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No, they could have said outright that they are implementing a software feature that will slow the device down but prevent sudden shutdowns. Users of affected devices could be alerted, indicating they should get their battery replaced. Apple would have done the consumer right and been praised for it.

Instead, they silently throttled devices even when the battery was well above the 80% "Healthy" threshold. Users who experienced poor performance were not advised of the reason for it and even if they asked for a new battery, Apple refused to replace it (even at the expense of the consumer). And it all only came to light because one kid figured it out, leading to battery replacement programs and so on.

I'm curious how many people bought a new iPhone because their existing one became slow (one of the most compelling reasons to upgrade). If I had to guess, I'd say that's why they didn't want to bring it to anyone's attention.

The problem with that is a phone shutting down a is far more effective way of making someone upgrade than a phone running slow.
 
The problem with that is a phone shutting down a is far more effective way of making someone upgrade than a phone running slow.

Its a perception issue.

If you take your iPhone into the store cause it's crashing and rebooting, And Apple tells you "it's a design flaw, so buy a new phone". you're more likely to question why you are being asked to pay more for their failure. This perception is going to probably cause a few people to leave the iPhone.

If you hide it behind "slow", and a user notices it and complaines, you can always just tell them that's normal behaviour with older devices for whatever reason, and that a new device will make all that fancy new features an software feel fast again.

The 2nd is far more believable because it's based in nuggets of truth. new software as it comes out and does more makes older devices feel slower. So users presented with this option are going to think this is historically normal and more likely just to upgrade rather than switch providers.



I do not believe Apple did this as some form of planned obsolescence. I DO believe Apple put insufficient batteries into their devices because they were hoping to get away with the smallest, cheapest options they thought they could fit. This design choice bit them in the but when the batteries just couldn't handle the loads required of them.

it's how they handled the fallout of that which is telling about Apple's choices and how they treat their customers. It was in their own self interest to lie, obfuscate and let people continue operating under the 2nd scenario above with hope that enough people would eventually just upgrade to devices that weren't poorly designed.

Nothing technically illegal or anything, Just scummy.
 
Apple eventually apologized over its lack of communication

That's an interesting way to characterize hiding a design defect from users in order to save money on a wide recall.

Right? Literally a criminal decision that should result in them losing every single lawsuit entered against them so far.

People should make no mistake, if Apple cared, Tim would have gone immediately. Instead they doubled down on the lie, lol.

That’s why their shares are tanking. It isn’t (primarily) price. They’re losing the brand image, it’s so much more serious than people are taking at face value. Oh well.
 
Right? Literally a criminal decision that should result in them losing every single lawsuit entered against them so far.

People should make no mistake, if Apple cared, Tim would have gone immediately. Instead they doubled down on the lie, lol.

That’s why their shares are tanking. It isn’t (primarily) price. They’re losing the brand image, it’s so much more serious than people are taking at face value. Oh well.

I think the shares are also dropping due to the China debacle.
 
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Right? Literally a criminal decision that should result in them losing every single lawsuit entered against them so far.

People should make no mistake, if Apple cared, Tim would have gone immediately. Instead they doubled down on the lie, lol.

That’s why their shares are tanking. It isn’t (primarily) price. They’re losing the brand image, it’s so much more serious than people are taking at face value. Oh well.

I agree all except for the shares tanking part. It's totally the trade war and the tariffs and China effect. AAPL is still 2% over S&P 500 YTD, and was well above until the recent (just this month) drop because of the trade stuff.
 
Right? Literally a criminal decision that should result in them losing every single lawsuit entered against them so far.
Can you cite where this is a criminal decision(of course not, it’s hyperbole)

People should make no mistake, if Apple cared, Tim would have gone immediately. Instead they doubled down on the lie, lol.

That’s why their shares are tanking. It isn’t (primarily) price. They’re losing the brand image, it’s so much more serious than people are taking at face value. Oh well.
So their shares “tanked” because of this specific reason. Most likely this was the furthest reason this would tank, brand image. The Apple brand has never been stronger, except among some discontented macrumors forum members.
 
The problem with that is a phone shutting down a is far more effective way of making someone upgrade than a phone running slow.

No, because it's obvious that it's a battery problem.

Having a phone that runs at half the speed as new, along with being bogged down by permanent iOS updates, leaves no indication of what can be done to resolve the issue short of buying a new device.

The root cause of the issue (battery performance) was being masked as being fully functional, while there was no reason to believe it could cause slowdowns anyways.
 
Still doesn't resolve the fact that they intentionally hid the battery degradation throttling until independent research discovered it.

Can't wait for the settlement on that class-action. I've got serial numbers of 1,100 iPhone 6 and 6S devices that we should be getting compensation for.

Wrong! CPU throttling to prevent unexpected shutdowns was noted in the relevant iOS release notes when it was implemented. It absolutely was not 'hidden'.
 
Still doesn't resolve the fact that they intentionally hid the battery degradation throttling until independent research discovered it.

Can't wait for the settlement on that class-action. I've got serial numbers of 1,100 iPhone 6 and 6S devices that we should be getting compensation for.
Or not. Apple may win or customers may get a $5 iTunes gift card.
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Do you also buy a new car every time the battery gives up?
I literally know people that do.:confused:
 
Its a perception issue.

If you take your iPhone into the store cause it's crashing and rebooting, And Apple tells you "it's a design flaw, so buy a new phone". you're more likely to question why you are being asked to pay more for their failure. This perception is going to probably cause a few people to leave the iPhone.

If you hide it behind "slow", and a user notices it and complaines, you can always just tell them that's normal behaviour with older devices for whatever reason, and that a new device will make all that fancy new features an software feel fast again.

The 2nd is far more believable because it's based in nuggets of truth. new software as it comes out and does more makes older devices feel slower. So users presented with this option are going to think this is historically normal and more likely just to upgrade rather than switch providers.



I do not believe Apple did this as some form of planned obsolescence. I DO believe Apple put insufficient batteries into their devices because they were hoping to get away with the smallest, cheapest options they thought they could fit. This design choice bit them in the but when the batteries just couldn't handle the loads required of them.

it's how they handled the fallout of that which is telling about Apple's choices and how they treat their customers. It was in their own self interest to lie, obfuscate and let people continue operating under the 2nd scenario above with hope that enough people would eventually just upgrade to devices that weren't poorly designed.

Nothing technically illegal or anything, Just scummy.
 
No, because it's obvious that it's a battery problem.

Having a phone that runs at half the speed as new, along with being bogged down by permanent iOS updates, leaves no indication of what can be done to resolve the issue short of buying a new device.

The root cause of the issue (battery performance) was being masked as being fully functional, while there was no reason to believe it could cause slowdowns anyways.
Only speaking for myself a slow device wouldn’t force me to do an upgrade and I loved with it until I got my battery replaced on my 6s. Phone was really quite usable.
 
Do you also buy a new car every time the battery gives up?

A three-year old $30,000 car isn't replaced over a bad $100 battery. Even a ten-year old car isn't replaced over a bad battery. That is a ridiculous comparison.

On the other hand, a two or three year old electronic device that costs $700 is easily replaced by a new one rather than putting $80 into a new battery. Its a matter of perception, the device is close enough to the end of its useful life to just say "screw it" and get a new one.
 
Wrong! CPU throttling to prevent unexpected shutdowns was noted in the relevant iOS release notes when it was implemented. It absolutely was not 'hidden'.

It was not.

it was only stated "Battery management"

which could mean anything. There's a reason why Apple's being grilled over this and it's not because they were open and honest.
 
Its a perception issue.

If you take your iPhone into the store cause it's crashing and rebooting, And Apple tells you "it's a design flaw, so buy a new phone". you're more likely to question why you are being asked to pay more for their failure. This perception is going to probably cause a few people to leave the iPhone.

If you hide it behind "slow", and a user notices it and complaines, you can always just tell them that's normal behaviour with older devices for whatever reason, and that a new device will make all that fancy new features an software feel fast again.

The 2nd is far more believable because it's based in nuggets of truth. new software as it comes out and does more makes older devices feel slower. So users presented with this option are going to think this is historically normal and more likely just to upgrade rather than switch providers.



I do not believe Apple did this as some form of planned obsolescence. I DO believe Apple put insufficient batteries into their devices because they were hoping to get away with the smallest, cheapest options they thought they could fit. This design choice bit them in the but when the batteries just couldn't handle the loads required of them.

it's how they handled the fallout of that which is telling about Apple's choices and how they treat their customers. It was in their own self interest to lie, obfuscate and let people continue operating under the 2nd scenario above with hope that enough people would eventually just upgrade to devices that weren't poorly designed.

Nothing technically illegal or anything, Just scummy.

The batteries in iPhones are of equivalent or , more likely, better quality as compared to others. The CPU throttling was introduced (and documented in the relevant iOS release notes) as a way to to prevent unexpected shutdowns as batteries naturally degrade over time. Apple , naively, thought automatic CPU throttling was a "good thing" to add to iOS. In retrospect, if , back then, they had added as simple settings switch to turn it "off", this storm in a teacup would have never happened.
 
Only speaking for myself a slow device wouldn’t force me to do an upgrade and I loved with it until I got my battery replaced on my 6s. Phone was really quite usable.

That's fair that you feel that way. However, I'd wager that slowdowns/performance are the single most compelling reason for people to buy a new phone. Phones are pretty mature now so there aren't that many must-have new features, but slow performance is a constant irritant.
 
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The batteries in iPhones are of equivalent or , more likely, better quality as compared to others. The CPU throttling was introduced (and documented in the relevant iOS release notes) as a way to to prevent unexpected shutdowns as batteries naturally degrade over time. Apple , naively, thought automatic CPU throttling was a "good thing" to add to iOS. In retrospect, if , back then, they had added as simple settings switch to turn it "off", this storm in a teacup would have never happened.

Absolutely. I've said since day 1, that the work around for the battery deficiency was acceptible.

What was NOT acceptible was the corporate behaviour and the hiding of the throttling that came after.

if Apple on day one said "we goofed, here's a software option to work around, but will slow down the phone"... Nobody would be batting an eye. (well, there are some who will hate no matter what).

my issue was the handling of the situation itself. Bugs and design issues happen. It's life. I don't typically hold those against a company. It's the behavior that follows that defines what a companies ethics are.

A company that comes out and admits it's mistakes and offers support for the users in an open and transparent way is a good company I support.

A company that blames the users. Blames everyone else. Denies, Lies, and obfuscates the problem because they don't wnat to bear the burden of their mistake rubs me the wrong way.
 
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That's fair that you feel that way. However, I'd wager that slowdowns/performance are the single most compelling reason for people to buy a new phone. Phones are pretty mature now so there aren't that many must-have new features, but slow performance is a constant irritant.
I’d wager many people don’t even notice, certainly not in the majority that one may think. We all know there is a small minority that notices and comments on minutia. Not everybody is irritated by varies performance(I know some will find this hard to believe)
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Absolutely. I've said since day 1, that the work around for the battery deficiency was acceptible.

What was NOT acceptible was the corporate behaviour and the hiding of the throttling that came after.

if Apple on day one said "we goofed, here's a software option to work around, but will slow down the phone"... Nobody would be batting an eye. (well, there are some who will hate no matter what).

my issue was the handling of the situation itself. Bugs and design issues happen. It's life. I don't typically hold those against a company. It's the behavior that follows that defines what a companies ethics are.

A company that comes out and admits it's mistakes and offers support for the users in an open and transparent way is a good company I support.

A company that blames the users. Blames everyone else. Denies, Lies, and obfuscates the problem because they don't wnat to bear the burden of their mistake rubs me the wrong way.
Yeah, I don't really care as something good came out of this; ie $29 battery replacements and Apple promised to be more forthcoming.
 
I think the shares are also dropping due to the China debacle.

I shouldn’t have used “shares”, I meant primarily marketshare not the stock market price.
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Can you cite where this is a criminal decision(of course not, it’s hyperbole)


So their shares “tanked” because of this specific reason. Most likely this was the furthest reason this would tank, brand image. The Apple brand has never been stronger, except among some discontented macrumors forum members.

You will see! Why do you think Apple is even stating they will alert users when an upgrade will have battery life or performance now?

Soooooo many of the users who went to Android, or aren’t upgrading, are because Apple has suffered in brand image and loyalty — NOT China and tariffs. This is a snowballing effect until something is done to stop it. So far, it looks like they’re keeping the same designs and behavior that have caused the loss in the first place. Oh well...
 
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...You will see! Why do you think Apple is even stating they will alert users when an upgrade will have battery life or performance now?

Soooooo many of the users who went to Android, or aren’t upgrading, are because Apple has suffered in brand image and loyalty — NOT China and tariffs. This is a snowballing effect until something is done to stop it. So far, it looks like they’re keeping the same designs and behavior that have caused the loss in the first place. Oh well...
What comes to mind is correlation does not imply causation. Churn has happened for years. I guess horses for courses as we each have our anecdotal views with no way to prove an opinion.
 
It was pretty bad lack of info, but i would think giving people MORE info about battery health may be good, but the other side of that is,, why do you need to see something to *tel*l you its draining faster ? Don't you know if it's no longer holding a charge as much now?

Better than nothing, but users can think for themselves as well.



You will see! Why do you think Apple is even stating they will alert users when an upgrade will have battery life or performance now?

Soooooo many of the users who went to Android, or aren’t upgrading, are because Apple has suffered in brand image and loyalty — NOT China and tariffs. This is a snowballing effect until something is done to stop it. So far, it looks like they’re keeping the same designs and behavior that have caused the loss in the first place. Oh well...

That's the thing.. Any "hiccup' in the way things are done, and users won't stand for it.
 
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