Apparently I was mean the first time I responded. I didn’t say that they did slow the phones down below advertised specs. I said IF they did.
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Apple Now Faces 26+ Lawsuits for 'Purposefully' or 'Secretly' Slowing Down Older iPhones
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They do advertise it as being X amount faster than previous models/chips, etc. Eventually, you can get down to technical specs where they do specify the CPU of older models/chips.
For example, here is Apple's technical spec of iPad 2 with an A5 chip:
A5 chip powered the iPhone 4S.
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I usually saw people saying Apple wasn't involved in some sort of plot to make their old phones slow and force them to buy knew ones. Which was the typical accusation. And, no. They were not.
I always knew older phones ran slower. I assumed it was due to the processing power required to run a more advanced OS that was intended for newer phones, but if they were slowing them to combat that issue and the issue of battery degradation (which is normal in ALL phones, I don't care who made them), then I really don't care WHY the phones got slower.
It's not a nefarious plot.
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And, I really doubt they'll "lose" any of them.
Some lawyers might make some cash and some people might get free iTunes gift cards for 10 bucks, but I really doubt any single iPhone owners are going to get their money back.
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Right you are. And in the Android world, you typically don't find people with 2-3 yo phones trying to run the latest version of Android OS unless they're power users who know how to get what they need, install it, and configure it to their liking. Most people walking around with an Android device from ANY manufacturer are running the OS it came with or a generation after it. Which makes crap like this somewhat a non issue. Also, a good many Android owners (not the ones who are buying the latest Samsung when it launches, but the MAJORITY of Android owners) are running cheap phones or free phones and if they get busted up or slow down, they just go upgrade to another cheap/free phone and keep on trucking. People expect more from Apple because they cannot go get last year's phone for nothing.
So Apple is Okay to sell a device that shuts down randomly?
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But they can't. Slower upgrade cycle hurts the bottom line, you know.
Nor really. Apple sells apps etc... Software and services has a far and away higher profit margin than hardware.
I think Apple will probably stop the practice or give you a choice to enable it. I like that they are adding battery features and information as well.
Last I check, iPhone accounts for 60% of all Apple revenue.
And slower upgrade cycle does indeed hurt the bottom line regardless of what else they sell.
The point is that there is a benefit to keeping people on the platform even if they don't upgrade every year to new hardware. So while hardware maybe a primary driver of revenue for Apple they still can make plenty of money on software simply by keeping the from financially conscious people around.
I'm sure this has been stated, but a higher capacity battery would have delayed this to close to 2 years, but I agree that it is inevitable. My thought is that one of the main factors was the obsessiveness for thinner devices. I honestly wonder whether there were better batteries out there for use with the devices, and in the obsession to get a certain percentage profit margin and thinness, they settled for the least acceptable battery.
What really baffles me is that this was not caught in testing. Wonder what apple considers the normal life of a battery/phone, because all engineering validation/testing should be very clearly defined, and this issue isn't a random one. It will affect every single one at some point. This is affecting quite a number phones at a very premature age(~1 year) and the fact that they plan to implement these features for phones around 1 year old moving forward(iphone 7), or maybe for all phones from the get go eventually. They surely must have not been stupid enough to think EVERYONE in the world with an iphone would upgrade annually, so they would never run into this issue?
More I think about it, the more confusing and aggravating.
edit - corrected exaggeration on my part
What really baffles me is that this was not caught in testing. Wonder what apple considers the normal life of a battery/phone, because all engineering validation/testing should be very clearly defined, and this issue isn't a random one. It will affect every single one at some point. This is affecting quite a number phones at a very premature age(~1 year) and the fact that they plan to implement these features for phones around 1 year old moving forward(iphone 7), or maybe for all phones from the get go eventually. They surely must have not been stupid enough to think EVERYONE in the world with an iphone would upgrade annually, so they would never run into this issue?
More I think about it, the more confusing and aggravating.
edit - corrected exaggeration on my part
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I believe the headphone jack was removed so that more people would keep Bluetooth on all the time thus making it easier to sell their iBeacons to retail stores [dons a stylish tinfoil hat]
A higher capacity battery may or may not have helped. It's possible that the A10 and A11 have so much performance headroom, that the performance level could be turned up to need more power than even a higher capacity mobile phone battery could provide. The A11 appears to be a beast that could even require a large tablet or even a laptop sized battery and massive heat spreader to reach its full potential with all 4 processors, all 3 GPU cores and the neural processor (etc.) going full out. Look how much more performance a single A11 core has compared to any other competing mobile SOC. And customers are buying these new iPhones in droves, in part because the A10 and A11 can be turned up to such high levels of single core performance, possibly right at the limit of what any mobile phone battery can barely provide. Apple may be "secretly" designing laptop-grade processor cores, and throttling them all way down so as not to melt inside a handheld SOC and device.
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What evidence is there that they skimped on battery quality?
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This link does nothing to prove the blockbuster claim that Apple has been using crappier batteries in their recent phones.
This “worse batteries theory” sounds made up.
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I have one of those VW TDI diesels, and that situation was absolute fraud, pure and simple. This iPhone slow-down kerfuffle isn’t even in the same fickung ballpark as the VW scandal.
If there is a legitimate case to be made against Apple, make it. No false comparisons needed.
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Huh? Have you been reading any news on Samsung’s battery problems involving shutdowns too? Or perhaps the other defective batteries that were prone to explode? I’m not trying to conflate Samsung’s issues with these class action lawsuits but you need to pick a better example of a company that puts customers first.
You may be right. Regardless, I think it was foolish to provide such powerful processors without the ability to power them adequately. The issue here is even at the throttled down power that they are providing, the batteries aren't sufficient enough to last 2 years. Thats my main point with my comments.
How come this issue hasn't really affected laptops where they need to throttle it down due to insufficient current/voltage? Maybe cause their batteries are bigger?(ignoring the heat issue altogether because thats affecting even laptops)
When battery can't provide the required wattage, almost every contemporary laptop is being slowed down by the system. Look around in the internet, there are a lot of reports of laptops slowing down when the battery is old, defective or otherwise less functional. Everyone who has at least some experience with support knows this. And it makes a lot of sense, since limiting system's power draw is a safer outcome than letting the machine suffer a power failure and potential data loss.
It is entirely possible that Apple's iOS treatment is more involved than the standard "limit power draw to what can be supplied", but its the same principle. Only Apple's "sin" is lack of communication. Which is an area where Apple has to improve if they want to keep customer loyalty.
Or just supply a standard power-management driver. Battery monitoring is not that difficult.
That is very true. But that's not the issue in the lawsuits. The issue is that Apple discouraged people from getting new batteries, by intentionally slowing down the phones and as such hiding the battery issues, so that people would not realize it was the battery that was the problem and just buy a new phone instead. That is the reason for the lawsuit. It's outright deceit or fraud.
Amazing, my 6s battery really stinks. I tried posting something on the Apple forums for help and got burned at the stake by Apple loyalists. Even now I’m surfing at 1% which it gets to very quickly after a charge yet it’s not covered by any recall or warranty. My old 4 4s and children’s androids hold a charge after a few or several years.
Yes my current and prior 6s use to shut off while they were at 40% and recording 4K video. The battery has new at the time but flakey. The updates stabilized it but now the indicators are off.
The lawsuits don’t ever mention people with situations like me and Apple has offered 0 support only saying my battery is fine when I had it diagnosed.
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They can put better batteries in the phones as well. Why is a 1yr old iphone 7 receiving degraded speeds?
Yes my current and prior 6s use to shut off while they were at 40% and recording 4K video. The battery has new at the time but flakey. The updates stabilized it but now the indicators are off.
The lawsuits don’t ever mention people with situations like me and Apple has offered 0 support only saying my battery is fine when I had it diagnosed.
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They can put better batteries in the phones as well. Why is a 1yr old iphone 7 receiving degraded speeds?
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I highly suggest you take note next time has an earnings call, just take a look at just how much of Apples entire earnings it’s iPhone hardware sales make alone. Because you will then see just how much it’s worth to them for everyone to constantly upgrade. A hint is last time it was over 60% of Apples entire earnings!
I’d like to say that my battery is in perfect working order since the release of the iPhone 6s Plus 128gb from the Apple store factory unlocked because Canada !
the softwear after iOS 10 made my phone do some of the craziest glitching junkie random lock ups shut downs apps freezing not working Bull I have ever seen since owning every top model phone before this one !!!
My internet spinning wheel thing top left corner would spin for days non stop !
My phone app would go gray as if I was pressing it and the phone was locked and needed to be hard reset !
Hard reset was a hourly thing ! Because the phone woundt respond or was so slowwww !!!
And don’t tell me to reset reinstall software like a new iPhone !! I did that once a week apple an all these problems where still there !
I have purchased every phone so far you made !! iPhone 7 iPhone 8 iPhone X and I took them all back !! I repeat you need to fix your junky phones !
Ps I hope you loose every single one of these lawsuits for selling lying cheating people !
the softwear after iOS 10 made my phone do some of the craziest glitching junkie random lock ups shut downs apps freezing not working Bull I have ever seen since owning every top model phone before this one !!!
My internet spinning wheel thing top left corner would spin for days non stop !
My phone app would go gray as if I was pressing it and the phone was locked and needed to be hard reset !
Hard reset was a hourly thing ! Because the phone woundt respond or was so slowwww !!!
And don’t tell me to reset reinstall software like a new iPhone !! I did that once a week apple an all these problems where still there !
I have purchased every phone so far you made !! iPhone 7 iPhone 8 iPhone X and I took them all back !! I repeat you need to fix your junky phones !
Ps I hope you loose every single one of these lawsuits for selling lying cheating people !
So, if your battery is at 800 charge cycles, you expect a FREE battery?
Have you never seen the warranty for car tires or car batteries. Both are "pro-rated" in various ways. Why? Because those items are "Consumables".
For example, car batteries are generally considered to last about 5 years, and is tracked to a granularity of ONE MONTH. Often the battery will be at full-replacement-value if the failure happens within the first two or three years; but then, the "Pro-rated" warranty clause starts nibbling away, month-by-month, at how much "credit" against a replacement PURCHASE you'll be given.
For example, using the Exide Corporation's warranty info page (just the first one that came up on a Google search), you can see their "Invatubular"-model car batteries have the following warranty (and notice, this says NOTHING about the LABOR cost being covered; so it is most likely NOT):
0 - 36 months: Full Replacement Value
36 - 42 months: 20% Discount on new battery PURCHASE
42 - 48 months: 10% Discount on a new battery PURCHASE
http://www.exideindustries.com/products/industrial-batteries/warranty-terms.aspx
And, as I said, LABOR NOT INCLUDED, EVEN IF THE BATTERY FAILS IN THE FIRST 36 MONTHS!!!
So, in an attempt to correlate this with Charge-Cycles, and using Apple's criteria of "80% charge retention after 500 charge/discharge cycles", we have the following:
Failure to hold 80% charge after:
0 - 500 cycles: Full Replacement (Apple's standard policy for a "defective" battery)
500-600 cycles: 20% off of $79, or roughly $63 Replacement Cost (we'll not quibble about how much is battery vs. labor. Too hard to figure)
600-700 cycles: 10% off of $79, or roughly $71 Replacement Cost
THAT would be like a typical "battery warranty". And as you can see, even at $79, Apple isn't exactly "profiteering", even if replacing a 501-cycle battery for $79. They would only be making about $15.80 at that level over a realistic "pro-rated" battery warranty, and only about $7.90 on a 601-cycle battery.
And don't forget, the LABOR is included, UNLIKE the car-battery (even at the "Full Replacement" level)
But now, Apple is now replacing batteries at what HAS to be or below cost. That restores your "Deliberately slowed-down phone" (even one that is up to 40 months old (iPhone 6 available in the U.S. since 9/14/14, and which could conceivably have up to 1,200 charge-cycles (assuming charging once-per-day for heavy use)) to like-new performance, and likely for as long as you are going to keep that particular model. For a flat, NON-PRO-RATED, $29.
Sorry, but I think Apple is being QUITE reasonable, considering this is a BATTERY with a LIMITED LIFESPAN we're talking about.
And yet, you STILL aren't satisfied.
Ridiculous.
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Who throttles a car's engine to save the car's battery? Ridiculous!
The lawsuits are about an item which was finally brought to light, however there are other issues with the battery which have not been brought to light like for instance the random shutdowns while doing anything strenuous. Slowing down my iPhone was only a bandaid and has caused the battery to go nuts. My iPhone is now extremely unreliable. Apple has told me to reset my phone but it never helped. There is definitely a firmware flaw. By the time it’s discovered I will have already upgraded. No I’m not leaving Apple over it. I rely on too many apps not to mention the watch.
You're right; because, unless its a Tesla/Prius/Bolt/Leaf, etc., it doesn't RUN on that battery.
But, speaking of which, and now that you mention it, I wonder what the battery-pack warranties ARE on those vehicles...
You think Apple is opaque in their warranty; try TESLA!
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/...Tesla-Model-S-battery-life-decrease-over-time