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No one is going to be able to prove the CPU throttling was planned obsolecense. And what is planned obsolecense anyway? Apple doesn’t offer any guarantees on performance. When you buy an iPhone there’s nothing in the fine print that says you will get buttery smooth performance for x number of months/years after device purchase.

Such a lawsuit can go either way. I am by no means an expert in french law, but their definition is vague enough and cover things like e.g. programmed end of product life cycle, technical limitations and restraints of warranty. And don't forget that is a consumer law, not a specified technical documentation. As i said it is up to the court to decide if Apple did some malpractice. Until they find out, this is followed by some negative PR, which Apple imo deserves for their non-transparency.
 
Good way to split the Class action suit and still make money ($29)! Any ways, people are fools !! They go after any place with a big banner saying 50% DISCOUNT! You can't change mass behaviour
 
It's shameful how Apple has historically abused their battery diagnostic to coerce customers into a course of action that either makes the company more money (encourage phone upgrade) or cost the company the least amount of money (deny warranty replacement). I've seen this first hand multiple times at their Genius Bar. When something as innocent as a battery diagnostic gets corrupted to do your corporate bidding then you know you've lost your way.

Not sure I buy this, and I regularly bash Apple a lot. I think the problem with the battery diagnostic software is the same as the problem with iOS and macOS, lack of attention. At the end of the day Apple is a hardware company. They hit the software right with macOS, but that was a mistake, a fluke, that happened because of a few dedicated really good engineers. Those engineers are gone now, and Apple management has no clue what it takes to keep software state of the art. To them it is design and build once, then move on, except for new features (just like it is with hardware).

The battery test software has not needed new features in years so it is probably just as neglected if not more so, than macOS and iOS.

Maybe they did design the battery diagnostic to purposely fail. It is really hard to believe with the so many good things they did in the past, that this just fell through the cracks. But Apple, and the really good things they did in the past, is NOT the Apple of today. I think this is just another area at Apple where no one cared.
 
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Anyone know if they will change a battery with a cracked screen or will you need to pay for the screen replacement as well? And is it mandatory that they update the software to the latest to be "compatible with their tester"?
 
So then before this it went like this:

Customer - Hi, my battery sucks. I know this because I use my phone every day so I am the most familiar person in the world with its operation. Can I have a new battery?

Genius - Your battery is fine says our diagnostic test. Put your wallet away. No battery for you.

Why were they so reluctant to “let” people buy a new battery before?
 
Anyone know if they will change a battery with a cracked screen or will you need to pay for the screen replacement as well? And is it mandatory that they update the software to the latest to be "compatible with their tester"?

They replaced my screen for free when I needed a battery. I can tell you they won’t remove the screen to get to the battery if it is cracked, they told me that themselves.

But since my 6S fell under the defective serial #’s batch, they essentially gave me an entire display and screen for $0.

Just fight with them and tell them you wanna join all the lawsuits against them - they’ll fix your screen, lol. They’re doing anything to save customers right now. They’re hemorrhaging customer loyalty.
 
It sucks that I'm so balls deep in this ecosystem. Apple is slowly degenerating into a greedy, buggy, laggy mess.

A few weeks ago, as I had to upgrade from my aging 6+, I opted for a Galaxy Note 8 over the iPhone X. As a full-Apple ecosystem user (Macbook Pro, iPad Mini, iPad Pro, etc), I was VERY apprehensive to take this move...

Well, the Note 8 (and Android as a whole) turned out to be a productivity BEAST. Im very happy I switched. Believe me, there is indeed life beyond Apple.

Windows, in the other hand, it is a no-go for me (yet). I have a gaming PC and I find Windows far clumsier than MacOS.

Android gives Apple a run for its money. Windows, not so much.
 
This is obviously the right thing to do for aggrieved customers, but it shouldn’t have required a change. Apple should’ve never refused replacement of old batteries with > 500 cycles experiencing poor battery life or other problems as they did in my case once and in many others. Why did they? Did they want the customer to have a sub-par experience in order to encourage upgrades even though they were willing to buy a replacement? Was this part of a planned obsolescence strategy?

In no way can Apple suggest a battery in which they’ve had to implement CPU throttling in order to prevent random shutdowns is fit for use. Yet it appears from anecdotal evidence their diagnostic tool didn’t consider this, so customers were potentially being told their battery was fine even though they were experiencing a degradation in performance by up to 50%. And that’s if the customer thought to get it checked rather than just assume an iOS update slowed their device. Of even greater concern is the fact Apple deems this throttling necessary for devices as little as 1 year-old. I think I’ve seen this already on my iPhone 7 Plus. Not cool.

This is not just embarrassing but exposes grubby tactics from Apple. Now we can see perhaps why they’ve been so aggressive in trying to control battery replacements on iPhones: by illegally (in my country) suggesting third-party battery replacements preclude warranty coverage or servicing for an unrelated problem; and by aggressively pursuing in the courts their choice to prevent third-party repairers having access to official Apple parts.

In no way can they pretend they were trying to do the right thing by the user in this case. They’ve been caught out and exposed. Apple never backs down about anything unless they’re very clearly in the wrong - as is the case here - and even then not always. You could say arrogance is part of their DNA, so this is and should be deeply embarrassing for them.

The outcome should eventually be good for consumers with some benefits already. It’s happened because they had irrefutable evidence to back up their case and force Apple’s hand. It’s a victory for consumer activism and the community in general and I think John Poole from Geekbench deserves special mention and credit for his part in this.

Apple are still going to face some tough legal challenges regardless.
 
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But consider this: if a Geekbench test detected this, why didn't Apple spin what you just spun instead of ADMITTING TO THE PROBLEM? It would have saved Apple all this negative PR and the extra profits in charging $79 instead of $29 for battery replacements. Apple's admission was driven by Geekbench testing.

Apple has already addressed the Geekbench issue. It doesn't really change anything about their approach, IMO. They've said that they didn't explain the shutdown prevention changes to iOS well enough and that people can get the $29 battery change for a year as part of their apology for that. And frankly, the facts are now all out there (Geekbench does trigger the slowdown by itself, the slowdown is only to prevent the big peaks/valleys in power draw that could trigger auto shutdown events) and people still don't want to accept it.

Short of providing the general public free courses in lithium ion battery engineering, Apple has given the relevant information here. The batteries are no different than before. Their ability to provide voltage is no different than before. All people need to do is pay attention when the low power warning pops up at 20% charge. It's there for a reason.
 
sounds like damage control to me
Absolutely it's now ALL about damage control.
Steve Jobs saying you're holding it wrong was a poor attempt at damage control. And then shortly thereafter the silicon cases were being handed out for free.
The same sequence as is going on here, but this battery/throttling thing makes antenna gate look like a soft spring rain.
 
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I seriously sigh at people who’re making such a big fuss about all of this. Batteries are the number one component in any device, across all technology markets, that will require replacement at some point. People are complaining that the phone the purchased over 3 years ago needs a new battery. I’m curious if people also go to the people that manufacture their other goods and demand free replacements when their included batteries stop working. It’s not misleading to not tell people that a consumable part in something they buy will deteriorate at some point. I’ve purchased laptops that after 2.5 years have only worked on direct power, had phones before iPhones that I’ve had to buy new batteries for and never once complained. Because this is how technology works. I feel like people need to stop acting so entitled. If you don’t want to have to worry about your battery expiring, or your phone eventually slowing down a little due to how fast technology is advancing, I hear Nokia has re released their 3315.
Nobody is complaining about batteries deteriorating. Hell nobody even wanted a discount on battery replacement before this episode began. Apple screwed up by miscommunicating the rollout of power management feature. They should have been transparent about it and given people an option of opting in or out. It’s a software feature and hence can be entirely user controllable. The main complain after this became public was that Apple sometimes does not replace battery even when people are willing to pay $79 for it just because it fails their diagnostic test. Hence the only options for people are to keep using a laggy phone or buy a new one. The appropriate response from Apple should have been to rollout a feature that allows people to opt out and allow people to replace battery at their will. They are going a step ahead with battery replacement with also providing a discount. However they also need to provide the opt out feature.
 
Nope. Contrary to the wishes of some here, this will simply fade away as an issue. By the sound of some here you would think this was an exploding Samsung. How many people really still talk about that, the greatest debacle in modern electronics history?
 
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So then before this it went like this:

Customer - Hi, my battery sucks. I know this because I use my phone every day so I am the most familiar person in the world with its operation. Can I have a new battery?

Genius - Your battery is fine says our diagnostic test. Put your wallet away. No battery for you.

Why were they so reluctant to “let” people buy a new battery before?
Pretty much.

Then again, if the battery was not the cause of the perceived slowdown and "Customer" paid $79 for a battery replacement that didn't fix the problem, "Customer" would be fuming :mad: that greedy Apple "Genius" charged them for an ineffective and unnecessary repair! Even though "Customer" knew without a doubt that the battery repair what what they wanted.
 
you shouldn't have a phone that old to start with. upgrade losers lol

Why? The iPhone 7 throttled runs the same as an iPhone 5S. People did want newer phones and better performance. They paid thousands believing they were getting it.

Now Apple will pay billions and Tim Cook is fired. You can’t make this stuff up.
 
Seems like Apple is getting their stuff together.

I remember when the GPU (nVidia 650) started crashing my mid-2012 rMacbook every 5 mins, Apple simply looked away and I had to pay $320 for a manufacturer's defect although it was clearly a long known design/manufacturing problem, dating back to at least 2007 MacBook models. It took numerous complaints from end-users and a threat of class-action lawsuit to fix Apple's response.

IMO, there should have been a total recall when Apple discovered that their poorly designed power management caused the iPhone 6 (and newer) to crash.
 
And then shortly thereafter the silicon cases were being handed out for free.

Plus Apple changed the way signal strength was displayed on screen, which turned out to be the real issue. A less generous range for the bars in the upper half eliminated the "I gripped the phone and all the bars disappeared" stuff. And then the iPhone 4 continued to be sold as designed for years after that.
 
Even that the problem is that they put a time limit :mad:. They should let this offer always on, we shouldn't be limited by the time giving the facts that the iPhone doesn't get only slow because of battery but also of their updates software:mad:
 
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