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Bawstun

Suspended
Jun 25, 2009
2,374
2,999
Exactly, This has been so blown out of proportion it's insane! I would argue that the throttling is actually improving the life of the phone since the phone can continue to operate at it's primary mission without shutdowns for a longer period before the battery absolutely needs to be swapped. Everything continues to work, but just gets a little slower. Replacing the battery fixes the issue until that battery reaches EOL. Batteries are consumable items, period. The only misstep I think Apple made was not being up front about the condition of the battery and the throttling. They should have had this monitoring from the beginning if throttling was being introduced. At a minimum, the store employees should have been trained for this situation. I can see how they would try to sell a new phone if the customer complains of slowness and they don't know the true cause. I mean, if you were the store employee and someone came in with an old computer and said it was too slow, and you didn't find anything wrong with it (since the throttling wasn't communicated), it really seems like getting a new phone that's faster is the best option. Now that the monitoring is there, there is no excuse to keep pushing this topic.

It was not “blown out of proportion.”

Do you understand, phones would power off with 80% battery level remaining. Or 50, or 63, or 26, all different ranges throughout the day. And the ONLY way to get them to power back on was to plug it into a wall and charger. Then it would come back on. Otherwise all you could do was see the battery charge image on a black screen.

MILLIONS of phones did this. They were defective and rather than admit this and recall, Apple tried throttling to such a degree that it avoided the shutdowns (and prompted upgrades). It’s actually very simple...
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With the throttling disabled? Remember you have to re-enable it if the phone shuts off unexpectedly. Happens to me occasionally if it gets really cold.

Yes because the batteries were erroneously surrounded by air. That’s what they said in the recall, air gets into the device or got into the device during installation. I worked in a cooler and my phone would stay in my back pocket (40 degrees Fahrenheit) and would consistently shut off at all different percentages. Usually at 81% or 30% something. Apple initially told me the battery was passing diagnostics and did NOTHING for me. Months later they admitted the issue and replaced the same phone free of charge. Pretty gross, the whole coverup.
 

Dave-Z

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2012
861
1,447
At some point it's more reliable if you don't worry about making it repairable. Seriously, who has RAM fail in a MacBook nowadays? If you're one of the unlucky few, it's still fixable, just costs more.

Fair point, but there really is no excuse for the storage or battery. The battery especially only lasts a few years where as a laptop or phone could last much longer. My comment was more focusing on the general design of Apple products being one that tends towards not being repairable.
 

apolloa

Suspended
Oct 21, 2008
12,318
7,802
Time, because it rules EVERYTHING!
P


Apple was not honest. That’s the main issue, this would not have been such a PR circus if Apple would have made it clear that old batteries slow the phone down and a new battery will put performance back.

Apple is a business and it was in their best interest to keep it quite to spur upgrades. In my opinion.

Exactly....

The defenders on here conveniently ignore this point. Apple lied, they did not tell ANYONE they were throttling their phones in purpose until they were caught red handed doing it, people think their phones slow, they go to APPLE STORES and the Genius Bar staff using APPLE diagnostic tools simply claim theirs absolutely nothing wrong with your battery, you need a new iPhone...

THATS why there are now several lawsuits plus on going government investigations, some of which have already fined Apple, for this scandal. It’s pretty much affected million and millions of iPhone users around the globe.

IMO it’s the lowest Apple has ever gone so far and about as anti consumer as the diesel gate scandal.
I’m still waiting to see what happens in France because planned obsolescence is actually a crime there.. they are investigating Apple for this scandal still so far as I know.
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Imagine defending Apple over this :oops:

Well plenty on here and elsewhere DO defend them on this... makes you wonder just how far would they actually go to defend Apple? How bad would an act performed by Apple have to actually be before they stop defending them?
 
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ulyssesric

macrumors 6502
Oct 7, 2006
250
204
I don't think the fraud committed was related to Apple using the iPhone 6 battery issues as a way to induce upgrades to newer phones. I think the fraud was how Apple hid the iPhone 6's design issues, specifically how the battery and CPU weren't properly engineered to handle the customary drops in peak current from normally aging batteries, and how they avoided a recall of the phone by secretly throttling the CPU instead as a way to limit peak current demands. It would have cost Apple billions of dollars to do the right thing and recall the phone.

Sorry this is way too ignorant. You shouldn't comment one something you don't really understand.

In iOS, throttling CPU frequency is the last step when your battery degraded and the charges getting low. Before that your phone had already took various different ways like lowing the network polling frequency, adjust display brightness & contrast, increase the threshold for suspending inactive processes, a lot of tweaks like that. The only thing that Apple never touched is the ability to connect to cellular network, to ensure you that you can still make a quick emergency calls for the last 1% of remaining power.

Besides, there is no any human technology that can effectively handle the drop in peak current from "normally aging batteries". Because there is no such thing as a "normally aging batteries". Batteries are generating power by chemical reaction and there isn't any way to precisely estimate the actual health status of a battery. The so called "83%" or so in some comments they're only estimated by the charging cycles, not from real voltage / current behavior. Every battery, every SINGLE battery made by human technology is made with common tolerance and will NOT have identical behavior, even when they're fresh new. Not to mention that all the usage conditions might drastically effect the real effective capacity of an aged battery, like temperature. The only thing you can do is make the best guess, and take precautions when the statistics shows that the chance of trouble is rising to a threshold.

Basically this is like commenting "the government health policy isn't properly designed to handle the heart attack of normally aging persons", because one cousins of a friend of a friend of a friend of yours is getting heart attack at the age of 49.
 
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ROGmaster

Suspended
Apr 12, 2018
976
675
That is the presumed difference with the iPhone 6 - it had a faster, more power-hungry processor vs previous generation designs. I'm sure Apple was aware of the implications but based on the outcome they clearly didn't account for it fully and properly. They learned from their mistake in subsequent generations since the iPhone 7 and beyond didn't have the same systemic issue.
Nope, iphone 7 still has this issue, maybe you meant to say iphone 8.
 

halluxsinister

macrumors regular
Oct 17, 2017
185
196
This is getting really old and I’ve never understood why this is a big deal. Apple didn’t invent lithium ion batteries or how they lose capacity and electrical potential over time.

What happens when you decease the voltage on an incandescent bulb? It gets dimmer... duh

Did you know that if you plug an underrated power supply into most laptops they will automatically throttle down the processor in order to prevent power loss? Hmmm... kind of seems like the better option. Apple was only following industry standards for power management.
Apple didn’t invent the lithium ion battery, true... but they did make them extremely difficult to replace or swap out. When most other phones made it simple or trivial even, Apple made it next to impossible.
 

laz232

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2016
733
1,384
At a café near you
This is getting really old and I’ve never understood why this is a big deal. Apple didn’t invent lithium ion batteries or how they lose capacity and electrical potential over time.

What happens when you decease the voltage on an incandescent bulb? It gets dimmer... duh

Did you know that if you plug an underrated power supply into most laptops they will automatically throttle down the processor in order to prevent power loss? Hmmm... kind of seems like the better option. Apple was only following industry standards for power management.

I disagree. The batteries they use seem to degrade rapidly after relatively few cycles.

My SE battery "claimed" to be at 95% health after a bit more than months use and about 200 cycles, kept cool, no gaming etc. However in practice the battery % remaining drops from, say, 30% to 5% within a few minutes of use. That is indicative of cells which have undergone irreversible loss of capacity and exhibit a large ESR.**

The bottom line is that Apple uses low cost, low performance batteries in their phones and it benefits them by getting people to upgrade after a year or two. That is bad for consumers and bad for the environment, which is why I dislike Tim Cook's leadership so much - his disingenuously claims to be 'green' and pro-consumer, when it's clear that the only 'green' he worships are those sweet, sweet US dollars.

**bona fides: that is my professional opinion as a HW design engineer
 
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honglong1976

macrumors 68000
Jul 12, 2008
1,636
1,092
UK
The iOS update should have been more clear about the real cause of sudden shutdowns and slow performance. In addition to this their 80% health policy prevented customers from replacing worn out batteries (even if they were willing to pay for it) while the geniuses recommended new devices as replacement for suddenly slow phones. Especially the latter reeks of bad intentions and will hopefully result in a lot of lost lawsuits for Apple.
Clarity is important, but also a lack of clarity helps to sell new iPhones. Which is ultimately and slyly what Apple did. Now they are clear on this, and people don't need to upgrade their phones, but instead need a new battery, sales of iPhones are down.

Apple knows exactly what they are doing!
 

SPUY767

macrumors 68020
Jun 22, 2003
2,041
131
GA
Usually I'm against these frivolous class actions, but SOMETHING is going on with older phones. I know my experience is anecdotal, but my 6s was recently running fine until iOS 12.31 (now on 12.4) and all of a sudden my battery is draining super fast. Battery was replaced by Apple less than two years ago, and battery health reports at 88%. This is without any change in my app/usage habits.

They keep doing something that negatively effects the battery performance of my older phone, and it's really pissing me off.

88% of max capacity sounds right on the money for a LIon battery wearing out when a device a full capacity cycle every day. You do realize that there is nothing Apple can do about lithium chemistry, right?
 

badawat

macrumors member
Oct 18, 2013
39
15
Usually I'm against these frivolous class actions, but SOMETHING is going on with older phones. I know my experience is anecdotal, but my 6s was recently running fine until iOS 12.31 (now on 12.4) and all of a sudden my battery is draining super fast. Battery was replaced by Apple less than two years ago, and battery health reports at 88%. This is without any change in my app/usage habits.

They keep doing something that negatively effects the battery performance of my older phone, and it's really pissing me off.

Same here - very annoying.
 

BootsWalking

macrumors 68020
Feb 1, 2014
2,268
14,188
Sorry this is way too ignorant. You shouldn't comment one something you don't really understand.

In iOS, throttling CPU frequency is the last step when your battery degraded and the charges getting low. Before that your phone had already took various different ways like lowing the network polling frequency, adjust display brightness & contrast, increase the threshold for suspending inactive processes, a lot of tweaks like that. The only thing that Apple never touched is the ability to connect to cellular network, to ensure you that you can still make a quick emergency calls for the last 1% of remaining power.

Besides, there is no any human technology that can effectively handle the drop in peak current from "normally aging batteries". Because there is no such thing as a "normally aging batteries". Batteries are generating power by chemical reaction and there isn't any way to precisely estimate the actual health status of a battery. The so called "83%" or so in some comments they're only estimated by the charging cycles, not from real voltage / current behavior. Every battery, every SINGLE battery made by human technology is made with common tolerance and will NOT have identical behavior, even when they're fresh new. Not to mention that all the usage conditions might drastically effect the real effective capacity of an aged battery, like temperature. The only thing you can do is make the best guess, and take precautions when the statistics shows that the chance of trouble is rising to a threshold.

Basically this is like commenting "the government health policy isn't properly designed to handle the heart attack of normally aging persons", because one cousins of a friend of a friend of a friend of yours is getting heart attack at the age of 49.

Sorry but I understand the matter quite well and nothing you wrote has demonstrated otherwise. There has been no iPhone before or after the iPhone 6 series which required permanently throttling the CPU by 50%, so your lengthy reply with all its extraneous detail did nothing but take up a lot of space.
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Nope, iphone 7 still has this issue, maybe you meant to say iphone 8.

The iPhone 7 does not have the issue. There have only been a few sporadic reports of shutdowns on the 7, which actually occurs on all smartphones models (Apple or otherwise) due to the tiny and expected defect rate of batteries.
 

I7guy

macrumors Nehalem
Nov 30, 2013
34,222
23,964
Gotta be in it to win it
...
The bottom line is that Apple uses low cost, low performance batteries in their phones and it benefits them by getting people to upgrade after a year or two. That is bad for consumers and bad for the environment, which is why I dislike Tim Cook's leadership so much - his disingenuously claims to be 'green' and pro-consumer, when it's clear that the only 'green' he worships are those sweet, sweet US dollars.
Pretty sure this has been debunked as hyperbole.
 

ROGmaster

Suspended
Apr 12, 2018
976
675
The iPhone 7 does not have the issue. There have only been a few sporadic reports of shutdowns on the 7, which actually occurs on all smartphones models (Apple or otherwise) due to the tiny and expected defect rate of batteries.
iphone 7 eventually received the same update which permanently throttles the CPU like the one iphone 6 and 6s got.
iphone SE is also confirmed to be affected by this issue.

A Quote from iOS 12.1's support page

Additionally, users can see if the performance management feature that dynamically manages maximum performance to prevent unexpected shutdowns is on and can choose to turn it off … This feature applies to iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, and iPhone 7 Plus. Starting with iOS 12.1, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X include this feature, but performance management may be less noticeable due to their more advanced hardware and software design.

So yeah iphone 7 does have the same issue iphone 6 and 6s have.

which actually occurs on all smartphones models (Apple or otherwise) due to the tiny and expected defect rate of batteries.
Well in other cases it doesn't happen because of the way phone was designed so most other phones actually don't have the same issue iphone 6, 6s, 7 have.
 
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BootsWalking

macrumors 68020
Feb 1, 2014
2,268
14,188
iphone 7 eventually received the same update which permanently throttles the CPU like the one iphone 6 and 6s got.
iphone SE is also confirmed to be affected by this issue.

A Quote from iOS 12.1's support page



So yeah iphone 7 does have the same issue iphone 6 and 6s have.

Neither the SE nor 7 series had widespread shutdown issues. Apple chose to include those phones (and later phones like the 8 as well) in their software mod likely as a preventative measure, to handle the outlier cases of actual marginal / bad batteries, but that is separate and distinct from the 6-series issue, which happened with regular, non-defective batteries.

It doesn't happen because of the phone design so most other phones don't have the same issue iphone 6, 6s, 7 have.

It happens with other phones but again only in the case of defective batteries. On the iPhone 6 series it happened due to a design issue with the phone.
 

ROGmaster

Suspended
Apr 12, 2018
976
675
Neither the SE nor 7 series had widespread shutdown issues.

Well that's because the iphone 7 was newer when the throttling was discovered but it has the same design defect that leads to the same shut down issues iphone 6 and 6s have.
Apple itself admired it.

Apple chose to include those phones (and later phones like the 8 as well) in their software mod likely as a preventative measure, to handle the outlier cases of actual marginal / bad batteries, but that is separate and distinct from the 6-series issue, which happened with regular, non-defective batteries.

Man the iphone 6, 6s, SE and 7 are all lumped together in Apple's explanation as phones that have the same issue.
iphone 8 and X are mentioned separately. What's so difficult to understand?

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/...ottling-iphone-performance-based-battery-life

The iPhone 6s debuted in September 2015, which means the first update to show evidence of this pattern — 10.2.1 — dropped about 16 months into its life cycle. The iPhone 7 isn’t quite that old yet, at not-quite 15 months, but a similar pattern is emerging as of iOS 11.2.0

It happens with other phones but again only in the case of defective batteries. On the iPhone 6 series it happened due to a design issue with the phone.

OK so why mention other phones then if they don't have the same problem?
 

BootsWalking

macrumors 68020
Feb 1, 2014
2,268
14,188
Well that's because the iphone 7 was newer when the throttling was discovered but it has the same design defect that leads to the same shut down issues iphone 6 and 6s have.
Apple itself admired it.

How about the SE?

Man the iphone 6, 6s, SE and 7 are all lumped together in Apple's explanation as phones that have the same issue.
iphone 8 and X are mentioned separately. What's so difficult to understand?

It's not difficult, provided you rely on actual customer accounts of what happened on their phones rather than reading too much into an Apple release blurb. Not to mention Apple has misdirected on their release notes many times, including for the original battery issue, so not sure why you're so keen on relying on some text vs empirical evidence from owners.

OK so why mention other phones then if they don't have the same problem?

Because shutdown issues have happened on other models but due to actual faulty batteries rather than the design issue that happened on the iPhone 6 series.
 

Defthand

macrumors 65816
Sep 1, 2010
1,351
1,712
Imagine how pissed off these people would be if their phones kept randomly rebooting, and then demanded Apple build software to repair this issue?

It wouldn't be an issue if Apple's software solution repaired the problem and restored performance to advertised specs. Instead, it was a band-aid for a hardware-related cause. Instead of restoring performance like a new battery does, it compromised performance. Your 6s suddenly has the limitations of the first iPhone.

A half-ass solution is more ass than solution.
 

Khedron

Suspended
Sep 27, 2013
2,561
5,755
What design defect...li-ion batteries wear out?...

iPhones couldn't handle them wearing out and would just turn off rather than handle power fluctuations

Combined with Apple's policy of suing people that offer replacement batteries and not offering replacements themselves

Pure greed and obsession with controlling customers from Apple, and anyone defending them over this issue is just a stock bot
 

I7guy

macrumors Nehalem
Nov 30, 2013
34,222
23,964
Gotta be in it to win it
iPhones couldn't handle them wearing out and would just turn off rather than handle power fluctuations
Android phones don’t handle this at all and just shut down. And before a citation is requested, there is enough out there.

Combined with Apple's policy of suing people that offer replacement batteries and not offering replacements themselves
What has this got to do with the topics?

Pure greed and obsession with controlling customers from Apple, and anyone defending them over this issue is just a stock bot
That’s all your speculation combined with some type of ding against a general group of fictionalized people.
 

LordVic

Cancelled
Sep 7, 2011
5,938
12,458
What design defect...li-ion batteries wear out?...

This has been described in detail numerous times. Often in direct response to you claiming ********.

When speccing out the required battery for a phone. Companies do often take into account expected degradation of those batteries into the overall health of the device. They will provide an overage of power availability so that there's a reasonable time frame in which battery degradation does not impact the experience of using the device.

Even Apple does this in just about every other phone and device. What happened is with the iPhone 6/6s, Apple did not provide suitable overhead to account for degredation under cooler conditions, nor long term cycles of charges. Resulting in shutdown behaviour occuring well within the first 2 years of owning the device. For many, having a device in which the battery specc is incapable of properly powering the device for 2 years is ridiculously short and most people expect 2+ years of life out of their device before battery issues become noticeable.

I don't believe this design issue was intentionally. I believe with the advancement of the Ax series CPU happening so fast, they did not account for it properly in the battery they paired to it.

unfortunately, this led to the random shutdown problem as the battery hit the point where powerdraw exceeded capacity much sooner than anticipated.

This on it's own IMHO isn't the big issue. especially considering some of the other faux pas manufacturers have had with batteries over the years.

The issue that is of contention is Apple's handling of the issue. More, the lack of transparency surrounding it. Instead of immediately offering a battery replacement program, and then releasing the software fix with transparent information on why it was occuring and why they were rolling out a throttle fix. They obfuscated the patch under (battery management) without details.

When users noticed their devices were getting slower and slower, they would take them to Apple stores looking for answers. Unfortunately, the information about throttling was not relayed or given to the stores. Apple employees would run a battery test that did not measure the capability of peak current issue, only retention of power. So batteries according to Apple's tests would pass the Apple store tests. Apple policy was if a battery passed the test, no replacement battery would be offered. Apple stores would even reject users who were willing to pay for that service. Leaving them with a seemingly permanently crippled slow phone that they didn't know why it was slow and the only solution presented was "live with it or buy a new phone"

When Tim Cook was asked "Do you throttle old phones". He responded with an outright "no we do not throttle old phones". This was a technical truth as the throttling was not based on age. But it was underhanded and misleading as phones were being throttled for other reasons.

it took approximately another month before 3rd party testing uncovered both the battery issue, and the software throttle. By this time, there were already emerging reports of users who bought new phones because they thought the throttling and slow down was just "typical old harware" behaviour instead of a purposeful throttling by Apple.

Overall. The Throttle in order to limit the accidental shutdowns was not a bad solution and work around for the issue. it was the lack of transparency. the obfuscation. the lying by Cook, and the miscommunication that is the problem here, more so than any technical issue that may have existed. it showed a level of unethical behaviour that a company like Apple should not be allowed to behave in. Hence the lawsuits, which are the way for consumers to hold corporations acconutable for behaviour that they believe is anti-consumer.

The demand for battery replacements due to throttling was so high, that upon release of the battery replacement program for this issue and the issuing of testing to account for the battery issue, Apple saw 9-11 million devices take advantage of this battery swap.
 
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