I was being facetious, but actually thanks for coming back on this. This seems very telling for me. With an official battery pack, even if external it should run at full speed. No question.
Apple have screwed the pooch here.
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Apple to Offer $29 iPhone Battery Replacements, More Battery Health Info in iOS
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Apple have screwed the pooch here.
This $29 temp price reduction is only a PR move. The 80% battery rule still applies (although Apple will be very careful of not letting too many be denied replacements), and also, they'll still make money on the temporary lower price.
This is nothing but still a cover-up. Apple has avoided battery/iPhone warranty replacements with this secret software fix, due to sub-par/defective batteries and/or bad engineering and design.
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This post is good. Worth a read.
This is nothing but still a cover-up. Apple has avoided battery/iPhone warranty replacements with this secret software fix, due to sub-par/defective batteries and/or bad engineering and design.
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This post is good. Worth a read.
i switched to iphone in 2015 because of a few reasons:
1. timely OS updates
2. good performance
3. good battery life
how ironic now, that after a timely update my iphone performance blows because of a crap battery
1. timely OS updates
2. good performance
3. good battery life
how ironic now, that after a timely update my iphone performance blows because of a crap battery
thank you, I've read the article
of course the way Apple provoked and handled throttle gate so far is a classic example of how not to do it
this will be teached at universities as a bad example
we all know, and Apple should know even better, that crisis prevention is to be chosen over damage control
they have to be very careful now for trust is hard to gain and maintain and very easily to be lost
apart from the pr side of things, to me the issue here is twofold: hardware related (power supply and management design) and software related (updates)
I still am convinced that a new battery will just buy you some time, that the probem lies deeper, as explained and suspected by some members in this and other threads. A new battery will solve the throttling issue in the short run, but imo it will not eradicate the root of the problem. Apple needs to be clear about that.
That is of course, if they give you a new battery: as another member wrote: it is easy to offer a battery replacement program for less, when Apple still controls the approval mechanism (diagnostics) under which such replacement is being deemed necessary - or not
the second problem is the way updates are currently being delivered. Apple does a great job in keeping phones up to date, but not only - as you wrote - is it impossibile for us to see what’s in the package when updating (apart from what Apple chooses to publish and generic "performance improvements"), but even if we could: how could I possibly choose the security updates I do want and need to keep using my phone in safety while deselecting certain features I do not care about or do not want. Apple should give customers the choice to pick what they want and leave the rest. to do that, of course, customers would need to be informed about what is in each update in the first place. the way it is now being handled is like getting one of those mystery boxes on amazon ... you never know what's inside
apple could simply detach security updates from feature updates, for a start. easy to do and easy to understand for everybody
as I said before: power management is fine, choice management ain't
happy new year btw
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Thank you for your blog post, a great read, it’s also refreshing to see an AAPL stock owner criticise the company.
Unfortunately I don’t think they will enlist any of your recommendations, they are so big now, so out of touch and just seem obsessed with becoming a trillion dollar corporation. The arrogance has been allowed to mature to an extreme level, Jobs held a full on press event for the antenna mess, and then issued free bumpers to fix everyone’s device.. He himself got up in front of the worlds press to explain it, in person as the CEO of Apple!
But today, as you advised, only after they were literally forced to did we get a pathetic press release, not one single face from anywhere in Apple apologising, not one.
This is unfortunately the world we live in now, look at dieselgate, several massive global car manufactures who were utterly confident in flat out lying to every government and their environment and motoring departments around the globe.
And I can’t remember what it was but I do remember stories of price fixing over recent years on global scales by big names, they just collide with each other to make more money.
It seems some of these corporations feel they can be arrogant and greedy enough to ignore the law, do as they please no matter what. And if they get caught so what, make someone a scapegoat whilst it should be the boards being thrown in jail.
Or again with cars, they calculate how much a product recall is compared to letting people be killed by the fault, and they go with which ever is the cheaper option, this is also carried out in other industries, your life’s value has been calculated and considered weather it’s worth saving or not.
But then we have that 1%, with I believe a combined wealth worth more then two thirds the entire planets wealth? That’s not healthy for this planet as a whole really...
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Because people are irrational and react negatively to everything Apple does. See forums here for examples.
I don't think so. I know it is nice that they meet stock price growth goals even at the size they are at. But ultimately do you think they are more excited about hardware sales or software sales? The margin on the services business is much higher than the hardware part even if the hardware part is currently much larger. I think they want to make sure that high value clients stay in the iOS and Apple ecosystem and this is more important than playing tricks on their clients to get them to spend more money on iPhones each year. I think they would be super happy with a customer getting great value out of an iPhone, using it as their daily driver, buying all of their apps through the App store, and then buying a new one every three years. The slow down was to make the old iPhones not fail. But it wasn't implemented as well as it should have been.
Now the greedy part, was that they tried to make a profit off of the battery replacement process as well. They should consider making one battery replacement free. After three or four years you get a pop up that says you can bring the iPhone to an Apple store for a free replacement of the battery. Apple gets a touch point with a customer and they engender really good will. Customer loves their new battery which makes their phone last much longer. Customer will buy a new iPhone eventually and continues to use the services.
You are wrong. Whether plugged in or not, the cpu is drawing current from the battery. Plugging in an external power source does not bypass the battery. Instead it charges the battery. Regardless of available power, if the battery is degraded it may not be able to provide enough instantaneous current, and thus such current must be limited by dropping the cpu voltage or frequency.
It’s not practical to have the cpu draw power from the external power source instead of the batter for several reasons (switching time, power conditioning, etc.)
Tripe. Even people that don't like Apple cannot deny a good upfront move when they see it. Stop talking rubbish.
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What are you on about? First I never said it would bypass the battery, you did. There is negligible switching time involved, an additional DC source especially one of very similar specs that very likely has the ability to talk to the phone should be seamless. Apple didn't put enough headroom in. Period.
Also what do you mean by etc? Is it that you have nowt else to use as an example?
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Dc/dc converters don’t operate quickly enough to allow an external power source to directly drive the cpu; when they are removed the cpu would crash from glitches in the power supply.
The point I was making is if the external power source is NOT bypassing the battery, then the fact the cpu still is throttled when plugged in tells us nothing. The cpu still is drawing power from the battery, which still is subject to the same instantaneous current supply limitations that Apple claims is he problem.
The switching time, by the way, is not “negligible.” It takes on the order of thousands of cpu cycles. In fact, even the time it takes for the dc current from the battery to stabilize through the dc/dc converters is at least hundreds of cpu cycles.
Not too sure about the Apple altruism you seem to be getting at here. One thing I'm sure of is that somebody somewhere told the board that there would be potential lawsuits from doing it the way they did. The top guys would have discussed this and many other scenarios before deciding to act the way they did.
Let me exaggerate.
Person A may have said let's give each iPhone 6 owner a new phone whether affected or not as we put customer satisfaction above all else and want to make the best possible impression. We've got billions in the bank so it's not like we'll go under.
On the other end however......
Person Z may have said let's ignore it. People have short memories and it'll soon blow over like any other scandal and before it becomes a real problem all the warranty will be up and the vast majority of complainers will have bought new phones and moved on. We're not here to make friends we're here to make money.
The reality is that the end decision sat somewhere bewteen those extremes but let's not pretend that in the gamble they took that they weren't aware that lots of people wouldn't understand the and would just buy new phones in additon to those that love Apple and would just write off/ignore or deny it.
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Listen. I know a little about DCDC converters. With a well designed one, if you put enough headroom, be that battery or capacitor in circuit the hardware under test will ride out that dip until any switching has taken place.
That’s assuming that’s the only “secret code” in existance in any phone by any manufacturer. I’m simply pointing out that you and me don’t own the software —- just the hardware. While you and me may feel compelled to upgrade it makes me think of the billions of zandroid devices that don’t even have that option let alone access to upgrades to this day. So — isn’t it fair to say that outrage should exist over “software upgrades in general ? Next the question in - whose gonna “review” OS contents - worldwide governments?
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Yep. Sad but true. Too true in fact. And allow me to add to Ford... shouldn’t I be outraged that their sync system sucks and I have no idea if they collect and monitor my data from my connected device or that the mapping system upgrades are a paltry $200 or more?? And that I have no control whatsoever over their in car sync system that I supposedly pay for? mean Apple is one of if not the most accessible corporations to interact with - bar none - today. While we may not like it all time, most of the time Apple will do the right thing whether pushed or not.
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Nonsense. The iPhone 4 antenna design had a flaw. No other phone on the planet would drop a call simply from a pinky finger touching a tiny gap on one side.
If Apple hadn't been so into secrecy that it required its field testers to keep their phone in a case, they'd have figured this mistake out long beforehand. But they didn't, and they ended up going into full handwaving mode, first trying to compare a tiny touch to a full hand death grip, and then trying to blame their cheating signal bars display (no other phone makers cheated like that; I know because I was doing handheld phone apps).
Their gap goof not only almost doubled the call drop rate, but just holding the phone in your hand attenuated the signal over ten times as much as a similar handhold did with the earlier 3GS, according to Anandtech.
To fix it, Apple used a different design on the 4S, including using double transmit antennas so it could pick the one least attenuated. Then they dropped the bezel idea altogether after that.
Apple is doing similar handwaving with this throttling business, by adding clever phrases like "only in certain situations" and listing related actions, because it sounds better than outright stating that those "certain situations" are actually common actions like scrolling or launching apps or playing music. Apple knows that the naive and lazy will not think too hard. But the people who are slowed down know that it is happening a lot to them.
Right now, other phone makers are all pointing out that they do not throttle based on battery age like Apple does. They're being slightly clever too, because this made some people think they don’t throttle at all. Of course they do, but they’re truthful in saying that they do not enable it simply because of battery age, and they do not enable it when a battery is charged above a certain level. Thus they usually continue to run at normal speed.
The difference with iOS is that apparently its throttling mechanism is enabled ALL the time once a battery reaches a certain number of charge cycles and is not necessarily disabled by being fully charged.
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My big question is: why didn't Apple simply do what they've done before, and blame poor coding and change it. Instead, clearly some high placed engineer feels they need this extra throttling, which makes one wonder why. I’m not a big believer in anti-consumer conspiracies, so it feels like someone is CYAing a design descision.
Side note: business analysts are starting to say that this could cost Apple billions in Europe where longer term warranties might not allow selling a device that can be cut down to 50% speed after a year or two.
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Are you sure about this? Most power management units (PMU) will detect when plugged in, take the battery offline to charge it, then run the phone off wall power. Do apple PMU's do something different?
Dealing with solar and shore power charging on my RV, I know how you’re thinking, but smartphone power chips have evolved past that. Here’s a simple overview by one manufacturer:
http://cds.linear.com/docs/en/product-info/Battery_Management_Soulutions_PowerPath.pdf
Apple uses Dialog PMICs, so you’re correct, as those do have power path control and can run directly off external power while charging a dead battery.
e.g. https://www.dialog-semiconductor.com/sites/default/files/da9052_pb_162804.pdf
No, your battery is fine they just want you to go try a new one and be able to feel the difference in real time performance. Because yours was clogged down with the code not to be fast anymore. It's being throttled down with every single update bit by bit. There is no explanation how out of the box iPhone 7 runs smooth in September but then in January it slows down with 10.2.1 update.
I would like to see a user changeable battery, but I know that the form factor would suffer. So at the very least the price of batteries needs to stay low (aka. don't go back to $79 after the end of the year).
i mind the throttling part more than the battery fee -- apple could make this all go away (for me) if they stop the throttling and change the battery at user request -- i'll pay the $79, i already have !
Having owned at least two dozen iPhones over the years, and having only once had to replace a battery, i think apple made the right choice sealing those suckers in there.
Amen to that. If the throttling were disclosed beforehand and they explained the reasons why, or if it was switchable on/off, or only happened in power save mode and no other time, etc., then I would be fine with it. But... the way that it was done has the appearance of something that isn't kosher. Here in the south we would say that it doesn't "pass the smell test" - especially when almost all of us have noticed slow downs in our phones around the time that a new model is released
.As to the $79, I'd do it, but I still think it's a little high. I'm on the Apple Upgrade Program, so I get a new phone ever year, so it doesn't particularly apply to me direct, its just a matter of principle.
My iPhone 6 Plus has been throttled since the introduction of iOS11. The battery is now at 79%, it was above 80% when 11 was released. There is plenty of life left in the battery. Even so, it doesn't justify slowing down the phone this much (view video in link). Most of the heavy lifting in that operation, by the way, is done in the cloud.
Additionally, the Apple Watch became practically unusable for anything but telling the time.
Additionally, the Apple Watch became practically unusable for anything but telling the time.
Good god, that is ridiculously slow... get that new battery for $29 while you can!
I'm not saying that there is altruism, but I am saying that Apple cares more about maintaining long term customers than they are about upgrade cycle in any given year. A strategy of squeezing current customers in such a way that they are inconvenienced into replacing phones faster is unlikely to get serious traction at Apple in my opinion.
As you say, there are different extremes between A (giving away stuff so that customers are happy) and Z (putting in tricks and traps to destroy functionality so that people buy new phones). Broadly speaking I think that in meetings you would get shot down if you suggested to senior management that some tricks got played on the customers to inconvenience them so they upgrade. I also do think they missed the boat here with the battery replacement, but they have realized this (and are under PR threat and actual lawsuits) and they are acting accordingly. I also suspect that they didn't realize how their little battery game would play out with some phones in the wild. Remember that there are so many 100s of millions of iPhones being used daily, that even something that effects only 2% of them will still create a huge online storm of comments and will get picked up by mainstream media. Apple does make mistakes, happens all the time with their OS releases. I suspect in some way the impact of their plan had mistaken consequences that resulted in more dramatic slowing than they expected.