Apple to Offer $29 iPhone Battery Replacements, More Battery Health Info in iOS

[Glockworkorange]

Good thing it backfired. I think every average Joe on the street would know this in a week.

Can we all say

 

[Phonephreak]

Wrong. Benchmarks trigger throttling because they are demanding full performance. Which is why these lawsuits will fail miserably (like countless ones before).

What do you care so much? This is an honest question. Why so passionate about a business. I don’t understand this.

 

[MH01]

No, most true shutdowns (not resprings on iOS, which are different) were, in fact, directly tied to batteries. That’s why iOS 10.2.1 fixed it.

true shutdowns ..... in that case I've suffered some other type of shutdown ...... and FYI..... this Is shutdowns / restarts.... and single owning every single iPhone , your statement is not true. 10.2.1 "fixed" one issue, shutdowns / restarts still happen to this day..... try google for examples.

My iPhone 6 Plus was the worst device for restarts / shutdowns for me, nothing to do with battery

 

[Puddled]

Yeah, instead their users get to enjoy their phones shutting down mid-phone call, mid-camera snap, mid-tweet. Huge win for Samsung.

Again, you are deliberately ignoring the facts and point of this thread.

Having your phone shut down because your battery is knackered after 2-3 years is one thing.

Having your phone shut down because your battery is knackered after 12 months is another.

 

[ChrisChaval]

Wonder what will happen to people who paid $79 to replace batteries a few months ago...

I wonder how much time we will buy replacing the battery anyways

Still don’t think the battery alone is the root of the problem

 

[the future]

"are" so dumb.

Non-native speaker here.

In German, in a sentence like this the singular would be used because the verb relates to „minority“, which is singular. Apparently in English this is done differently ... doesn‘t really make sense to me, but I stand corrected, I guess.

 

[aliensporebomb]

What I want to know is how someone at reddit had a battery at 93% quality after 900+ charges. Astonishing.

 

[Phonephreak]

Right, its much better to have the phone shutdown than to gracefully try to manage the situation.

Well if the battery caused the phone to shutdown. Most people would go get the battery replaced. Viola. Problem solved. Apple answer was battery is ok. I need a new phone.

 

[I7guy]

You forgot two points:
- Apple made it impossible for the affected users to learn that a battery replacement would improve their iPhone's performance, in some cases significantly.
- Apple managed to refuse to replace batteries on phones that were under Apple Care+ in a situation that most sensible people would think should be covered by an extended warranty.

Clearly for some people. Apple should have been more transparent. For me my battery was replaced without question.

 

[manu chao]

Good thing it backfired. I think every average Joe on the street would know this in a week.

I had Apple replace my iPhone 6 battery last month because its capacity had fallen to 30% of its original value which required up to three charging sessions per day. This was after over 500 charge cycles so I considered it acceptable. I noticed some slowness this year but nothing dramatical. Of course I would have preferred to only have paid $29 but that's life and paying for a battery replacement at this point in time (and after a free iPhone replacement after a failed GPS chip out of warranty) doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

 

[clauzzz203]

Apple isn't permanently throttling anything. Read their statement.

Why would I read their statement when I can see my own and other's phones being throttled permanently in all conditions with 83% health batteries?

 

[falainber]

Throttle scenario A: demanding application generates excess heat that could damage the phone. The solution is to throttle the processor in a way that prevents heat levels from reaching a damaging level.

Throttle scenario B: demanding application generates peak power draw that could damage the phone when battery is too low. The solution is to throttle the processor in a way that prevents the power draw from reaching a damaging level.

People seem to be trying to claim that A is understandable, but B is not.

B is fine, as long as it is not within two years of battery life. If it is, this indicates that the company skimped on battery capacity or has a flawed power management design.

 

[mi7chy]

THEY DO THROTTLE CPU

"the power hint caps [THROTTLES] the maximum frequencies of the CPU"
https://source.android.com/devices/tech/power/performance

"Android continually adds new features and optimizations [SAME AS APPLE] to help the platform optimize the off-charger behavior of applications and devices"
https://source.android.com/devices/tech/power/mgmt

Did you read what you linked? That's thermal and background throttling which is universal and has nothing to do with Apple's performance throttling to cover-up a battery defect.

 

[Stangy123]

Apple Engineering completly screwed up by allowing so little margin between max voltage requirement and worst case battery performance. No other models have had this problem before or since.

This is a coverup for what should be the biggest product recall in history. As long as Apple has people yelling at each other over battery chemistry, they win.

This is what happened. The fact is that a poor performing battery should shorten the usage time not the peak voltage. The only question is if they "designed" it that way knowing it would fail.

 

[Radon87000]

Clearly for some people. Apple should have been more transparent. For me my battery was replaced without question.

The reason they weren’t transparent is because if they issued a notification of phone slowdown because of battery even the average Joe would think it’s planned obsolescence which it is.

 

[Puddled]

Well if the battery caused the phone to shutdown. Most people would go get the battery replaced. Viola. Problem solved. Apple answer was battery is ok. I need a new phone.

Ha ha well put

And true...

 

[manu chao]

Throttle scenario A: demanding application generates excess heat that could damage the phone. The solution is to throttle the processor in a way that prevents heat levels from reaching a damaging level.

Throttle scenario B: demanding application generates peak power draw that could damage the phone when battery is too low. The solution is to throttle the processor in a way that prevents the power draw from reaching a damaging level.

Except that B wasn't what was happening. Nowhere is there any claim that the throttling was there to protect the battery (this task was taken care of by the unexpected shutdowns). The throttling was there to protect the user from unexpected shutdowns (or its alternative of simply declaring the percentage when the phone last shut down as the new 0% charge level with a battery life reduction by about a third to a half, which incidentally would have triggered the 80% rule that Apple Care+ contains). And to protect Apple from calls for a free battery replacement in phones with unexpected shutdowns.

 

[dumastudetto]

It doesn't hold MacOS back, why would iOS be any different?

macOS is stale and going nowhere. New apps are hardly ever released for the platform, and the existing popular apps are mainly on life support.

 

[falainber]

Apple isn't permanently throttling anything. Read their statement.

Here is Apple statement:
About a year ago in iOS 10.2.1, we delivered a software update that improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE. With the update, iOS dynamically manages the maximum performance of some system components when needed to prevent a shutdown. While these changes may go unnoticed, in some cases users may experience longer launch times for apps and other reductions in performance.

The statement is vague enough to be interpreted any way you want. As I understand "when needed" means "when the battery capacity degraded below X%". I just don't think they can do it any other way at the OS level. If CPU is not permanently throttled it's power consumption spikes are determined by the processor architecture. There is nothing you can do about it in the OS.

 

[JForestZ34]

let me correct you.

But losing 1-2 Germanic horses in 4-5 years is like an iPhone losing 5-10% CPU power life in 2-3 years.

Iphones lose 60% and more CPU power because the battery is failing. Apple will not admit it. Apple will NOT even replace the battery if we're willing to pay!!!!!!

Apple should replace the battery esp when your going to be paying for it. Not sure why they won't do it even if your willing to pay. Are they trying to hide something?

“For years”? iOS 10.2.1 (the ‘suspect’ operating system software) was released just 11 months ago...I think you are confusing that with when the iPhone 6 | 6+ (the oldest effected hardware platform) was released when NEW (3+ years ago).

Well we never thought they would stoop low like this and sure enough they have. Who know what else they've done in the past


James

 

[gnipgnop]

This is a coverup for what should be the biggest product recall in history. As long as Apple has people yelling at each other over battery chemistry, they win.

You seem to have conveniently left out the fact that Apple specifically identified 6s phones that needed a battery replacement. That's probably one of the reasons they're willing to do replacements in 2018 for $29. They already know it's not going to generate huge demand.

https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6s-unexpectedshutdown/

 

[manu chao]

The reason they weren’t transparent is because if they issued a notification of phone slowdown because of battery even the average Joe would think it’s planned obsolescence which it is.

That's the problem. Even if the average Joe knows that a battery replacement would solve the issue, he would still claim that Apple doesn't want to sell new batteries but only new phones with this. Since simple logic is always trumped by people believing they get cheated.

 

[Puddled]

Here's the timeline of what happened:

• AppleCare's escalation team approaches Engineering and says, "We're seeing a ton of in and out of warranty returns and repairs due to degraded batteries. This is costing us millions of dollars. Can you figure out why the iPhone 6/s failure rate is so much higher than normal?
• Engineering gets ahold of some Failure Analysis captures from the field to reproduce the issue. They find that when the battery voltage drops due to age or cold weather, the sudden shutdowns occur.
• They look at the peak voltage demands from the iPhone 6/s relative to the battery output curve.
• They realize the fundamental design defect in the iPhone 6/s: the device's peak voltage demand was way, way too high relative to the battery's capabilities. This defect was not present in previous devices, and was fixed in the iPhone 7.
• Engineering, AppleCare, Marketing and sundry Management discuss next steps. They're not going to do a recall, admitting the design defect, because the PR and financial hit would be in the tens of billions. They don't want to keep replacing phones or batteries, because that's costing millions. They're not going to put in UI letting users know their battery needs serviced, because Marketing forbids any public discussion of anything being wrong with Apple products.
• Engineering says, "This is just a voltage problem. If we drop the clocks, we can ensure the devices never go over the peak battery voltage." Thanks to the power management hw & sw, they have good data on the battery voltage potential. The CPU already runs at lots of different clock speeds, depending on load. So it was a very simple change to detect the battery voltage max, and set the max clock speed below that threshold. Problem solved.
• Engineering Management tells senior Execs "Okay, we have a fix for the sudden shutdown failures, but devices are going to be slower as a result. We really need to surface this to users, to mitigate the bad experience." Marketing says absolutely not we never say anything is wrong with Apple products. AppleCare says please just ship it, we have a huge pile of defective phones building up.
• Apple rolls the dice and ships the silent software change, hoping the expensive returns will go down, customers will at least be able to use their devices, if in a degraded state, and prays no one will ever figure out the hack.
• People slowly start figuring out their devices are slower. Finally the GeekBench guys query their database, and the CPU clock/voltage throttling sticks out like a sore thumb.
• All hell breaks loose, and here we are.

It's critical to keep in mind this is not just about "worn out" batteries. Battery voltage drops with cold weather. My iPhone 6 was exhibiting this design defect when it was only a year old, as soon as I exposed it for the first time to cold weather. It would shut off instantly when I stepped outside. After a few months, the shutdowns became frequent as the battery did begin to "wear out" but in my case, this battery was marginal from the factory. Apple Engineering completly screwed up by allowing so little margin between max voltage requirement and worst case battery performance. No other models have had this problem before or since.

This is a coverup for what should be the biggest product recall in history. As long as Apple has people yelling at each other over battery chemistry, they win.

That is such a good post and likely on the money.

 

[manu chao]

Apple will NOT even replace the battery if we're willing to pay!!!!!!

They would not have recommended it but Apple will not refuse to sell you a new battery if you really insist on it.

 

[I7guy]

The reason they weren’t transparent is because if they issued a notification of phone slowdown because of battery even the average Joe would think it’s planned obsolescence which it is.

It's only "planned obsolescence" when apple admits it. I'm waiting for them to admit it. But you actually think most consumers are that ignorant to believe this old tired meme?