Apple Now Faces 26+ Lawsuits for 'Purposefully' or 'Secretly' Slowing Down Older iPhones

[Wildkraut]

Apple never stated an exact speed specification number. People just made up their own false expectations. And for the tiny percentage of batteries that do fall below the typical statistical range regarding lifetime performance, Apple should just replace those under warranty (whose number of years varies by country legal jurisdiction).

Mentioning the speed by GHz numbers,benchmark or banana values is irrelevant.
The speed a device can achieve at the time of purchase, should never be manually trottled on purpose without any prior information to customers, and without having an optout possibility.

Despite that:

 

[iSunrise]

There is literally nothing they can do about these batteries degrading over time.

It's not about that at all, though, it's about Apple that designed their iPhones after the 5s in such a way that their newest iPhones are only really "fast" and "smooth", when they were new and thus even review sites applauded Apple for their great performance. However, starting from iPhone 6 Apple must've changed something that makes their iPhones not only run a lot hotter (see various Youtube heat tests), but also that their batteries run at their very limits and they degrade very fast. This did not happen at all with older iPhones and it does show that Apple designed something over the limit that such an issue could arise.

Secondly, newer iPhones like the 8 Plus are big like a mother f****, yet they have a worse battery (mAh), then a way older Samsung S8(+).

It's just silly to think of this as if Apple did not realize what they were doing, since they changed the behaviour for a very reason and lots of people did not know why their iPhones like the very fast 6s suddenly felt like they are unusuable in certain situations. I sold my 6s because of this and bought an iPhone 7, which would also be slowed down by now, but luckily I did not upgrade to the newest iOS right away, since it still feels perfect.

 

[firewood]

You say this as if it's always been a reality of iPhone ownership. It hasn't been. For some reason around the time the iPhone 6 arrived Apple suddenly seemed to have issues and concerns about battery degradation. What exactly caused this is unclear, but I'd love to get the answers one day.

One answer seems perfectly clear. The A8 chip in the iPhone 6 has twice as many transistors as the A7 in the 5s, squished into a smaller die, running at a higher frequency, and was the first one fabricated by TSMC for Apple, rather than Samsung who had many years of experience in fabricating Apple SOCs. Twice as many transistors in multiple high-performance processing cores can make a significantly greater demand on the power supply. That technology boost may have led power management into brand new territory, perhaps into another dark silicon management problem.

 

[Joe h]

All I want to know is, do I actually have to make my own list of idiots so I can opt out of the class(es), or will someone eventually consolidate these so I only have to opt out once?

Do me a favor, don't bother with anti-Apple-whine in my direction (or pro-, for that matter), I couldn't care less about your opinion and I'm not sharing mine. I'm anti-class-action lawsuits in general, all they benefit is lawyers.

If it is like any other class action, once a judgement or settlement is reached, all iPhone owners will be informed, and then either have to fill out a form to collect, or fill out a form to back out. For the ps3 and a whirlpool washer lawsuit, I had to return a postcard in order to collect. And for the EarthLink ‘refusal to prorate the cancellation fee’ lawsuit, I was given the choice to either back out if I wanted to sue them myself, or I would automatically receive the settlement, which was actually the full amount I was screwed out of.

 

[Arbuthnott]

They were slowing them down to hide serious battery defects to avoid having to issue a recall on millions of iPhones.

Unintended consequence was that people thought their phone was old due to the new slowness and spent $800+ on a new iPhone.

Duh - my phone appears slow. Should I buy a new one (>$800) or get the battery checked (free software such as Lirium, or take it to an Apple Store), with the possibility of changing the battery after testing ($100)? Well it's pretty obvious, I would be forced to buy a new phone, innit?

Is there some sort of serious penalty for nuisance class actions, with the legal firms being disbarred and the lawyers publicly horse-whipped? Now that I would really like to see.

 

[PeaceMonger]

So those folks are all OK with their phones instantly shutting off when they open Facebook?

OK, you got me. I am TOTALLY OK with this happening. Battery be damned. In fact, I would consider it a killer feature.

I want this pushed out pronto, Apple. Redeem yourself.

It's nice to see a little silver lining in the clouds sometimes.

 

[firewood]

The speed a device can achieve at the time of purchase, should never be manually trottled on purpose without any prior information to customers, and without having an optout possibility.

The speed of almost any contemporary laptop/desktop processor you can buy is "throttled", with no possibility for the customer to opt-out (except for the overclocking fanatics using liquid nitrogen baths, etc.). If you buy one on a cold day, it might well run slower on the same tasks in a hot room the very next day. Most customers are clueless as to the necessity to be doing this. There are just too many transistor to clock all of them at GHz rates without exceeding 100 Watts or whatever the air-cooled limit is.

Mobile processors are simply catching up with desktop processors in needing full-time power management (mislabeled as throttling) to keep from overheating, etc. And the energy for any near-overheating has to come out of the battery or power supply (conservation of energy, etc.) But peak performance comes right near the limit of what the battery can supply and the max thermal energy that can be safely dissipated.

 

[Phonephreak]

If people see a thin phone next to a thick one, they’re not buying the thick one. Sorry.

I for one would be very curious to see what would happen if Apple offered a thicker phone, with amazing battery life. I’m only talking 2-3mm thicker. Or the current ones.
Which one would sell more?

 

[maplingstorie]

I normally roll eyes when Apple gets sued by other companies but this one I have to make an exception. I hope Apple loses this suit. You don't slow down phones just because you want to make the batter last longer. You tell them to replace the battery when it's time. They've done this for their MacBooks, how is it any different for phones?

 

[Wildkraut]

The speed of almost any contemporary laptop/desktop processor you can buy is "throttled", with no possibility for the customer to opt-out (except for the overclocking fanatics using liquid nitrogen baths, etc.). If you buy one on a cold day, it might well run slower on the same tasks in a hot room the very next day. Most customers are clueless as to the necessity to be doing this.

Yes and ok that way, because these non-disclosed specs and performance behaviors/penalties exist usually since time of purchase. It’s nothing they quietly introduce later.

And they state Environmental Requirements:

• Operating ambient temperature: 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C)
• Nonoperating temperature: −4° to 113° F (−20° to 45° C)
• Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing
• Operating altitude: tested up to 10,000 feet (3000 m)

 

[Mescagnus]

Yet another article, and yet again the same arguments for and against the issue – posted and/or liked by many of the same people.

My take on the debacle is that Apple did what they thought was best for their customers – prolonging the life of an iPhone – instead of "forcing" people to upgrade to a newer model. However, with today's consumer electronics, it's often best to upgrade each year. With Apple's second-hand resell value, it's not really even that expensive.

Could Apple have been more transparent about the tweaks they made to iOS? Yes, and they should have been. They weren't. That is what Apple IS guilty of, and now they are damned. Had they been forthcoming about how they prevented unexpected shutdows, they would have been equally damned: it would have been the same kind of sh*tstorm with slightly different arguments and conspiracy theories.

Granted: some people would have been more likely to exchange the battery for $79 than upgrade their iPhone. Also granted: Apple could have lowered the cost of battery replacements at that earlier time of disclosure. And yes, they could have improved the battery technology (or power management) for iPhone 7 and 8.

I think they are on the right track with the dual L-shaped battery of iPhone X – it seems to last way longer than the battery of my previous iPhones (2G, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S, 5, SE, 6, 6S and 7). My iPhone X is a couple of months old and it hasn't gone below 20% on any day yet, regardless of heavy use.

Especially with 6, 6S and 7 I noticed that I needed to use a powerbank every now and then to get through the day. However, I never noticed any throttling or the phones becoming slower in my daily use.

So: 1) The batteries in iPhones (X) are improving (getting bigger). 2) Apple should have been more transparent about how they prevented shutdowns... Yet people need to ask themselves if the reduction of CPU speed really affected the use of their iPhones, benchmarks aside (most people don't run them). 3) And there is always a foolproof way to stay happy with your iPhone: upgrade yearly.

That's what I do. iPhone 5S has been the only iPhone I have skipped, because the black iPhone 5 was so cool. Experience the joy of a new iPhone every year!

If you haven't upgraded to iPhone X yet, my advice is that you do. It's the best new iPhone design & experience since the iPhone 5. The 6-series (including 6S AND 7 AND 8) design was and is "meh". iPhone X is again what an iPhone should be!

With annual upgrades, you'll have no worries, compaints or frustrations with performance – just the joy of your iPhone.

 

[firewood]

Yes and ok that way, because these non-disclosed specs and performance behaviors/penalties exist usually since time of purchase. It’s nothing they quietly introduce later.

How do you know exactly what's in Intel's microcode updates? IIRC, that stuff is under deep NDA.

 

[ghanwani]

Look at the bright side.

This is good for GDP and the economy. Lawyers need something to do. Apple gives them something to do and pays them. It contributes to GDP and makes the economy look good.

At GDP increases, S&P 500 shoots up and everyone makes money!

 

[Wildkraut]

How do you know exactly what's in Intel's microcode updates? IIRC, that stuff is under deep NDA.

Well, if their microcode bugfix start trottling cpus noticeable and unrevertable, maybe we will see the next class action suits rolling out. Anyway in this case people still can skip or rollback the bugfixes to the original state equally to time of purchase.

 

[RuffyYoshi]

They should get sued for the state of iOS rather.

 

[BenTrovato]

Look at the bright side.

This is good for GDP and the economy. Lawyers need something to do. Apple gives them something to do and pays them. It contributes to GDP and makes the economy look good.

At GDP increases, S&P 500 shoots up and everyone makes money!

Guaranteed Apple calculated the cost of legal action of slowing down phones vs legal action of letting the phone power off and decided this route was more cost effective.

 

[Ad13]

Why are no such lawsuits being filed against Microsoft, Dell and other companies who have been implementing same feature to prevent unexpected laptop shutdowns?

Because they didn’t pay over $1k for a Microsoft ‘smart’ phone

 

[Analog Kid]

Apple never mentioned the power management changes, which it calls a feature, when it released iOS 10.2.1 nearly a year ago.

Is there something that shows this? Because the release notes I see for 10.2.1 do say they updated power management to avoid unexpected shutdowns:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170317201937/https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893?locale=en_US

The closest I can get to the release date is March.

 

[Ad13]

I for one would be very curious to see what would happen if Apple offered a thicker phone, with amazing battery life. I’m only talking 2-3mm thicker. Or the current ones.
Which one would sell more?

I 100% agree. I’d opt for better battery life over thinness (within reason) every time.

 

[kafka27]

My son's old iPhone 5 shuts down all the time. Wish it was eligible for the power management feature! Apple is in the right here.

Just change the battery for Christ sake !!

 

[Marekul]

"Apple should have been more transparent about how they prevented shutdowns"

Wrong, let me rephrase for you:
"Apple should be more transparent about why they have to prevented shutdowns, when shutdowns occur and what exactly they did to resolve that issue."

The thing is they learned about the design flaw with iPhone6, introduced throttling as a solution, but couldn't be bothered to fix the original cause in the iPhone 7. We have to assume form Apples statement that iPhone 8 and X are also affected by this design flaw and will get the same treatment, a software workaround with slows down devices with weak battery.

You can be sure they would have found a better fix if it had hurt their business model of planned obsolescence.
And no, that Apple is engineering obsolescence into their devices is not a conspiracy it is a fact. No one solders RAM CPU and SSD on to motherboards, glues parts together and makes replacing batteries very expensive without planned obsolescence in their mind.

 

[PeaceMonger]

I think the important battle is not the lawsuits ; it is the PR battle. Apple is a fashion company, not a tech company. They live and die on the public's perception of them as a 'premium' brand.

The numerous lawsuits and potential international actions will give this story some long legs. Apple won't wash it down the memory hole with a cheap temporary battery upgrade and BS.

Public perception has little to do with facts and the unwashed masses know squat about power management. They do understand, "They slowed my iPhone down secretly."Nuance is not their thing.

Come September, and the issuance of new iPhones, the public will weigh in.

We'll have an inkling then of what this cost Apple investors.

There are two sets of victims here - Apple customers and Apple investors.

There is one set of perpetrators - Apple management (hired help).

It is important that those actually responsible be held responsible.

 

[firewood]

They should get sued for the state of iOS rather.

As if any of their competition doesn't also have various problems and issues. Let's sue everybody! (the refrain of lawyers who want their own private jets).

 

[kdarling]

The legal action comes after Apple's revelation it may at times dynamically manage the maximum performance of some older iPhone models with chemically aged batteries.

Apple’s PR department is brilliant.

They came up with saying“chemically aged” in place of simply saying “any non-new” battery, because it sounds so much less like Apple should be responsible for knowing about it.

Keep in mind that Apple is not permanently or persistently slowing down older iPhones. Even if your iPhone is affected, the performance limitation only happen intermittently, and only when the device is completing demanding tasks.

Evidence? There’s been no definitive testing of when or how long the performance hit is.

There is literally nothing they can do about these batteries degrading over time.

On the contrary, apparently there is, if Samsung’s claim that the battery in the S8 will still have 95% capacity after two years is correct.

 

[ronno]

A slowed-down iPhone? Yes. Two. And I fixed my friend's 5s after the 11.2 update by rebooting it again, and having the owner turn off iCloud till night time, when iCloud could do it's thing while the phone sat on its charger. No more slow down the next day. Another person had to factory reset and set up as new. Then the slow down disappeared. So they weren't throttled, just busy with who knows what.

OK so NO - you haven't had one of these where the processor is throttled down to 40% of it's original power.
It is maddening and not a good experience at all. Thus the 26 and counting law suits...
Cheers.