Apple's Alleged Throttling of Older iPhones With Degraded Batteries Causes Controversy

[Jmausmuc]

Ok, just got done testing.

My iPhone 6S has a much lower score than my iPhone 6!!

iPhone 6 (about 2 year old battery)
Single: 1557
Multi: 2682

iPhone 6S (about 1 year old battery)
Single: 1047
Multi: 1755

The 6S is much slower than the 6. The 6 was at 73% charged, the 6S was at 88% charged.
None of the phones were in low power mode.

I can believe the 6S got this slow without any kind of warning or anything!!

Edit:
Just retested, now the 6S is doing a little better:

1446
2506

Still slower than my 6...

 

[I7guy]

More power to Apple for making my device last a day, if that is what they are even doing as alleged.

 

[Aakanayev]

Not sure I'm following this guy's logic. He owns a model of phone that has a known battery issue for a small number of units, experiences some issues, then replaces that battery and gets better performance. But his conclusion isn't that the battery was defective and fluctuating as a result of the known defect, but rather that Apple is throttling through software?

The logic is pretty straightforward: you can't throttle with the battery, you absolutely have to throttle with software, which in this case comes from Apple. Therefore throttling isn't happening because the battery was defective, but rather because Apple released a patch that allowed the phones to throttle down when the battery was becoming worse.

 

[PizzaBoxStyle]

I would guess it's a tradeoff and Apple feels more users would notice decreased battery life than a slower phone. Having phone that only lasts say 4 hours is immediately noticeable and frustrating, vs slower loading pages, etc. which may be blamed on the network rather than the phone.

Thats the thing: I keep my iPhone 6S plugged in most of the day, and for the few hours its off of power, the battery drains sometimes down to half by the time I get home and settled.

The battery just sucks on this phone. Full stop. And now we're uncovering how bad this situation really is.

God I hate to join that crowd, but after all of this, my next phone might not be an iPhone.

 

[Jmausmuc]

More power to Apple for making my device last a day, if that is what they are even doing as alleged.

My iPhone 6S was replaced about a year ago, so it’s battery is about a year old.

As you can see in my post above it is at about half the Geekbench score it should be. If you are happy with this, good for you but I bought the 6S because the “s” was supposed to stand for speed.

 

[diamond.g]

My iPhone 6S was replaced about a year ago, so it’s battery is about a year old.

As you can see in my post above it is at about half the Geekbench score it should be. If you are happy with this, good for you but I bought the 6S because the “s” was supposed to stand for speed.

Have you had Apple run a battery health check?

 

[jcphoenix]

Apple Store Canada, can verify I took my iPhone 6 in after a year of battery wonkiness (shutting down at 50% battery left, dropping to 1% all of a sudden, etc) and because it was over 80% capacity according to their tests, they refused to let me pay for a battery replacement. This was in the summer. I'm left with a phone that - with the newer updates - doesn't shut off as often randomly and the battery life doesn't jump down nearly as much as it did before, but it still does enough to annoy me...and the phone is agonizingly stupefyingly slow. I've noticed the shutdowns happen especially with the slightest bit of cold. It could claim to be at 70% battery, but I'll take it with me outside in say, -5 degrees Celsius and within a few minutes of being in the cold, it'll completely turn off and I won't be able to turn it back on until I plug it in again.

I fully buy this, it pairs with my experience with the iPhone 6. Plus I'm still pretty pissed at Apple for limiting their battery replacement program to the iPhone 6S when it was obviously happening to a lot of iPhone 6 owners as well.

 

[SketchyClown]

My iPhone 6 Plus was experiencing sudden shutdowns when the battery would get below 25-30% in iOS 10.x even. Upgrading to iOS 11 was horrible. My 100% fully charged battery would maybe last for a hour, just web browsing, before needing to be plugged in again. I grabbed that nifty little program called Coconut Battery and it told me that my poor "old" phone had well over 600 charge cycles. Also, when charged to 100%, the battery only retained 38% of its original 2915mAh capacity, so the battery was borked. I found a local guy with factory Apple batteries who installed a fresh one, and while I would have been happy just having the battery last longer than a hour, the reality is that the phone completely came "to life". Performance was noticeably increased. It was basically how I remember the phone being when it was new. It now runs iOS 11.x like a champ, and the battery life is excellent.

 

[Sovon Halder]

Upgrading to iOS 11 was the biggest mistake I've done so far with my phone. I can't freaking get back.

I like small phones and use a 5s. It was plenty fast a year ago and now, the battery lasts half as much and phone became twice as slow in very common day to day tasks.

 

[ronno]

Not sure I'm following this guy's logic. He owns a model of phone that has a known battery issue for a small number of units, experiences some issues, then replaces that battery and gets better performance. But his conclusion isn't that the battery was defective and fluctuating as a result of the known defect, but rather that Apple is throttling through software?

I’ll explain: battery issue should not affect the SPEED of the phone. But apparently it does here.
(Does less gas in your car mean that you can’t drive as fast?)

 

[Jmausmuc]

Have you had Apple run a battery health check?

No, because I just found out about this problem. I will make an appointment. Though, my phone is out of warranty and I already bought an iPhone X so I’m not sure if I will pay the 90$ for the new battery.

When I took my iPhone 6S to the Genius Bar about a year ago, when it would randomly shut of at around 30%, they also said the battery was fine. I got it replaced after talking to the manager, thought. Now, the replacement model is about a year old and it’s battery seems to be bad again, or what else could explain the low Geekbench score?

 

[Lewis Adams]

My 2014 iPhone 6's battery is almost dead and displays wildly erratic behaviors between a full charge and its depletion, which I totally understand (I'm sure I may be to blame for its current state). What I cannot accept is that since the installation of latest iOS what was an otherwise perfectly working (and still powerful enough) smartphone suddenly became barely usable: heck, even starting up the camera app takes several seconds at times! Not to mention social apps and other power-intensive tasks. I'm torn between having it repaired and the will to trash it for good and having it replaced by a 100 bucks Huawei.

Thanks for the post: quite interesting indeed to know that something's going on under the surface...

 

[Zzzoom]

Just tested my two years old iPhone 6 on iOS 11.2 with Geekbench 4:

single-core score: 1306
multi-core score: 2286

Interesting. According to the Geekbench database the scores should be 1463 and 2459.

 

[Juicy Box]

For me, I'd prefer poor battery life versus an excessively throttled CPU. My four-year-old 5s was doing just fine until I updated to iOS 11. Now, it's an absolute mess. I need to get at least another year out of it.

Me too, if it was up to me.

It sounds like Apple is trying to fix a problem, by causing a larger one.

 

[NomadicTy]

Other than the AR stuff coming out lately, there should not be any apps nor features that have come out since the 6s came out, that would be hitting the limits of the 6S internals. This is just pre-planned obsolescence.

 

[LERsince1991]

It stats my iPhone 6s is just 600MHz...!!!
Performance is awful, nearly bought a new phone...

 

[deanthedev]

Didn't we have a thread when iOS 11 launched that showed Geekbench scores were similar from 10 to 11 and that your phones aren’t actually slower? Followed by people claiming Geekbench isn’t an accurate measure of your phone performance as there are other factors that cause a slowdown in performance?

When Geekbench shows the A11 absolutely crushing everything else on the market we also hear Geekbench doesn’t count for real world use? It’s just a benchmark with no bearing on real world use?

So now Geekbench is suddenly an accurate way to measure performance?


I have two 6S my kids had before they upgraded to the X. One has a weak battery so I’ll try this out when I get home from work.

 

[zonemster]

Its not happening as described, stop listening to idiots. The slowing down of a iPhone 6 and 6s is due to battery preservation. When battery hits certain amount of cycles the software is trying to preserve its integrity and continuous work, don't expect battery of a phone after 1000 charges to be the same as the new phone, this is nothing new, it was in iOS 6 and Android has it too, so stop whining and go and replace the battery or buy a new phone.

 

[npmacuser5]

Most who use the iPhone as a phone with additional benefits will see very little impact on their daily lives with throttling. A couple year old throttled iPhone still many times more powerful then one 5 or so years ago. If one needs the speed, heavy users, then either replace the battery or maybe now the time for an upgrade. The throttling a good cost affective way to extend the life of the iPhone. Cudos to Apple for that. The problem, Apple needs to be a bit more transparent about the upgrades in IOS, especially with iPhones two or more years old.

 

[ChrisChaval]

I’ll explain: battery issue should not affect the SPEED of the phone. But apparently it does here.
(Does less gas in your car mean that you can’t drive as fast?)

Unless your car decides for you to lower its maximum speed and overall performance by cutting of a couple of cylinders in order to minimize gas consumption

And all of this without telling you

 

[sinsin07]

Sadly this is the case. I'll let other members collaborate my story but yep. Here in the USA Apple will refuse to replace your battery unless it is under 80% from design capacity even if you're waving $80 in their face.

I can confirm. In 01/2017 Apple saw my issue first hand as I restarted my iPhone from the battery I carried with me and it started back with 49% battery shown on indicator.
After doing their diagnostics they said battery was fine.
They would not allow me to pay for new battery.
This my anecdotal experience.
YMMV

 

[Jmausmuc]

Most who use the iPhone as a phone with additional benefits will see very little impact on their daily lives with throttling. A couple year old throttled iPhone still many times more powerful then one 5 or so years ago. If one needs the speed, heavy users, then either replace the battery or maybe now the time for an upgrade. The throttling a good cost affective way to extend the life of the iPhone. Cudos to Apple for that. The problem, Apple needs to be a bit more transparent about the upgrades in IOS, especially with iPhones two or more years old.

It would be a good feature if it was optional and you were notified. By 6S is about half as fast as it should be (according to Geekbench) and I have not received any warnings.
If my phone is throttled, i want to know.

And I am not talking about a energy savings mode below 20% or anything like this.

My 6S at 88% charged is slower than my 6.

 

[dazz87]

Apple does it so they are forcing you to upgrade for a new phone......Its about the $....

 

[unsaltedrhino]

6s definitely throttled here... now showing 911Mhz but when I first opened the app it was 600Mhz!

Turning off low power mode doesn’t change things. Battery needs constant charging through the day even with low power mode on...

EDIT: Had the battery replaced at an Apple Store and all problems now resolved. Clocking in over 1800Mhz and no need to activate low power mode anymore. If anyone's experiencing these types of issues just do it - $79/£79/€89 is well worth it.

 

[drowsier]

This article should get many MR members frothing at the mouth......

I don't believe Apple would do that, but this will be free for all...

I’m a big Apple fan, but it sounds pretty cut and dried. I’ve got an electronics background so this makes some sense. Slowing down the clock rate will reduce the current draw, which will reduce the voltage drop under load. In a system with a failing battery, this could prevent the battery voltage from dropping so far that the system fails (and restarts).

While I don’t believe Apple would do this to be malicious or to sell more new phones, it looks to me to be good power management to extend the useful life of some aging devices.

On the flip side you could argue that this saves them from having to replace a whole lot of batteries.