FAQ: What to Know About Apple Slowing Down iPhones to Prevent Unexpected Shutdowns

[Altis]

Alright, I'll bite. What did they lie about and do you have actual evidence of it instead of assertions?

For one, they throttle phones with batteries Apple techs themselves report as "Healthy" and won't replace. Is that not rather dishonest?

Then there's the accounts of people being told specifically by Apple techs that the battery has nothing to do with performance so any slowdowns just means the phone is slow with the iOS updates. It's unlikely the techs knew so they personally didn't deliberately lie to customers, but Apple didn't think to tell their own techs so false advice was given.

 

[RickInHouston]

I wonder if the class action suits can 'bundle' apple's refusal to allow downgrading the OS. If that were possible, millions and millions of phones could have been resurrected from the dead over the past 10 years (mine included).

 

[Act3]

Working perfectly fine....until they shut off randomly on walks. I had that experience for months, then suddenly my problem was fixed and I could actually make it through a walk without it shutting off in the cold.

Are you seriously contending that the shutdown issue this software addressed didn't exist?

I've never had my device shutoff and its battery was a over a year old when 10.2.1 was released. I also live in Florida so it never got extremely cold to where it affected the battery. So maybe that's another reason why users should be able to turn off the throttling.

 

[AviBench]

What is really surprising me is the buzz around this ''SCANDAL''. For the past years we ALL knew planned obsolescence was a vital issue and common practice for big tech companies especially for the GAFA

Nothing new really!

 

[convergent]

Thanks for thoughtful reply. Samsung and other OEMs stated they don’t throttle when battery capacity is low? Source?

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...ung-lg-dont-slow-phones-older-batteries-apple

This covers Samsung, LG, Motorola, and HTC, which makes up most of the non-Chinese non-Apple smartphones sold in the world. If these companies had phones becoming unstable and failing due to batteries aging, I suspect someone would have reported it.

 

[PaulRustad007]

You forgot the following questions:

1. Why is the throttling being applied just last year, after 10 years of iPhones? What happened to the 5s for example?

2. Could there be a hardware design issue with regards to quality/capability of battery/system Apple is using and this throttling is just a workaround due to the bad/cheap design?

3. Why isn't Apple aiming at higher battery quality like Samsung is now adopting for S8? A typical battery degrades to 80% after 2 years, Samsung's new design only goes down to 95%.

My 5s still has 80% capacity after 4+ years and over 800 charge cycles.....

 

[mdatwood]

And these phones didn't crash or shutdown ever until the battery aged? I disagree with you, and my experience supports my view. If it were to happen to other devices, then I would say the same about them. There is a reason Apple jumped so quickly to a $29 upgrade offer... and it wasn't because they don't care about profits and are generous.

No, if you have had this type of crash happen you know exactly what it is. In cold/hot weather the older phones would show say 30%, and then crash/shutdown if you went to use an app. Didn't matter what brand of phone.

Who claimed Apple doesn't care about profits? Of course they do. They botched the communication of their attempt to fix the crashing/shutdown from degraded batteries, and are offering cheap replacements as a result. I'm not really sure what the issue is here, or that it's some giant conspiracy. Like most things Apple (attennagate, bendgate, headphone jack, etc...), it's people making mountains out of a molehills.

 

[deferredAnon]

That's already been debunked. Change of speed for the CPU is normal behavior during regular operation. You can't draw any direct 1:1 conclusions about voltage related throttling by running that app.

Not a change of 30%. And where has it been debunked?

 

[Cosmosent]

"It appears" Apple "may" have reduced the Battery Replacement price to only $29, AND decided to include ALL iPhones, NOT just those that Fail the capacity threshold test, in part to get rid of their stock of Crap Batteries.

So yes, we'll give you a new battery at Discount, but its another Crap Battery !

The whole thing is just another example of Poor Judgement from Apple's Upper Mgmt team !

Funny thing here, is that the ONLY affects the iPhone designs that weren't in the Pipeline when Steve Jobs passed ... in other words, the ones under Tim Cook's full control & guidance.

The 5s was probably the last that Steve Jobs had guidance over.

 

[deferredAnon]

The 5s was probably the last that Steve Jobs had guidance over.

I am sure Jobs had a say in iPhone 6.

 

[Joe Rossignol]

For the record, Apple had zero input on this article. I'll make it very clear: this article is not sponsored by or affiliated with Apple in any way, and Apple didn't relay any information to be included in this article.

 

[mdatwood]

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...ung-lg-dont-slow-phones-older-batteries-apple

This covers Samsung, LG, Motorola, and HTC, which makes up most of the non-Chinese non-Apple smartphones sold in the world. If these companies had phones becoming unstable and failing due to batteries aging, I suspect someone would have reported it.

Because it's such a well known issue, no one reports on it like it's some big conspiracy. ELI5 from a year ago from an Android forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/5kr71d/why_phones_are_shutting_down_with_40_battery_left/

 

[PizzaBoxStyle]

YOu realize thats bad for the battery constantly charging it .... cause the way it works is it just constantly trickles in power, then uses the battery, then trickles in power repeat. Being plugged in with 100% battery doesnt provide a pass through. Most articles Ive read ultimately suggest to basically never let your battery decharge super low below around 25% and re-charge it to about 90/95%

p.s. I can confirm this as in one of my old iPhones I did the exact same thing you are doing..and the battery crapped out in 1.5 years. I was shocked to learn leaving it plugged in was worse than simply charging it as needed.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I thought Apple had engineered batteries to avoid this degradation. OTOH, maybe not. Apple can't even get their batteries to last more than six months.

Either way, I don't give a **** about my iPhone, or the iPhone in general, anymore. Battery can die. I'll move on. Flip phone maybe.

 

[apolloa]

"Apple is not permanently or persistently slowing down older iPhones. Even if your iPhone is affected, the performance limitations only happen intermittently, when the device is completing demanding tasks. "


CPUdasherx shows throttling all the time if battery is old enough even with battery fully charged, not just with demanding tasks.

Yeap, can confirm, iPhone 6S bought brand new in November 2016, battery quality just above 92% and CPU Dasher reports my phone is never running at the 1800mhz is should, the max it’s got since I was checking this week and last was around 1500 and then throttled down to around 699mhz, but it generally sits at 933mhz or around their so half the performance it should be!

 

[WannaGoMac]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I thought Apple had engineered batteries to avoid this degradation. OTOH, maybe not. Apple can't even get their batteries to last more than six months.

Either way, I don't give a **** about my iPhone, or the iPhone in general, anymore. Battery can die. I'll move on. Flip phone maybe.

haha nice, yeah remember how amazing flip phone battery life was???Complaining when it only lasted 2-3 days on a single charge! haha

 

[budafied]

What troubleshooting steps have you followed since experiencing the slowdown?

I'm guessing your point is basically that I am attributing this problem to Apple without proof.

My iPhone 6 functioned perfectly fine until about 6-9 months ago. I started to experience slowdowns when using the phone. This would be delays in opening apps, delays in loading webpages or other app content. With iOS 11, it slowed down considerably more. I wiped my phone and set up as new. After loading my apps back on and using it for about 3-5 days, it was back to the slow performance prior to the Wipe/SetUpAsNew. It will take literally 10 seconds to open a text.

Also: I have never had shutdown issues with my device.

I think my next troubleshooting step would be to restore the phone without any third-party apps and see how performance works. Which kind of defeats the point of a smartphone...

If I had to theorize.. I would guess that the iPhone's hardware has to work more intensely to run a newer iOS, especially with third-party apps. This extra work puts strain on the battery, which could raise temps and theoretically cause shutdowns in some cases. Rather than let me choose to wear out the battery quicker each day, Apple decided that I would be better off with a slow phone that still gets a full day of battery. They allegedly did this to stop shutdowns from happening (and it coincidentally means people are way more likely to upgrade those devices since they now suck at performance -- how convenient!).

FYI (and I don't think it's too relevant): I used to be an Apple Genius.

 

[apolloa]

Working perfectly fine....until they shut off randomly on walks. I had that experience for months, then suddenly my problem was fixed and I could actually make it through a walk without it shutting off in the cold.

Are you seriously contending that the shutdown issue this software addressed didn't exist?

No, wasn’t that the whole reason for the battery recall on 6S models? And no device I’ve ever owned shut itself down at 30%!! And I’ve owned tons of mobiles over the years.. and several iPhones!

 

[JadawinUK]

Very thorough and well-written article.

Probably well paid, too.

 

[actcyclist]

It find it strange this article misses one of the most F AQ
What about customers who upgraded their iPhone, based on advice from Apple, because performance had slowed down?

Answer from Apple, and Macrumors = nothing.

This is the subject of mounting lawsuits and the coming regulatory action. The point is customers upgraded their slowed down devices rather than had them fixed based on false advice from Apple.

 

[deferredAnon]

For the record, Apple had zero input on this article. I'll make it very clear: this article is not sponsored by or affiliated with Apple in any way.

That could very well be true. But doesn't negate the fact that this was written in a manner that is almost equivalent of an extension to the one Apple made themselves... something lacking being critical... something written by an Apple apologist. But I wouldn't expect less from an Apple fan site.

What I am saying is very simple. Apple could have informed a customer of his bad battery, but chose to hide this information and double down by slowing down his phone in an apparent effort to prolong the life of not his phone(!), but his battery. That is a very important distinction because the phone is perfectly fine. Customers with slow phones had no idea Apple was causing it and why Apple was causing it. If you were in Apple management, would you have given the 'okay' for this decision? And why? I hope the courts will decide for the biased ones.

 

[JadawinUK]

These are key points. And exactly what mainstream media did not report.

When else would you expect a hidden slowdown? When the phone is doing nothing? That's just semantics. It is a permanent secret slowdown that works whenever the phone is supposed to be fast.

 

[forerunnerg34]

Honest question, is this a problem with other manufactures and phones? old batteries better? Why this was not an issue with iPhone 4s or 4, or why we don’t hear this from Xiaomi, Asus, Huawei, Google. Samsung is different, those batteries explode jaja.

 

[apolloa]

It find it strange this article misses one of the most F AQ
What about customers who upgraded their iPhone, based on advice from Apple, because performance had slowed down?

Answer from Apple, and Macrumors = nothing.

This is the subject of mounting lawsuits and the coming regulatory action. The point is customers upgraded their slowed down devices rather than had them fixed based on false advice from Apple.

As people are reporting, replaced their iPhones and upgraded as ADVISED TO BY APPLE STAFF!!!

 

[PizzaBoxStyle]

haha nice, yeah remember how amazing flip phone battery life was???Complaining when it only lasted 2-3 days on a single charge! haha

YES and seriously!

We were at peak/optimal battery life in those days and had no idea.

 

[VulchR]

Dear Apple - If you had less of a fetish for thinness and put in batteries of an appropriate size, this would not be happening. At some point not listening to your customers becomes hubris, and hubris is followed by nemesis....