iPhone XS Max Geekbench scores throttled 7,8,Xs etc

[acorntoy]

Looking for devices that batteries have aged and have been throttled. This was a huge deal with the 6/6S (brought to light once again by the class action settlement) yet after it completely died out.

This has been a “feature” built into IOS for every phone since and there hasn’t been a dramatic retaliation like there was with those devices. With the A11 chip (8,X gen) Apple claimed they significantly fixed the throttling issue with older batteries. Every chip after Apple continues to claim the same type of advancement. My XS max is at 469 cycles (500 being the limit when they typically give out). I’m a light user, having gotten the phone on release day I about a day and half out of every charge. Power users on this forum must have 7,8,X,XS that are now throttled. Has Apple made progress? I want to see modern devices with aged batteries vs when they were new benchmarked. I’m particularly interested in the 7,7+ (A10) Gen which Apple did not claim any improvements but owners have been silent about as they now approach 3 years (1100+ cycles if charged every day).

 

[Freakonomics101]

What does it say under your battery health settings?

 

[BugeyeSTI]

My 6S was 2 years old and 90% capacity at the end of 2017 and not once did I experience throttling or low benchmarks. I had the battery replaced when I purchased my X in December 2017 only because they offered replacement for $29 and I wanted to keep the 6S as a backup phone which I still have to this day.. My X will be 3 years old this December and it's showing 89% capacity and I will replace the battery when I get the 6.1 12Pro and make the X my backup and it has never experienced throttling or low benchmarks either.. I would of never known about the "throttling" issue if it wasn't on this forum as well as other tech news sites.

 

[LinkRS]

Howdy acorntoy,

I believe the reason you haven't heard much about it, is because Apple "fixed" it. It is fixed by allowing the end-user to turn off the battery optimization/management feature, which is designed to prevent your device from suddenly shutting off due to a voltage drops from an aged battery. The controversy was that iOS would limit your devices performance without informing the user that this was happening. So suddenly your devices was slower, and you had no idea why. Check out this article: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387

In my opinion, the only "wrong" thing Apple did, was hide the fact that they were doing this. Anyone that has been following the iPhone have heard the rumors that Apple intentionally slows down phones with newer versions of iOS, to encourage folks to upgrade more frequently. This idea has been disproved, time and time again (see here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harvard-study-apple-iphones-sales-slows/, and here https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...-speed-chip-apps-ios-11-battery-a7990966.html, and here https://www.wired.com/story/dont-blame-apple-for-your-slow-iphone/), but when this happend, well it proved that Apple was slowing down your phone. Now to be fair, Apple is slowing down your device, but it is not to encourage you to upgrade, a new battery will get your phone back to normal. Or, you could (now) just turn off this feature, and run the risk of your phone shutting down on you.

Good luck!

Rich S.

 

[acorntoy]

Howdy acorntoy,

I believe the reason you haven't heard much about it, is because Apple "fixed" it. It is fixed by allowing the end-user to turn off the battery optimization/management feature, which is designed to prevent your device from suddenly shutting off due to a voltage drops from an aged battery. The controversy was that iOS would limit your devices performance without informing the user that this was happening. So suddenly your devices was slower, and you had no idea why. Check out this article: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387

In my opinion, the only "wrong" thing Apple did, was hide the fact that they were doing this. Anyone that has been following the iPhone have heard the rumors that Apple intentionally slows down phones with newer versions of iOS, to encourage folks to upgrade more frequently. This idea has been disproved, time and time again (see here: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harvard-study-apple-iphones-sales-slows/, and here https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...-speed-chip-apps-ios-11-battery-a7990966.html, and here https://www.wired.com/story/dont-blame-apple-for-your-slow-iphone/), but when this happend, well it proved that Apple was slowing down your phone. Now to be fair, Apple is slowing down your device, but it is not to encourage you to upgrade, a new battery will get your phone back to normal. Or, you could (now) just turn off this feature, and run the risk of your phone shutting down on you.

Good luck!

Rich S.

You miss understand me. Apple has not (there is no evidence of which is why I’m looking) solved this issue. The problem is the batteries age and the power controller will throttle to avoid unintended shutdowns (this you correctly pointed out) In the 6/6s (A8,A9) this resulted in a roughly 50% decrease in benchmarks once the batteries hit a certain mark. This came to light after the 7 (A10) gen came out. Yes you can disable it, but you chance having your device randomly restart because the battery can’t support the processor peaking power.

Starting with the x (A11) Apple claimed they made improvements with the power management and when the device was eventually throttled it wouldn’t experience nearly the performance drop as previous devices (basically you don’t have to turn the feature off to get a workable device but also wouldn’t have to deal with shutdowns) they also mentioned this in passing as a improvement of the A12 AND A13.I want to see benchmarks of A10+ devices whose batteries have failed and the power management has kicked in to see what actual advancements in power Management Apple has made. The A8/A9 experience a 50% drop with an old battery with power management on. If Apple are to be believed a modern device with a old battery won’t face nearly as much as a performance drop as older devices with the feature ON, IE: you could use an old battery far longer with better performance than before while still having a fast, reliable (won’t randomly shut off) device.

Since the massive backlash when people where posting benchmarks of A8/A9 devices this has mostly gone into the background. Without user benchmarks of “modern” older devices throttled we cannot determine wether or not Apple has made progress on the power management of the arm chips as they have continually claimed.

 

[LinkRS]

You miss understand me. Apple has not (there is no evidence of which is why I’m looking) solved this issue. The problem is the batteries age and the power controller will throttle to avoid unintended shutdowns (this you correctly pointed out) In the 6/6s (A8,A9) this resulted in a roughly 50% decrease in benchmarks once the batteries hit a certain mark. This came to light after the 7 (A10) gen came out. Yes you can disable it, but you chance having your device randomly restart because the battery can’t support the processor peaking power.

Starting with the x (A11) Apple claimed they made improvements with the power management and when the device was eventually throttled it wouldn’t experience nearly the performance drop as previous devices........<SNIP>

Howdy acorntoy,

Yes, this is what I said. I used quotes with "fixed" as it is really just a work around, and does not really solve it. Any processor will lose performance when you lower its clock speed and/or voltage. I would assume that the statement you bolded is really just a play on words, designed to get around reality. It is entirely possible, that the newer chips, at throttled performance are more performant than the older chips when throttled. That being the case, you could (loosely) say that the newer SOCs don't experience the same performance drop (as they are still faster than the older ones), but to the user, it will still be a drop. I would further imagine that the reason we don't hear more about this, is the $29 battery replacement deal Apple ran. With that, there are not enough iPhones out in the wild with degraded batteries to test the claim. My son's iPhone SE is around 3 years old now, and is still running at normal performance mode (iOS has not enabled the throttling yet).



Rich S.

 

[now i see it]

Throttling won't occur until after the first unintended shutdown (crash) happens. With the current versions of iOS the iPhone user can clearly see if the device is throttled or not in the battery health app and he can turn off the throttling if he wants. Not an issue any more

I've experience aged battery unexpected shutdown on a 6 year old iPhone in the cold winter. It happened to me a couple times when the iPhone was kept outside (camping in a tent) and the iPhone was about 40°F when it booted up. The crash happened soon afterwards. If I warmed the phone by keeping it close to my body for a few minutes before booting it up, it would never crash. Crashing is a low temperature thing.
When it happens, the phone instantly shuts down and restarts automatically. No big deal. Not even an inconvenience really. It would never happen twice in one day and only first thing in the morning after startup. Pretty much a non issue for me. I definitely wouldn't want my iPhone throttled because of it.