This was a settlement, not a court decision, so it's a pretty strong indication that this is more than the plaintiffs thought they'd deserve if the courts finished examining the facts.
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Apple Paying $113 Million to Settle U.S. iPhone Throttling Investigation
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Yeah, should've been more. Apple made a killing w/ many users choosing to upgrade their phone vs getting a battery replacement.
Get out of here. You telling me an avg person can't understand, hey we are slowly down your phone on purpose to save the battery. You don't have to upgrade to a new phone because it's slow now.
Should it be the % of users who upgraded during these 2-3 years of them throttling customers w/o their knowledge? That sounds like a lot of users since it went on for a good amount of time.
To be fair it would have to be the users who are claiming to upgrade because an Apple Genius person said so because their "phones just slow down over time". People upgrade all the time for their own reasons (and heaven forbid there may be some hyperbole around this on MR).
I'm looking forward to my $12.50 each for my 6 and 6S after legal fees, expenses and postage. That will almost cover the $32 Apple charged me to replace the battery.
I don't know or care what it should be. It's for the courts to decide and it would seem that's happened.
I was just saying the amount shouldn't be a percentage of their income as some one else seemed to be implying. That's not how we run things. No one should have to pay more for the same crime just because they can afford to pay more.
Sorry, I’m not going anywhere.
No, I don't think the average person understands. For example, I'm not sure if you're above or below average but you don't seem to understand that it's not about saving the battery but about preventing periods of high current through the higher internal resistance of an aging battery from depressing the voltage at the terminals and causing the system to reset. It doesn't save the battery at all, it prevents your device from resetting when the reported coulomb count remains high.
I know from my own experience that average people thought their iPhone 5s were failing because they kept resetting. I suggested they just get the battery replaced and they'd argue "but it says it's at 60% when it resets, it's not the battery".
I also know average people don't read release notes, so average people wouldn't have gotten that message to begin with.
What the average person did hear is a media storm claiming Apple is intentionally slowing their device in the latest update versus Apple saying they're doing it to improve your user experience. Average people who don't understand why decisions are made feel weak in this world and thus tend to assume they're being victimized and nothing sells YouTube ads like some good old fashioned FUD.
The long and the short of the entire argument here is that Apple should be punished for not writing something nobody would read. If Apple did disclose every change they made, they'd then be criticized for burying it in the fine print among a large number of inconsequential changes. There's always a suit to be had if you're looking for a victim.
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It's a requirement for consumer companies to communicate effectively and properly to consumers.
You don't ask a single one person in Apple to list all that's changing. You ask them as a company to better communicate what's happening instead of sweeping things under the rug as they normally do.
I think you're nitpicking. There are better ways for a company to communicate changes that directly affect spend and troubleshooting.
Well, if it was so dumb, why didn't Apple go to trial rather than settle? I guess Apple is just dumb by your logic.
It did not affect spend in that people spent more, on the contrary: it affected spend in that the devices remained usable for longer despite having a worn out battery.
It's just that the general public doesn't understand batteries and they listen to media and/or "influencers"/"youtubers" instead of to people who understand the technology in the first place.
What Apple did was making the devices *BETTER*, not worse.
This entire thing never should have happened at all and should have been dismissed from the onset after a judge would have talked to somebody who understands battery technology and how devices using them work.
Ah but playing victim is always good I guess, even if one is not.
It's nothing more than ambulance chasing lawyers cashing in on youtubers in it for more revenue by creating baseless allegations that are then parroted all over.
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A-greed-y lawyers pretending to care about consumers, but really just "doing business" to make a buck.
I still firmly believe this was an innocent oversight, not a malicious attempt at being deceptive. I don't believe anyone at Apple sat in a meeting and agreed to "keep it quiet". That's not Apple.
Unfortunately what it mostly comes down to is the effect it all ended up having. Although the change in many senses was overall a beneficial one, the part about it not really being communicated pretty much at all or certainly well and a variety of people ending up with devices that were suddenly performing noticeably worse, with Apple basically telling them that it's just how it is and that they could get a newer and faster device (often, at the time, not mentioning anything about the state of the battery or the performance management that might be playing a role in it all), that's the part that this mainly hinges on.
They certainly get their share, but is it really most that they would get, or even the majority?
Well, the settlement checks they recently sent out for issues with the power/sleep button on some older devices was in the range of over $70 per device as I recall.
Usually fine with updates as well. In the case of performance management in particular, as this is essentially what it's about in this case, that can also be disabled these days if it kicks in as well.
Simplifying the experience
No there isn't. A company has limited bandwidth to the customer, and needs to prioritize what it's spent on. Even after explaining exactly what they are doing and why, they still get negative press-- so not only do you need to get the right information out there, you need people to believe it. Maybe you can control the first, but not the second.
If you look at the quote I responded to, it's an AG accusing Apple of "concealing the truth" which is pretty hefty language if what you mean is "Apple should have communicated better". The reason for the strong language is because they're leaning into the FUD that Apple was lying about their intent.
Next time you're in the grocery store, stop someone at random and ask what workloads lead to throttling of their mobile device. I'd be shocked if 4 in 10 even know what you're talking about.
Our devices make decisions about how to manage our user experience for us all the time and companies don't spend the effort to make sure every customer knows every detail.
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