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Way overblown, my wife has a iPhone 6 with a real bad battery after 3 years heavy usage, we replaced the battery one month before this news came out and she is not seeing any difference in speed with the new battery.

Not seeing any difference? That's really bad.

And you are calling this "Way overblown"???

Alright.
 
Except no other battery powered electronics have sudden shutdowns due to cpu running at 100%. With all my portable electronics, they have shorter battery life as they get older. None of them had sudden shutdowns.

Apple's sudden shutdown fix (A.s.s. fix) was most likely implemented because of a design flaw or manufacturing defect in the iPhone 6/6s.

Bingo. The phones are defective. Has nothing to do with the battery. All just part of the cover-up.
 
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Thanks for that reply! You're the first person I've heard to complain about an update wrecking their Android phone (I don't visit the Android sites so I have no reference). The mantra is to not update an iPhone past two iOS iterations. I was force to update my work iPhone 6 to iOS 11 for security reasons. I totally agree with you though, makes me not want to buy another iPhone when they are so expensive. I will say that iOS barely changes, and I can pick up my other Apple devices that I haven't updated (iPod on iOS9, another iPhone 6 on iOS 10, iPads on other iOSes), and I'm not missing any features of the newer operating systems. Only problems are lack of security updates and some apps won't work on older OSes. My iPhone X won't be updated past iOS 11!
I remember those days, wondering whether I should update my iOS. I'm using my Mac a lot more and wanting cross-platform apps that aren't on Android. Which is getting me thinking about iOS again. With my Nexus 6, I actually lost cellular data with AT&T because I had refused to update. I had to give in to get cellular data. And then it just got so instantly slow that I had to get a new phone.

(The Nexus 6 put me off of Google phones forever. It was just a terrible phone on AT&T, updated years late, totally forgotten. It was a good advertisement for iOS all by itself. I can't even think of a Pixel phone because of how it went down. And try to find a replacement battery for the Nexus 6. Impossible. It's actually a good wifi tablet.)
 
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Every phone will experience this. You've likely not had a phone old enough to experience the issue. Modern batteries deteriorate with time and eventually, they can't handle the current requirements for times of heavy draw, which results in a phone shutting down.

This happens to every single Android phone also once the battery gets old enough. As I said, you likely just haven't had a phone with a battery more than 1 year or 1000 charging cycles old, at which point you start to see the degradation.

Sorry but this is really not true. Until last year I'd been using my A4 iPod Touch 4g since 2010 non stop, literally a lot of hours a day and I never ever not even once experienced a single shutdown. The battery would last like an hour, though.
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No, the other phones just catch fire and explode right out of the box.
and those other phones were elegible for full refunds. Has Apple offered refunds to iPhone 6/7 customers for cheating them twice?
 
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I don't own an iPhone currently. Is the way this was handled a big issue for current owners, or is it a blip of a problem that's being overblown?

It is an issue. Apples is trying to sell the idea that is only with some models and related to batteries.

People defend Apple saying that this happens to every phone, just use at least one different phone and you also realize what they say is false, they just blindly love Apple.

Battery degradation is normal in phones, installing garbage batteries on purpose is not.

If you have installed any iOS update since iOS 7 or 8 I believe, you will never have better performance or at least have the same as before except for... the latest model.

Apple shipped faulty batteries and iPhones were shutting down. They use a software update to slow down the phone and reduce the shutdowns. In other words: Apple has ways to slow down iPhones, they use it to cover for their faulty batteries. The questions is, does Apple use the same code to slow down iPhones when new models are shipped or under other circumstances ? The answers depends if you trust Apple or not.
 
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So "Improves power management" means crippled 50-70% slower iPhone? How do I know this? Because my iPhone SE's CPU was constantly running at 600-900mhz, as soon as I install new battery it jumps to 1800-1848mhz AND NEVER GOES DOWN.

In addition to that, in Apple's own words, the throttling causes:

• Longer app launch times
• Lower frame rates while scrolling
• Backlight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center)
• Lower speaker volume by up to -3dB
• Gradual frame rate reductions in some apps
• During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UI
• Apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch

Apple calls this 'Improves power management...' ?

The scandal is not overblown enough, Apple used the most disgustingly deceiving language ever conceived in the history of updates.
 
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I tout an SE and there's no slow-down. I have what I paid for.



Exactly. Apple was not trying to be malicious in any way. That's obvious to any reasonable (non-entitled) person. I've been following Apple for 30 years, and never have I sensed that they would deliberately force people to upgrade on purpose. In fact, they offer the longest product life and smoothest upgrade path (when needed) of the entire computer and phone industry.



My gf's 6S is not slow at all. Many factors influence a device's performance.



I agree that Apple made one big mistake that has backfired on them — battery tech is not matching with the power of today's CPUs and everything that an iPhone can do. Battery tech needs to improve — no doubt about that.

What is overblown is the *thinking* that Apple was somehow being deceptive and manipulative. That's just silly.

Your entitled to your opinion, but I have to say it’s one very innocent opinion of how the world works and corporations work.
 
Way overblown, my wife has a iPhone 6 with a real bad battery after 3 years heavy usage, we replaced the battery one month before this news came out and she is not seeing any difference in speed with the new battery.

Not overblown, my wife has a iPhone 6 with a real bad battery after 3 years heavy usage, we replaced the battery last Sunday and she is seeing a large speed difference with the new battery.
 
YouTubers and News outlets could quit using “APPLE IS SLOWING DOWN YOUR IPHONE” as a title.
That's because Apple is literally slowing down your iPhone. That's what this software update does. It slows down your iPhone. For this reason or other, but it does.

overblown
Imagine Samsung did this, I'm sure this forum would totally be using the word "overblown" and never engage in hyperboles, name-calling or attempts to present Samsung as doomed.

I do not believe in brand loyalty towards Apple, Samsung, McDonald's or whoever else. I'm not going to defend exploding Note 7. I'm not going to defend OnePlus when they let the credit card database be hacked. I'm not going to defend Apple intentionally slowing iPhones and conveniently forgetting to mention it. Apple are not my family or local football team. They're a corporation which just posted their biggest quarterly revenue ever. It's impossible to say how much more revenue there is and would be in coming months if they didn't get caught. The apologies they offer are not because they feel sowwy so vewy vewy sowwy for the customers, they're because they don't want to lose any more of those customers to Android.
 
I don't own an iPhone currently. Is the way this was handled a big issue for current owners, or is it a blip of a problem that's being overblown?
Basically Apple has to sell more iPhones every year. For this they have several internal codes/secret tactics. As an example, iPhone X is scheduled to be discontinued on the next iPhone release. They do this so that you cannot purchase the older unit for a lower price and instead buy a cheap low in features older iPhone or the new version of iPhone X “SE”. Another tactic was slowing older iPhones creating the need for you to buy one. Honestly Amazon had done so amazing things with Alexa and Google with Their AI that i hope one day they will fully work on full operating systems. I think it would be very exciting. Apple isn’t and never will be what it once was. They became really greedy.
 
Well if you are one of the millions who ended up buying a new phone because they thought theirs was broken due to the throttling, then this is not overblown. They shelled out $800 instead of a $29 battery fix.

My question is, did Apple staff openly encourage the sale of new iPhones because of battery problems? Let's hear some reports, not supposition. If someone decides, without even bothering to call tech support, that their device is trash, about the only thing you can blame Apple for is taking their money.

I also think that a person whose phone shuts down in the middle of an important call is far more likely to think, "I'd better buy a new phone" than someone whose phone works reliably, just slower than it used to.

Regardless of whether it was unexpected shutdowns or throttling, there are likely plenty of people who went out and bought new phones without ever thinking to ask Apple for a solution to their current problem. Typical of our "Disposable Economy." We might as well be talking about people's love lives - just break up, don't try to fix the relationship.

If they'd called Apple support or gone to the Genius Bar, Apple would have run a diagnostic on the phone and said either, "The battery tests good, so something else is going on, let's see what we can do..." or they'd have said, "The battery tests bad, for $79 we can replace the battery." The last thing they would have said is, "Oh, that one is junk, buy a new one!"

Now some people will weigh the alternatives... "$79 on a battery, vs. $200 down payment on a new phone..." Some might think, "Damn that Apple, I'm not going to pay $79 for a battery! That's way too much!" Some might then buy an Android, others might buy another Apple anyway. Go figure human logic!

There are those, like myself, who learned at an early age that stuff can be fixed - all sorts of stuff. A little investment in time and effort, or a visit to a repair shop, and stuff can last a lot longer. I kept my parents clothes dryer running for 20 years, simply by knowing how to change a belt and adjust the contact brushes for the moisture sensors. Now, if I didn't have that skill, it might have been a $100 service bill for each simple repair. That puts a different slant on things. Likely Mom and Dad would have bought a replacement in 10 or 15 years, instead of 20.

Back in late 2016 and early 2017 my iPhone 6 started unexpectedly shutting down. First time I called Apple and they ran the diagnostics, the battery tested fine. I erased/reinstalled, monitored which apps were drawing excessive power, etc. That did some good, but not enough. A month or so later I called Apple again, they ran another diagnostic... Battery was shot. I spent $79, and the phone's been going strong ever since. No unexpected shutdowns, battery life like new. The math seemed easy enough to me. I knew I could get at least another year's life out of the thing with a new battery - $6.58/month for a new battery compared to $30+/month for a new phone. I also understood that all batteries wear out. They've worn out in every piece of battery-equipped gear I've ever owned. Why should an iPhone be any different?

They shelled out $800 instead of a $29 battery fix.
Anyone who does that is just plain stupid. $29 is a no-brainer. If you look at how hard it is to get a Genius Bar appointment these days, it's clear plenty of people think $29 is a no-brainer. The little, replaceable lithium battery pack for my good still camera lists for over $40, and there's no labor cost to replace it. And I need to carry 4 of those things if I want to shoot all day long!

No, the difference until a month ago was $79 vs. $800. To me that was a no-brainer, but I get it, $79 is a bit more than pocket change to a lot of people, and it's like, the principle of the thing, man. "It should cost less! Apple should give me a new one, I deserve it! I don't care if my phone doesn't work right, I won't pay that money!"

Well, guess what? Whether you allow Apple to throttle the phone, or you turn off throttling... either way your battery is already well on its way to dead. It's your choice, replace the battery, or get a new phone.
 
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iPhone 6 here, and all-Apple. I came very close to spending a lot of money that i don’t have to upgrade to an 8 or X because my 6 was so slow. I was beginning to think that the 6 simply couldn’t handle the new iOS features, as was suggested during an Apple store visit last fall. Then I did a nuke and pave which helped a lot, but the phone was still sluggish. Then this story broke and thanks to Geekbench and a battery app I realized that the battery was worn and the phone was throttled. An Apple provider found the battery was in the low 80s (green zone) but thanks to the story they replaced the battery at the new lower price, and the phone is now very functional again. I bought a new case and screen protector to celebrate - back in business for a few dollars. The sequence of events is a problem. I feel that iOS should have had battery diagnostics that told me the (a) battery was failing and (b) disclosure about the throttling (which is an option that some might like to have), and ready access to a battery replacement up front. Not left to think that I needed to buy a new phone.
 
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Well if you are one of the millions who ended up buying a new phone because they thought theirs was broken due to the throttling, then this is not overblown. They shelled out $800 instead of a $29 battery fix.
Sure but -how- did a person *know* their phone was slowed down? They probably operated on feeling not facts. Did they run a speed test? Or just "well it *seemed* slower?" My desktop Mac seems slower every year but that's because mentally I'm working faster or I've become accustomed to it. 1 minute microwaving a hot pocket nowadays is way slower than microwaving a hot pocket 20 years ago, know what I mean?
 
Unless one can demonstrate that in the time between when 10.2.1 was released and when full disclosure of the impact of the power management happened, there was a widespread pattern of pushing new phones rather than battery replacement (beyond the fact that it's simply easier in a busy store to sell a phone than to run diagnostics on one, that authorized battery replacement is seldom same-day, and that loaner phones aren't provided out of warranty), I think this is just the usual lawyer feeding frenzy supported by ignorant masses.

Rechargeable batteries don't last forever; this should be widely known. That some reduction in not only operating time, but either reliability or performance (pick one) might result from an aging battery, might not be so widely known, but should hardly be surprising. Every other remotely similar product will have similar issues, of either reliability or performance. Perhaps frequent restarts as such products age are simply regarded as age of the product, rather than mostly just of the battery, and people get a new device without much controversy.

Failing to tell people immediately that in return for less spontaneous shutdowns or restarts on older devices, there might be some performance impact, was IMO stupid. But stupidity is not conspiracy.

I have a different, if related beef. After I upgraded the 5s that I then had to iOS 10.2.1 or later, it started flagrantly lying about what constituted being fully charged. Using coconutBattery on the Mac (or a battery info app on the phone itself; they generally if not perfectly agreed), I noted that not just the charge, but the capacity were bouncing around quite a bit. The capacity should start at or above design level for a new battery, and gradually decline with charge cycles. In general, it wouldn't make sense for it to drop dramatically unless the battery was not just worn but damaged; and except insofar as some reconditioning might actually be effective, the capacity should NEVER go up. But it was doing both, and by amounts of 50% or more of original capacity. It would be a bit better for a little while after a reboot, so with much fiddling I could get a half decent charge into it. Absent that though, it would stop charging well before it should, and could run down very quickly. IMO, this was a bug, and it continues to exist (and I suspect may exist on new devices too, if not as dramatically). Later updates (as I recall 11.1 beta) reduced the extremes of that behavior, but never really fixed it. That bug, and not performance per se, was part of why I upgraded, although the 5s was pretty old anyway, and the iPhone X was just too darn cool - and the screen is big and bright enough without making the phone itself much bigger, that sometimes I leave the laptop at home now.

Was that just a coincidence, that the battery was old enough to be unreliable right around the time I updated, or was that a bug? I think the latter, because I see some similar oddities, if at a much smaller scale, in the numbers reported on some much newer devices (such as the initial iPad Pro). It's not to the point of being a problem there yet, since the capacity is still over 90% of design capacity; but it strikes me as very suspicious. Unfortunately, I never had reason to look at such numbers on any device back on iOS 9.x, so I can't be absolutely certain.
 
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I don't own an iPhone currently. Is the way this was handled a big issue for current owners, or is it a blip of a problem that's being overblown?

It was a mistake by Apple, but if you really give it thought its the kind of mistake that is hard to avoid in fast-moving tech.

I am amazed at how many people immediately assume the very worst in Apple on this. As a technologist I absolutely understand what Apple was trying to do, and I believe their messaging on this. Apple has much more to lose if they deliberately tried to force owners into a new phone. Yet, reason is not prevailing in how people look at this.
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I’ll tell you that this predicament is overblown in my case—I replaced the battery in my iPhone 6, and it is still slow as a turtle. It’s not the battery, but rather the craptastic iOS 11 that has ruined the phone, and I have no way to go back to iOS 10. My only recourse is to get a new phone. There’s your real story.
Thats a pretty decisive statement!

What ***exactly*** makes you call 11 "craptastic"?

(1) I find it brought some excellent new features and capabilities.
(2) It's actually your choice to stay on an iOS level and NOT upgrade. If you are happy with a stuck-in-a-release phone, perfect! No need to upgrade.

...why do people upgrade? New features and new capabilities. If you don't need them, don't upgrade. Each upgrade completely explains what's in the upgrade. I do not always push the button, but absolutely I do for fundamentally new stuff.
 
(2) It's actually your choice to stay on an iOS level and NOT upgrade. If you are happy with a stuck-in-a-release phone, perfect! No need to upgrade.

If you don’t upgrade you get PERMANENT NAGGING, which over time makes for a very annoying experience. Hence the ‘no need to upgrade’ isn’t truthful. You DO need to upgrade to turn off constant nagging.
 
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Thats a pretty decisive statement!

What ***exactly*** makes you call 11 "craptastic"?

(1) I find it brought some excellent new features and capabilities.
(2) It's actually your choice to stay on an iOS level and NOT upgrade. If you are happy with a stuck-in-a-release phone, perfect! No need to upgrade.

...why do people upgrade? New features and new capabilities. If you don't need them, don't upgrade. Each upgrade completely explains what's in the upgrade. I do not always push the button, but absolutely I do for fundamentally new stuff.
Ugh, I give the same answers to the same questions every time.

What I find ***exactly*** "craptastic" is the fact that iOS11 isn't optimized for a 3 year old phone. The fact that simply opening an app, a built-in app like settings, takes so long is ridiculous. If they aren't purposefully slowing down older phones to encourage upgrading, then it's poor coding. And your next response is, "it's the battery." My battery was replaced, and it's still slow as molasses.

And as for point (2) it was actually not my choice to upgrade. The phone to which I am referencing is a work phone, and my company forced iOS upgrades for security purposes, making enterprise apps incompatible with older OSs. I have to use these apps multiple times throughout my workday, and it has become a royal pain to use this slow phone. The good news is I found out yesterday that the slowdown after iOS11 was enough to establish a workplace upgrade, and some 1,000+ phones will be replaced. Great work, Apple.

My personal phone is an iPhone X. I have stopped updating my personal iPhone 6, iPod Touch, and iPad long ago, and they are as speedy to maneuver through the OS (I'm just referring to opening apps!) as the X. I haven't updated my iPhone X, and I'm getting daily harassing popups to do so.

Hopefully my reply will give you some insight. Have a good one.
 
(2) It's actually your choice to stay on an iOS level and NOT upgrade. If you are happy with a stuck-in-a-release phone, perfect! No need to upgrade.

Not sure if you've been to an apple store for service on an iPhone but they won't look at it unless it's on the current software version.

So basically they do FORCE you to upgrade cause they also hide behind " it's a security update " BS.

James
 
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Ugh, I give the same answers to the same questions every time.

What I find ***exactly*** "craptastic" is the fact that iOS11 isn't optimized for a 3 year old phone. The fact that simply opening an app, a built-in app like settings, takes so long is ridiculous. If they aren't purposefully slowing down older phones to encourage upgrading, then it's poor coding. And your next response is, "it's the battery." My battery was replaced, and it's still slow as molasses.

And as for point (2) it was actually not my choice to upgrade. The phone to which I am referencing is a work phone, and my company forced iOS upgrades for security purposes, making enterprise apps incompatible with older OSs. I have to use these apps multiple times throughout my workday, and it has become a royal pain to use this slow phone. The good news is I found out yesterday that the slowdown after iOS11 was enough to establish a workplace upgrade, and some 1,000+ phones will be replaced. Great work, Apple.

My personal phone is an iPhone X. I have stopped updating my personal iPhone 6, iPod Touch, and iPad long ago, and they are as speedy to maneuver through the OS (I'm just referring to opening apps!) as the X. I haven't updated my iPhone X, and I'm getting daily harassing popups to do so.

Hopefully my reply will give you some insight. Have a good one.
Got it.
(I'm a software guy) My understanding of the iPhone hardware and OS levels is similar with other computing devices: They are disposable.

Expensive, but because hardware capabilities are so profoundly different every 1 to 3 years, the software also changes to take advantage of that. Great if you are on the front of the tech train, not good if you have an older hardware device.

Why? End of life.

Every manufacturer of anything electronic declines future software support over a period of years. Eventually, they also drop any support for the hardware.

Apple just is not going to invest in bringing an older hardware platform into compatibility with newer software because of the cost involved: It does not pay off to support the remaining tiny percentage of users who are stuck on an old hardware device. Everything about that old hardware device becomes miserable, you dropped it once too often, the battery can't hold a charge, etc etc. Why would Apple invest in the past when the future is where the revenue is?

What Apple have done however, is make it affordable to not buy a phone but "rent" a phone and get it upgraded in 2 years. That makes complete sense for the user who wants newer tech but doesn't want to pay lump sums to key getting one every 2 years.
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Not sure if you've been to an apple store for service on an iPhone but they won't look at it unless it's on the current software version.

So basically they do FORCE you to upgrade cause they also hide behind " it's a security update " BS.

James

I wasn't aware of that Apple store policy of needing a current OS to get their help, but it does make sense: Do you believe they could get the staff trained to support and properly diagnose multiple versions of hardware and software versions? That would be a real trick for a support organization, actually especially given the salary ranges involved.

I am a cyber expert, and I can tell you that I'd much rather live with the upgrade on an older device than suffer a terminal security issue. But, it's your choice.
 
Got it.
(I'm a software guy) My understanding of the iPhone hardware and OS levels is similar with other computing devices: They are disposable.

Expensive, but because hardware capabilities are so profoundly different every 1 to 3 years, the software also changes to take advantage of that. Great if you are on the front of the tech train, not good if you have an older hardware device.

Why? End of life.

Every manufacturer of anything electronic declines future software support over a period of years. Eventually, they also drop any support for the hardware.

Apple just is not going to invest in bringing an older hardware platform into compatibility with newer software because of the cost involved: It does not pay off to support the remaining tiny percentage of users who are stuck on an old hardware device. Everything about that old hardware device becomes miserable, you dropped it once too often, the battery can't hold a charge, etc etc. Why would Apple invest in the past when the future is where the revenue is?

What Apple have done however, is make it affordable to not buy a phone but "rent" a phone and get it upgraded in 2 years. That makes complete sense for the user who wants newer tech but doesn't want to pay lump sums to key getting one every 2 years.

Your points are exactly what frustrates me the most about what Apple is doing. I felt like my iPhone 6 was working great, and there was really no need to upgrade the hardware. iOS11 gets installed, and suddenly it's a laggy mess. I'm looking at my $1200 iPhone X, and I'm foreseeing a need to upgrade in 3 years, and I doubt Apple will make the iPhone at that time any less expensive. I can choose to stop updating the OS now, at the expense of security, features, and app compatibility. It's not as hard a pill to swallow when you have to upgrade a $600 phone every 3 years, but a phone twice that cost every 3 years makes my wallet weep.

And I'm typing this on my MacBook which is now 5 years old on High Sierra. I am afraid to jinx myself, but it's running relatively smoothly. I do cringe each time I hit the OS update button, expecting it to be the last time my Mac runs smoothly.
 
I think it's funny that lots of people are saying: "well, other phones have that too, they all shut down randomly"

First of all, it's not true. I never experienced this with older iPhones nor android devices, ever.
Secondly, if I WOULD encounter this problem with any of my devices, I wouldn't be satisfied with it.
I wouldn't excuse it with: "butbutbut... other devices are also faulty as ****, so I'm okay with my phone being faulty too.:confused:

But I know, I had the same problem last year with my iPhone. Luckily I don't have any brand loyalty and I like android and ios likewise. I can just switch if I am not satisfied with one manufacturer and I leave the other, faulty devices to those who can't :)
 
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