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

[curtvaughan]

Apple has a scheme that allows people to upgrade yearly. It also helps people to keep older phones going, even though they are degrading.

Don't see why Apple needs to document everything it does (let alone who would bother reading it), when it is so clear the devices really only have a 1-year life at full performance.

And bottom line: a crippled Apple device is still preferable for a lot of people to anything on offer by any other company.

Do you seriously believe this? You need to get out more and experience life that is possible out of Apple land. Then again, perhaps you are onto something. The new Apple Corp., sans SJ, caters to people willing to pay top price for devices that can only perform optimally for one year. This kind of thinking is what allows Apple to make gobs of money despite deceptive practices and under performing devices.

 

[justperry]

Do you seriously believe this? You need to get out more and experience life that is possible out of Apple land. Then again, perhaps you are onto something. The new Apple Corp., sans SJ, caters to people willing to pay top price for devices that can only perform optimally for one year. This kind of thinking is what allows Apple to make gobs of money despite deceptive practices and under performing devices.

You don't make any sense, first you say the bolded part and next you go on to contradict the bolded part.

 

[NewdestinyX]

The Pixel 2? Yeah, a crap screen with a dipped in plastic body, no headphone jack after making fun of Apple, huge bezels, and an actual plastic button?

The $800B is more than deserved as the market determines value and still cheap with their earning power. They are going to push $60B in profit in 2018. You know how crazy that is?

Yep. Largest company on the planet now. No oil company or Pharma company is larger than Apple. They have more assets than some small countries that are darn near close to being able to buy and sell holdings of the Catholic Church… So yes it is a little frightening to have one company be that large… But Apple seems a pretty enlightened company to me as corporations go… I believe we can trust them with that much power. But time will tell.

 

[Puddled]

No, I’m saying it isn’t Planned Obselence.

Well, this issue is by design, not accident, and it does make older phone obsolete with respect to the user so it is, by definition, planned obsolescence.

That might be by accident on Apple's part, but if it was , they haven't changed anything since it was pushed to the OS.

So by any definition, it is was it says on the tin.

 

[Baymowe335]

Yep. Largest company on the planet now. No oil company or Pharma company is larger than Apple. They have more assets than some small countries that are darn near close to being able to buy and sell holdings of the Catholic Church… So yes it is a little frightening to have one company be that large… But Apple seems a pretty enlightened company to me as corporations go… I believe we can trust them with that much power. But time will tell.

They have incredible management. They don’t blow their load on new features and slowly build products up over time. They don’t throw junk out to see what sticks. They have a plan. Th y make and support great products and have issues like any company.

This will be a blip and ultimately, consumers will win.

 

[NT1440]

This is what I’m talking about. Get a little more knowledgeable.


GRID™ Autosport by Feral Interactive Ltd https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grid-autosport/id1179421849?mt=8

why does this need a 6s or higher to run ? And 2 gig of ram isn’t the answer as the air 2 isn’t in the compatibility list. Tell me since you are all knowing in iOS development.

http://www.feralinteractive.com/en/games/gridautosport-ios/requirements/

....mimimum requirements are not even the same topic as developing against a CPU frequency

Thanks for the laugh though!

 

[sracer]

Well, this issue is by design, not accident, and it does make older phone obsolete with respect to the user so it is, by definition, planned obsolescence.

That might be by accident on Apple's part, but if it was , they haven't changed anything since it was pushed to the OS.

So by any definition, it is was it says on the tin.

The fact that Apple didn't make this information public, but only confirmed it as a response when others had uncovered this, does give a reasonable person reason to question Apple's motives.

To add to that, how many customers went to an Apple Store with concerns about their iPhone becoming extremely slow? How many of those customers were told by Apple personnel that the cause was a worn battery? And how many of those were further told that replacing the battery would restore performance to its previous level?
If that didn't happen on a regular basis, then that is very shady.

But there are going to be those who will absolutely refuse to believe that Apple would deliberately do something to encourage customers to replace their existing device before it is necessary.

Having said that, I'm not a fan of this particular class-action lawsuit. IMO, a much more effective response is to simply buy a non-iPhone smartphone when they need to replace it and never look back.

 

[opfreak]

To all of the applie defenders, how much slowness is acceptable after the phone degrees before you say its too much?

20% after about a year? 50% after a year? 90% slow down? Using your reasoning for the slowness any level is ok as long as it prevents the phone from shutting down.

 

[hface119]

Just my 2 cents that these lawsuits will go nowhere. PR is a big problem with this, because they’re not explaining it properly and local and mainstream news spinning this as “slowing down” your phone without your consent is what is getting in the layman’s head.

At the end of the day, batteries degrade. If you never update to the latest OS your phone wasn’t meant to run, nothing happens. If you elect to update, there you go. Apple supports phones and other devices in terms of compatibility with the latest OS far beyond almost anyone else.

 

[baryon]

So don’t update. Problem solved.

Unless you already updated. Then you can't go back. You do realize Apple is doing everything in their power to make you update (daily nag-messages that you can't turn off, automatic downloads that you can't turn off), and then they're making it impossible to downgrade.

How can you know if the new iOS will make your phone slower? You can't know it without installing it. But then if you do want to downgrade back, it's too late.

 

[hface119]

Well, this issue is by design, not accident, and it does make older phone obsolete with respect to the user so it is, by definition, planned obsolescence.

That might be by accident on Apple's part, but if it was , they haven't changed anything since it was pushed to the OS.

So by any definition, it is was it says on the tin.

Oh my god, no it’s not! How is it making something obsolete when A) time does that all on its own and B) the root of the problem is ADDING features to keep older devices in line with the latest via OS update?

It would be planned obsolescence if they never allowed the latest OS to work on older iPhones! ‍♂️‍♂️‍♂️

 

[Act3]

....mimimum requirements are not even the same topic as developing against a CPU frequency

Thanks for the laugh though!

lol, ok if you say so. try not to piss your pants.

if you develop a game for a certain CPU to get an acceptable frame rate and then Apple lowers that CPU speed and your game runs like crap and is choppy? How's that make you look as a developer?

by allowing the 6s to throttle to 1/3 of original speed based on battery health, the minimum requirements are now a sliding scale

 

[Ed217]

Some thoughts and views:

1. The Apple explanation for the “WHY” seems plausible
2. I don’t think they expected to get caught (neither did Volkswagen)
3. They probably figured the result would be more sales of newer devices and fewer crashes for devices with aging batteries
4. When caught, they offered no promise of the option to turn the throttling off

The wife’s IP6 is noticeable slower. A new battery later in week will show if it goes back to the way it was.

 

[curtvaughan]

You don't make any sense, first you say the bolded part and next you go on to contradict the bolded part.

Nope. Just trying to see the other person's perspective. An apparently failed attempt at satire. Whatever. I need some egg nog.

 

[opfreak]

lol, ok if you say so. try not to piss your pants.

if you develop a game for a certain CPU to get an acceptable frame rate and then Apple lowers that CPU speed and your game runs like crap and is choppy? How's that make you look as a developer?

by allowing the 6s to throttle to 1/3 of original speed based on battery health, the minimum requirements are now a sliding scale

App developers now need to add a battery health requirement for their apps.

 

[Puddled]

Oh my god, no it’s not! How is it making something obsolete when A) time does that all on its own and B) the root of the problem is ADDING features to keep older devices in line with the latest via OS update?

It would be planned obsolescence if they never allowed the latest OS to work on older iPhones! ‍♂️‍♂️‍♂️

You have planned and unplanned obsolescence back to front

Unplanned is when time degrades something regardless of input.

Planned is when degradation happens because of your input.

 

[Michael Goff]

Well, this issue is by design, not accident, and it does make older phone obsolete with respect to the user so it is, by definition, planned obsolescence.

That might be by accident on Apple's part, but if it was , they haven't changed anything since it was pushed to the OS.

So by any definition, it is was it says on the tin.

No, the phone isn’t obsolete just because it’s a little slower on some benchmarks. Obsolete would be if they did nothing to combat the degradation of lithium ion batteries. Or are you arguing Android does Planned Obselesence because they also clock down the CPU to deal with ththe same issue?

 

[Act3]

App developers now need to add a battery health requirement for their apps.

certainly what it is starting to sound like, when my 6s can be tuned down by Apple to 5s speed, how is that fair to a developer who may be counting on reviews to help with sales?

 

[Kmart9419]

To all of the applie defenders, how much slowness is acceptable after the phone degrees before you say its too much?

20% after about a year? 50% after a year? 90% slow down? Using your reasoning for the slowness any level is ok as long as it prevents the phone from shutting down.

Bet you 99% of people never experienced a shutdown but so many are willing endure a crippling.

 

[NT1440]

No, the phone isn’t obsolete just because it’s a little slower on some benchmarks. Obsolete would be if they did nothing to combat the degradation of lithium ion batteries. Or are you arguing Android does Planned Obselesence because they also clock down the CPU to deal with ththe same issue?

This is what I don’t understand about this whole kerfluffle, any OEM worth a damn is going to have power management in place. Apple SOLVED a legitimate issue that was occurring (shutdowns in cold weather due to battery chemistry) and people go out of their way to infer, twist, or just plain lie this narrative into the spotlight. Then, posters who still haven’t bothered to look into the topic past the garbage reporting from tech “journalists” go on and lay the claim that the viral nature of the story proves claims that simply aren’t fact.

It’s like one big willfully uninformed circle jerk.

 

[Act3]

This is what I don’t understand about this whole kerfluffle, any OEM worth a damn is going to have power management in place. Apple SOLVED a legitimate issue that was occurring (shutdowns in cold weather due to battery chemistry) and people go out of their way to infer, twist, or just plain lie this narrative into the spotlight. Then, posters who still haven’t bothered to look into the topic past the garbage reporting from tech “journalists” go on and lay the claim that the viral nature of the story proves claims that simply aren’t fact.

It’s like one big willfully uninformed circle jerk.

what makes you more informed? So apple wasn't worth a damn until 10.2.1? Maybe if they designed with that in mind in the first place, this fiasco wouldn't exist right now.

 

[hllywluis]

It’s funny really when your 1 year old iPhone 7 now stutters severely while playing Mario Run and other games when its battery is still perfectly fine.. something else is going on here.

 

[opfreak]

No, the phone isn’t obsolete just because it’s a little slower on some benchmarks. Obsolete would be if they did nothing to combat the degradation of lithium ion batteries. Or are you arguing Android does Planned Obselesence because they also clock down the CPU to deal with ththe same issue?

How much slower is ok by you? 20%? 50%? 90%? After about a year.

Do you have proof of this (android slowing down CPUs over time) I want to see something similar to what geekbench released.

 

[NT1440]

what makes you more informed? So apple wasn't worth a damn until 10.2.1? Maybe if they designed with that in mind in the first place, this fiasco wouldn't exist right now.

Apple has always had power management algorithms, every phone does (how do you think the battery interacts with the rest of the hardware and OS)? What you’re referring to is a feature added to the power management systems for this particular issue that Apple had become aware of.

I personally had the shutdown issues in the cold going back to iOS 9 on my 6s. I stopped having that problem around last year and never put it together until now. Apples fix was the reason I could once again walk several miles in the cold and actually be able to listen to my podcasts instead of a dead phone. Do I care that when in the cold my phone opens an app a bit slower? Not one bit, because I can actually USE the damn thing like in the past rather than walking with a dead phone.

From your posts it appears that you’re under the impression that the throttling is permanent rather than kicking in dynamically when needed, am I off in that reading? What is your current understanding of how his works?
[doublepost=1514243095][/doublepost]

How much slower is ok by you? 20%? 50%? 90%? After about a year.

Do you have proof of this (android slowing down CPUs over time) I want to see something similar to what geekbench released.

Are you under the impression that the throttling occurs all the time instead of on demand? I ask because that’s what your post reads as.

 

[opfreak]

This is what I don’t understand about this whole kerfluffle, any OEM worth a damn is going to have power management in place. Apple SOLVED a legitimate issue that was occurring (shutdowns in cold weather due to battery chemistry) and people go out of their way to infer, twist, or just plain lie this narrative into the spotlight. Then, posters who still haven’t bothered to look into the topic past the garbage reporting from tech “journalists” go on and lay the claim that the viral nature of the story proves claims that simply aren’t fact.

It’s like one big willfully uninformed circle jerk.

They covered up a problem.

Fact iPhone batteries cannot run iPhone CPUs at full speed after about a year, or some number of cycles.
Fact Apple found out that when that happens after phones shipped.
Fact Apple slowed down phones without telling people after those phones were purchased.

Apple did not solve an issue, solving the issue would mean that your phone would perform similar to what it did like when it was purchased, they hid an issue.
[doublepost=1514243474][/doublepost]

Apple has always had power management algorithms, every phone does (how do you think the battery interacts with the rest of the hardware and OS)? What you’re referring to is a feature added to the power management systems for this particular issue that Apple had become aware of.

I personally had the shutdown issues in the cold going back to iOS 9 on my 6s. I stopped having that problem around last year and never put it together until now. Apples fix was the reason I could once again walk several miles in the cold and actually be able to listen to my podcasts instead of a dead phone. Do I care that when in the cold my phone opens an app a bit slower? Not one bit, because I can actually USE the damn thing like in the past rather than walking with a dead phone.

From your posts it appears that you’re under the impression that the throttling is permanent rather than kicking in dynamically when needed, am I off in that reading? What is your current understanding of how his works?
[doublepost=1514243095][/doublepost]
Are you under the impression that the throttling occurs all the time instead of on demand? I ask because that’s what your post reads as.

Based on the results of the tests, throttling is permeant unless your replace your battery. Do you have proof that shows otherwise?