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

[Tiger8]

What you describe is the ideal, theoretical scenario which unfortunately not how it works in reality. If the battery is sufficiently deteriorated, it is not able to maintain its original current and/or voltage levels — no matter whether it charged or not. An old battery, even if fully charged, might only provide power at a level of a new battery that has been almost depleted. In both cases, the power delivery is not up to its design specifications. And if you are running on battery, and your CPU is attempting to boost, the result will be a crash with potential data loss.

Again, I don't know how this safety power throttling works in practice — there could be some driver-assisted feedback from the battery controller or maybe the CPU's power management is automatically limiting consumed power to safe levels. Regardless, the practical consequence is that laptops artificially limit their power draw if the power system can't provide enough juice, as is the case with an old, damaged or otherwise problematic battery — no matter whether its fully charged, at 80% or not charged at all.

I agree with what you said, and yes, in reality as the battery gets older it becomes harder for the system to maintain a high level of performance. So the end result is a slower device.

And how do you know that this is what they do? It would make much more sense for them to monitor actual power output and not speculate on cycle count (which is very individual and can vary greatly from battery to battery).

The original experiment, the one that exposed this whole mess, showed that iPhones with an older battery are constantly slower than they should be. Now, perhaps in the way to reduce the PR disaster, Apple has been very vague about how exactly their dynamic algorithm for slowing down the phone works. If it's kosher, they would have come out and said that what they are doing is the standard practice that's been done by years by intel, Microsoft, Google, and others

My guess? Apple has been rushing software changes and features without necessarily paying too much attention to optimizing for power consumption. Can you tell me why this was added to 10.1 and not iOS 1 or 2?

 

[d4rkc4sm]

good. greedy apple needs to be taken down a peg or several

 

[iSunrise]

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.

If Apple would have done what's best for their customers they had acknowledged their design fault or their inability to design the iPhone 6, 6s etc. in such a way that customers were used to from past iPhones, without any slowdowns and shutdowns. Why do you think did Apple NOT purposefully do that?

They could have acknowledged and issued battery exchanges free of charge and they could have corrected their design flaw with further generations of iPhones. Yet, they hid the truth and made intransparent changes to iOS when they saw that people experienced their design flaws first hand and hid them away from them with their explanation that "we did what's best for our customers".

Are you really that easy to fool?

When a company does damage control in response to law suits it's just that, damage control to ease some people over and make some people aware that finally Apple does give a **** about their customers, but only AFTER people found out and law suits were initiated.

What people think is not really relevant, but intransparent behaviour on such an important part of their business is.

Since the upcoming iOS will include more transparency, Apple is even willing to continue with their decision to design iPhones to their very limits with smaller and smaller batteries (mAh) compared to their competition and people will need to accept it.

 

[RickInHouston]

Well, at least you can be at easy regarding the benchmark differences, since Pixel 2 is slower than a throttled iPhone X would be

Joking of course. Glad for you that you found a phone you are satisfied with.

Wait a year, then two and then even three. Pixels are like the Energizer Bunny.

 

[scrapesleon]

26 law suits I left this at 8 ??? People really want that iPhone X haha

 

[AT&T representative]

What about iPad!?!? iPads have batteries too!

 

[theotheo]

Apple is 100% guilty. The reason I upgraded to the iPhone 7 was because my 6s slowed down so dramatically, and the battery wouldn’t even last me all day at work, after the 10.2.1 downgrade.

Really, you upgraded to a 7 instead of a battery replacement regardless within warranty or out of pocket. Was the “slow
Down” code present at the time?

 

[JM]

And if the best they can do is a 5s with the current battery tech , then maybe they should't make more powerful processors until the battery for their phone offerings catches up. What good is a faster processor in a phone if it can't use its power? Throttling a CPU when you need the power for heavy tasks just doesn't make any sense and seems like a poor design. My 6s was throttled to a clock speed slower than a 5s before I replaced the battery. Maybe a 5s with 2 gig of ram would have been a better phone than the 6s. Havent seen complaints about the 5s shutting down after a year @ 30%.

I'm with you on the other things you mentioned, but I have a 5s that shuts down at low battery percentages (5, and all the way up to 30 sometimes). I just had to replace the battery. I don't notice a speed boost or anything after the replacement, but I'm comparing it to my 7 so it's hard to tell a difference from old battery to new in the 5s.

 

[Defthand]

A month ago I would have chewed glass before saying that or buying an Android.

I've been a diehard Apple fanboy for several decades. In recent years, not so much. I still have a lot of love for MacOS, but I'm ready to explore Android for my mobile needs. What convinced me? Over the holidays, I used Google's Waze app during my travels and was able to witness the superior AI of Google's home assistant. Truly impressive and amusing. More Apple-esque than iOS.

Funny, I insisted on having Apple CarPlay when I bought a new car last year. Now I regret it.

 

[Gilligan's last elephant]

I'm with you on the other things you mentioned, but I have a 5s that shuts down at low battery percentages (5, and all the way up to 30 sometimes). I just had to replace the battery. I don't notice a speed boost or anything after the replacement, but I'm comparing it to my 7 so it's hard to tell a difference from old battery to new in the 5s.

The throttling isn't applied to the 5S, so you would not see an increase in speed. Just improved stability. A poor battery dies not make a phone run slow.

 

[iSunrise]

Really, you upgraded to a 7 instead of a battery replacement regardless within warranty or out of pocket. Was the “slow
Down” code present at the time?

I did, too, since Apple told me that my iPhone is behaving perfectly normal (yes, they denied a battery issue) and I knew that there is something wrong, since my 5s had better battery life and it was a smaller phone. I also did not do demanding tasks, my behaviour did not change between phones and I also do not game on them. If they had told me that a simply battery exchange would solve it, I would have done that instead. Therefore I sold my 6s and instantly bought my 7 when it was available and did not look back ever since. The 7 is the best iPhone that ever existed (IMHO of course).

Well, at least until now and when Apple acknowledged that there is indeed something "wrong" since iPhone 6, but I could care less now...I just don't need to tolerate such behaviour and it has already damaged their brand, they need to take responsibility for it now.

 

[JM]

The throttling isn't applied to the 5S, so you would not see an increase in speed. Just improved stability. A poor battery dies not make a phone run slow.

Unless it's the 6 and newer

But yeah, your right the 5s "shouldn't" get a speed boost from new battery.
That being said, the 5s does run well on 10.3.3 and is only "slow" on opening apps like maps and messages and options. ("Slow" compared to the instantaneous opening of the 7)

 

[naturalstar]

I can agree with you to a certain point. HOWEVER, as someone who was pretty much forced into paying monthly payments for my phone,it is not fair. I didn’t have nearly $1,000.00 at the time to pay out right and was told my only option was to pay month to month. So here I am paying nearly $30 a month for a phone I haven’t had 2 years yet and still have almost 7 months of monthly payments to go. If they can’t make the phones to last on purpose, then why force people to pay such a high amount for something that won’t last more than 2 years? Should the phone companies be sued instead? Who takes responsibility for this? I am not buying a new phone just to get stuck paying yet another $1000.00. If I pay that much I expect it to last a very long time. Remember when you used to be able to walk into Best Buy or Verizon and get a iPhone or Android for $199?

Subsidies and options for purchase are a different matter. Also remember, with subsidies you still were on a 2-year contract or paid an ETF. Anyway, the subsidy business model ended for the iPhone here in the US a while ago. People either deal with the iPhone purchase options available now or go for whatever Android phone meets their budget at time of upgrade/purchase. There are many, many phones available on the market now, at various price ranges, even more than one iPhone model. There has been and will be people who switch from the iPhone just on cost alone.

I do agree that if these phones are going to be degraded and underperforming within 1-2 years then it doesn’t make sense for iPhones to cost so much because that’s not a premium quality product to me. However, an individual’s decision to choose the iPhone and by which method of payment is still a choice. Carrier financing, Apple financing, cash, credit card... all are still options for purchase. Your above argument while valid is more of an individual financial decision. Apple has always been priced higher.

I think it’s just better to focus on the fact that you unknowingly upgraded when the option of having the battery changed could have saved you money.

 

[JM]

Subsidies and options for purchase are a different matter. Also remember, with subsidies you still were on a 2-year contract or paid an ETF. Anyway, the subsidy business model ended for the iPhone here in the US a while ago. People either deal with the iPhone purchase options available now or go for whatever Android phone meets their budget at time of upgrade/purchase. There are many, many phones available on the market now, at various price ranges, even more than one iPhone model. There has been and will be people who switch from the iPhone just on cost alone.

I do agree that if these phones are going to be degraded and underperforming within 1-2 years then it doesn’t make sense for iPhones to cost so much because that’s not a premium quality product to me. However, an individual’s decision to choose the iPhone and by which method of payment is still a choice. Carrier financing, Apple financing, cash, credit card... all are still options for purchase. Your above argument while valid is more of an individual financial decision. Apple has always been priced higher.

Y'all talking about financials had me thinking about something: Apple is "supposed" to lose $16 million in phone sales next year because people will just buy batteries instead of new phones, but the X is $1000 so wouldn't Apple still make their billions by raising the price of the iPhone?

 

[naturalstar]

Y'all talking about financials had me thinking about something: Apple is "supposed" to lose $16 million in phone sales next year because people will just buy batteries instead of new phones, but the X is $1000 so wouldn't Apple still make their billions by raising the price of the iPhone?

The new iteration of iPhone usually has a raised price anyway. I’m sure they will recoup costs there and in whatever other ways they have determined. Also remember there is to be the rumored Plus size X coming along. Time will tell how it will all balance out.

 

[firewood]

Read up on this. 80%

80% is very near end-of-life for a Li-ion battery in a high-power application.
[doublepost=1515344790][/doublepost]

True that it's pretty much impossible to prove a motive with 100% certainty, but some facts make a strong case...

1) Why throttle devices based on battery health if it's still under warranty and considered "Healthy"

Healthy batteries normally decline in multiple dimensions with age. Ignorance of consumers regarding chemistry falls under caveat emptor.
[doublepost=1515345306][/doublepost]

1. made engineering downgrade battery power, over other higher battery alternatives

Normal business practice to meet consumer demands for slimmer/thinner/lighter televisions, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices.

 

[firewood]

4) Why was all this kept a secret?

Lots of stuff inside these high performance SOCs is trade-secret or under NDA. Even by non-profit organizations. Ask the Raspberry Pi people about drivers for the GPU in the SOCs they used.
[doublepost=1515345969][/doublepost]

wasn't a problem for the iphone 2G, 3G, 4, 4S, 5, or 5S.

Because they used slower, less powerful, processors. Some only single core, some only 32-bit. The processor core in the Apple A8 chip was twice as fast as the the A7 processor core for the 5s, and left even older processors (and the competition) in the dust.

 

[WannaGoMac]

You didn't ask me personally but I'd like to address the bolded bits of your post if you don't mind.

Batteries are subject to wear and tear ...agreed
There is nothing planned about it...agree all battteries wear out
When a battery is old, it has to be replaced....agreed
Its your choice if you want to buy a new battery or a new phone...

This is where it gets sticky. Apple feels it's necessary to throttle your battery because it can no longer function properly. The customer then has the battery tested by Apple and they tell you the battery is still good, and then refuse to replace your battery even if you pay full price.

Can you see how that is confusing to the customer? The customer trust Apple so figures their phone is just messed up. Some of these customers will just buy a new phone. They have no way of knowing a new battery will fix the issues they are having. No one is disputing that batteries go bad although I too think one year is rather short lived. If Apple feels it's necessary to throttle after that period of time then something can't be right.

Anyway, have a good day and thanks for the discussion.

Exactly. But the Apple PR/Marketing people defending Apple in these forums are never going to accept the simple premise you described so well.
[doublepost=1515346736][/doublepost]

Apple is 100% guilty. The reason I upgraded to the iPhone 7 was because my 6s slowed down so dramatically, and the battery wouldn’t even last me all day at work, after the 10.2.1 downgrade.

Really, you upgraded to a 7 instead of a battery replacement regardless within warranty or out of pocket. Was the “slow
Down” code present at the time?

I did, too, since Apple told me that my iPhone is behaving perfectly normal (yes, they denied a battery issue) and I knew that there is something wrong, since my 5s had better battery life and it was a smaller phone. I also did not do demanding tasks, my behaviour did not change between phones and I also do not game on them. If they had told me that a simply battery exchange would solve it, I would have done that instead. Therefore I sold my 6s and instantly bought my 7 when it was available and did not look back ever since. The 7 is the best iPhone that ever existed (IMHO of course).

Well, at least until now and when Apple acknowledged that there is indeed something "wrong" since iPhone 6, but I could care less now...I just don't need to tolerate such behaviour and it has already damaged their brand, they need to take responsibility for it now.

Your posts perfectly illustrate my tinfoil hat paranoia that there are PR/Marketing shills in this forum (with recent registrations) defending Apple as they refuse to accept the simple premise of
a) Apple slowed peoples phones invisibly (ie. no notification).
b) Applecare/support told many people their phones (I am one of them) are totally fine but its just expected with new iOS release.
c) Applecare/support suggested new phones.
d) People buy new phones because of the above.

I have seen this explained 10000000 times already in these forums, the new registration folks just ignore basic logic.

Apple should be roasted in the courts for this regardless of intent. A trillion dollar company should have been better coordinated and never let the above happen. All they had to do was insure their battery warning tech aligned with their CPU throttling battery quality threshold, which apparently they STILL haven't aligned!!

 

[firewood]

Than you are an idiot for not getting your phone checked under warranty.

A lot of people seem to be blaming Apple for their own bad purchase decisions. The law often does not side with these bad decisions. There's a reason that most advanced products come with T&C's and lots of other legal fine print.
[doublepost=1515347016][/doublepost]

Your posts perfectly illustrate my tinfoil hat paranoia that there are PR/Marketing shills in this forum (with recent registrations)

Try counting the newbies over the past couple weeks. I count more on the make-em-buy-new-ones conspiracy side.
[doublepost=1515347323][/doublepost]

This is where it gets sticky. Apple feels it's necessary to throttle your battery because it can no longer function properly.

Normal Li-ion batteries "throttle" themselves due to changes in battery chemistry and impedance over time (e.g. number of charge cycles), and also due to temperature. Aging down to 80% is considered normal by the industry for several product types.

 

[Altis]

Healthy batteries normally decline in multiple dimensions with age. Ignorance of consumers regarding chemistry falls under caveat emptor.

No. Either
A) The battery is "Healthy" and Apple will not replace it, or
B) The battery health is low and the CPU needs to be significantly throttled

Pick one. They cannot both be true at the same time.

 

[firewood]

Apple should be roasted in the courts for this regardless of intent.

People signing up for these kinds of class-action lawsuits against companies with eventually proved innocent intents should be charged with court costs. These kinds of lawsuits hurts new small businesses as well as large ones.

 

[Altis]

Lots of stuff inside these high performance SOCs is trade-secret or under NDA. Even by non-profit organizations. Ask the Raspberry Pi people about drivers for the GPU in the SOCs they used.

This isn't about a trade secret. This is about significantly affecting the user's device without telling them they're doing so, why, or how to resolve it.

In some cases they explicitly advised people untruthfully that there was no relation between battery and CPU (as I suspect the Apple techs didn't know themselves).

 

[WannaGoMac]

People signing up for these kinds of class-action lawsuits against companies with eventually proved innocent intents should be charged with court costs. These kinds of lawsuit hurts new small businesses more than large ones.

Sure, i dont care, if that makes you happy.

As long as apple pays for this stupidity. So far Samsung did a better job with it's response to bad batteries than Apple...

Sigh, i hate this as a former Apple fanboy. I am just extremely disappointed with Apple right now.

 

[Altis]

People signing up for these kinds of class-action lawsuits against companies with eventually proved innocent intents should be charged with court costs. These kinds of lawsuits hurts new small businesses as well as large ones.

And these kinds of sleazy anti-consumer business practices hurt their own customers to line their own pockets.

What's it to you if Apple gets sued, anyways? These people feel wronged and are taking appropriate legal action. Your contempt for these people is unwarranted.

 

[firewood]

They cannot both be true at the same time.

They can to someone who knows a bit about battery chemistry. Sorry, but the courts will take the word of almost any university chemical engineering professor over yours.