely in the consumer’s best interests. You can laugh at them for their naivety or facepalm the tone-deaf nature of their response, but that is an entirely separate issue altogether.

It’s a recurring theme year after year. Apple does something, and people rush to interpret their motives in the worst possible light. It was the case with Steve Jobs, and it had only gotten worse under Tim Cook. Never mind that most of these conspiracy theories invariably end up being proven wrong.

Maybe I am trying too hard to defend Apple. Or maybe I just happen to see something the rest, in their haste to pass judgement, don’t. We shall see.

You are seeing damage control and potential litigation protection as ‘poor oversight’.. That’s why they have come out and made that statement, and that was only because they have been caught red handed with facts backing up people’s suspicions..

In this day and age I think your wrong in your understanding how corporations work to claim Apples intention was never to gain more profits. That’s not how the world works for example:

Car manufacturers will calculate how much it will cost to fix a fault versus people being killed by it and they getting sued, if fixing the fault costs more guess what, they won’t fix it!
That’s how the modern world works and this ethos includes Apple! They will do anything they can get away with to maximise those profits.

And then your quib about Apple does something every year etc, yes they make mistakes or decisions to maximise profits and people don’t like it, do you own Apple shares?


EDIT::

Hmm going of tangent here.. the main issue is the fact Apple chose to not inform any of its customers they had deliberately slowed their phones down due to poor batteries. And that they refuse to replace your battery even if you pay them.
And your view seems to be making an excuse for this.

I’ve edited my post to be less shouty and arrogant. Showing a bit more respect :)
 
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[doublepost=1514118513][/doublepost]What a sad litigious society we live in.
Do you believe in consumer protection?

What is sad is that users need to resort to litigation before Apple takes action, if you have ever benefited from a repair program run by Apple , good chance it took litigation before Apple took action ......

Here is an example of how it works with Apple.

https://www.cultofmac.com/61338/nvidia-settles-class-action-lawsuit-over-macbook-pro-gpus/
 
Would you believe me if I told you - none at all?

Actually yes I would. That makes your opinions more valid to me as they are not due to your personal financial gains, and are your own thoughts :)

I’ll tell you what I want to know, and that’s how the software works out when to slow the phone down? I’ve had my 6S for over a year I think? And it’s used every day and I haven’t noticed it slow down? It’s on not the latest 11. Whatever but it’s in 11.

I’m actually thankful for this information as I know to replace the battery if it’s performance suffers, or future iPhones I have do.

This story also won’t stop me being very excited to receive my Apple Watch tomorrow :) can’t wait :)

Then I can browse though the hundreds of watch straps haha.
 
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Actually yes I would. That makes your opinions more valid to me as they are not due to your personal financial gains, and are your own thoughts :)
I have never understood this line of reasoning. It’s not like any one of us here has the influence to single-handedly affect Apple’s stock price.

I’ll tell you what I want to know, and that’s how the software works out when to slow the phone down? I’ve had my 6S for over a year I think? And it’s used every day and I haven’t noticed it slow down? It’s on not the latest 11. Whatever but it’s in 11.

I’m actually thankful for this information as I know to replace the battery if it’s performance suffers, or future iPhones I have do.

This story also won’t stop me being very excited to receive my Apple Watch tomorrow :) can’t wait :)

Then I can browse though the hundreds of watch straps haha.
My 6S+ actually ran fine even on the iOS 11 beta before I upgraded to the 8+. Maybe because I actually had it replaced last year due to a failed motherboard, so the battery is still considered fairly new?

Regardless, enjoy your Apple Watch when it arrives. I think that sometimes, we spend so much time arguing on opposite lines that we forget what it means to chill together as Apple product lovers.
 
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Crap! My wife’s 6S Plus installed iOS11 last night. For months, we were very careful not to agree to any prompts to upgrade from 10.3.3 even though iOS 11 downloaded itself. I suspect this happened because I updated a few individual Apps where the latest versions may have required iOS11.

My own 6S Plus still has 10.3.3, and I now need to do that tvOS prompt kill method on it.
 
Apple knew that the iphone X and 8 wont sell well since the first has a ridiculously high price and the second one should not even come out. And that is why they are slowing down the older iphones "due to battery issues" so people would be more or less forced to upgrade to newer phones. I really hope they lose all these lawsuits because Apple obviously lives up in the clouds thinking how they can get away with dumb crap like this, and they need to ccome back to reality.
 
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I have never understood this line of reasoning. It’s not like any one of us here has the influence to single-handedly affect Apple’s stock price.


My 6S+ actually ran fine even on the iOS 11 beta before I upgraded to the 8+. Maybe because I actually had it replaced last year due to a failed motherboard, so the battery is still considered fairly new?

Regardless, enjoy your Apple Watch when it arrives. I think that sometimes, we spend so much time arguing on opposite lines that we forget what it means to chill together as Apple product lovers.

Yes but if you stand to personally finiacially gain by protecting Apples profits and it’s business decisions leading to those profits.... it doesn’t really make your opinions valid. Well to me I show more respect for someone’s opinions and argument when they don’t have a financial interest in it.

And yeap, I agree with your second statement. At the end of the day we still all enjoy using Apples products, and will continue to do so hehe :)

Regardless of this story, I still plan to get an X next year. Having owned a few android and iOS devices I still prefer iOS and it’s boring same old interface haha!!
 
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I'd guess, the whole thing, in reality is to do with poor communication.
At my workplace, and I'm sure others, it's always been "Communication, Communication, Communication"

Be open, tell people what's going on, and explain things, and many problems don't happen in the 1st place.

Doing things in secret, feels sneaky, feels underhand, feels, they are "up to no good"

This is Apple's problem, it feels it's a GOD and is making choices for GOD's CHILDREN as they can't understand.

They need to snap out of this mindset.

Best way it to consider what Apple do, if applied to other devices.
If you buy a product, perhaps due to some spec of the item. Fastest phone, best performing Car, highest flying Quadcopter, TV that has a certain picture brightness or sound quality.

We all know and understand old things, (and by old, no-one considers 1 or 2 years very old) but if you get to multiple years there is some acceptance.

If the company that make the item you bought and own, deliberately makes it perform worse, in ANY way, for ANY reason, they should by law tell you and give you the legal owner of the item the choice. and NOT penalize you saying No.

Imagine a car that you bought that did 50 miles to the gallon.
Without telling you, a year after purchase, a software update was applied to the car, and the owner was told this was to keep the car safe and up to date.
They you find out the car now only does 35 miles to the gallon.

Later on you discover, the car maker, changed engine settings for some reason THEY felt was better.

Would you be happy, or would you feel you should have been told this was going to happen, and they should have no right do do this to the car you own, without full disclosure, as you have no way of reverting to how it was after you found out.
 
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for sure my Stainless Steel Apple watch Series 0 is laggy - throttled back?

I thought that was just because of the extra features in the OS and the single core processor? Hence why the Series 1 and newer have a dual core processor?
[doublepost=1514121994][/doublepost]
I'd guess, the whole thing, in reality is to do with poor communication.
At my workplace, and I'm sure others, it's always been "Communication, Communication, Communication"

Be open, tell people what's going on, and explain things, and many problems don't happen in the 1st place.

Doing things in secret, feels sneaky, feels underhand, feels, they are "up to no good"

This is Apple's problem, it feels it's a GOD and is making choices for GOD's CHILDREN as they can't understand.

They need to snap out of this mindset.

Best way it to consider what Apple do, if applied to other devices.
If you buy a product, perhaps due to some spec of the item. Fastest phone, best performing Car, highest flying Quadcopter, TV that has a certain picture brightness or sound quality.

We all know and understand old things, (and by old, no-one considers 1 or 2 years very old) but if you get to multiple years there is some acceptance.

If the company that make the item you bought and own, deliberately makes it perform worse, in ANY way, for ANY reason, they should by law tell you and give you the legal owner of the item the choice. and NOT penalize you saying No.

Imagine a car that you bought that did 50 miles to the gallon.
Without telling you, a year after purchase, a software update was applied to the car, and the owner was told this was to keep the car safe and up to date.
They you find out the car now only does 35 miles to the gallon.

Later on you discover, the car maker, changed engine settings for some reason THEY felt was better.

Would you be happy, or would you feel you should have been told this was going to happen, and they should have no right do do this to the car you own, without full disclosure, as you have no way of reverting to how it was after you found out.

Their can be this potential, I’ve worked for two giant corps, not in Apples scale but still worth multiple billions and it’s the same old, communication, what communication?
Although I think local management do get told things but they either ignore it or chose not to tell anyone about it!

One of the reasons for intelligence in animals and mammals is their ability to communicate....

However I still side on the idea this was deliberate, internal comms is one thing, not communicating with your customer base is quite another.
 
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All this indicated was that having a larger capacity battery would mitigate the issue.
Yes. A larger capacity battery would take longer to reach the 80% threshold, and if the throttling didn't occur the failing battery would be more prone initiate a shutdown of the phone. At that point, the user takes the phone to an Apple Store, where they "should" confirm a failing battery. The user can either replace it for free if the phone is under warranty or is covered by AppleCare, or pay $80 for Apple to replace the battery. AT NO TIME should Apple refuse to replace the battery even if the user offers to pay for it. That is ostensibly what has happened - phone performance is throttled, user takes it to store, genius says the battery is fine so won't replace it, phone remains slow with supposedly failing battery. The user then either has to put up with the slow phone or buy a new one.

I've never had a phone, Android or Apple, die on me. In the past, I had a MacBook Pro - when they still had removable batteries - that experienced failing batteries (3 times). The battery would just not hold a charge for very long at all. I would take the old battery out and run the laptop on AC power until I could get a new battery. With the current designs incorporating sealed batteries - both in laptops and phones, this would not be an option. With sealed laptops I now go to iFixit, buy a battery and toolkit, and take a half hour to replace the old one. I won't attempt this with phones since they are so small and often involve melting glue, etc. Progress ...
 
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Oh ffs. This and watching friends on fb is painful. People who never seemed to understand that batteries degrade suddenly complaining (all aboard the hate Apple bandwagon).

Apples only mistake with this was not showing it as a feature and having it able to be disabled (I’m sure it will be here in the next update). But it isn’t really a feature people want to know (hey your phone is now running slower).

I dunno about the US but in AUS we get 12 months warranty on devices which usually excludes the the battery! Batteries are only 6 months.

there is an "unwatch button" at the top of this thread if you can't bear with it
 
Prove it.

I can also say many posters here for years have and probably are paid by the competition. Can't prove it either.

with google and a fake name, just about anyone can be a neurosurgeon on reddit or any forum for that matter /s
 
Any techies care to explain why Apple doesn’t utilize the same feature for aging iPad batteries?
Don't know if the throttling feature is activated on iPads. If so, it would take a lot longer for the 80% threshold to arrive since iPad batteries are of much higher capacity. Some have complained on this forum of older iPad Air devices exhibiting poor performance. Perhaps that is related?
 
including when plugged in?!


[doublepost=1514097226][/doublepost]why does my phone not speed up when plugged in?
I've asked before, but never got an answer: do sealed battery devices still draw battery power when plugged in? In the old days, you could just remove batteries and run off an external power source - at least with laptops. My LG V20, which has removable batteries (yes!!), will not boot up if I remove its battery and plug it in. The battery must be present in order for it to successfully boot; however, once booted I can plug in the phone, remove the battery, and the phone continues to run just fine on external power. I wonder what the case is with these iPhones.
 
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