iOS 11.3 Will Allow iPhone Users to View Battery Health and Disable Apple's Power Management This Spring

[TMRJIJ]

For all those saying people will be upset about their random shutdowns, I don't think that's fair. I've experienced the unexpected shutdowns with my 6 Plus prior to the throttling update. It only happened when I was around 30% battery. So my phone functioned normally the majority of the day, and if I let it get down that low, it might be a problem then. Plus, if they are to be believed, Apple says only peak performance causes throttling now, so only peak performance should cause a random shutdown if throttling is off. Tim said he'd hate it if you were making an emergency call or have to send an emergency text and your phone shut down. So making a call and sending a text are peak performance situations? I believe throttling is on all the time for me, no matter what, but I'm anxious to see how my phone functions with throttling off. Maybe my battery has degraded that much that it can't provide the voltage required for even small things anymore.

Also, I assume throttling will be ON by default, so people will have to search out this option to turn it off, and I'm sure Apple will have a warning or description of what could happen when it's turned off. People will be informed. Some of you act like this update will turn off throttling and everyone's phones will be turning off left and right without explanation. If people start experiencing shutdowns and are unhappy, they know where to go to turn it back on since they've turned it off.

It's surprising that some people are so against choice. We already had a toggle for low power mode, I don't understand why this is seen as so different from that choice that was already given.

If my phone goes back to full speed and it only restarts unexpectedly around 30%, sign me up. I've been using a battery case for over a year anyway to try and get through the day. I'm also throttled when plugged in, which is crazy. If i'm using a battery case and my phone itself is effectively at 100% all day anyway, with the option to turn throttling off I'm hoping it just returns to even 75% of what it was when I bought it.

It's not that we are against choice (in my opinion), it's that some people are not aware that random shutdowns will likely happen with this feature turned off. So many people and news outlets were spreading the false pretense that this was planned obsolescence and refuse to look into the actual reason why Apple throttled these phones in the first place. They're all going to be in for a rude awakening when update comes when they see that Apple were indeed doing right(..ish) by throttling. Even some of the lawsuits don't have the full knowledge of battery degradation issues.

 

[ViewRoyal]

A person would have to be nuts to disable power management!

Power management only kicks in if your iPhone has a failing battery.
Power management avoids unexpected shutdowns on iPhones with failing batteries.
Turning off power management is an invitation to experience unexpected shutdowns, instead of using your iPhone for the full charge in your battery.

 

[DNichter]

You should replace "adults" with blinded kool-aid drinking cultists and You can't change the fact that Apple hid this "feature" for as long as they could while continuing to sell phones they knew had a major flaw. Not to mention the fact that for a very long time they refused to allow battery replacements for phones they knew were being throttled.

Oh and no one is crying, I am laughing how badly cultists are falling over each other defending the indefensible.

I think it might be time to sit the next couple plays out kid.

 

[coolkid93]

Get a new battery problem solved lol

 

[Altis]

Haha right, crippled in a few months. You guys crack me up. Batteries go bad. If you happen to have a battery that has gone bad, either replace it or throttle your phone so it can last longer. Stop crying like Apple owes you something.

A) The throttling starts while the battery is above 80%, so Apple considers it healthy and would not replace (until now)

B) the only reason anyone even knows that a battery replacement would restore performance is because Apple got caught. They were perfectly fine letting people believe their batteries were fine and any slowdown is due to iOS updates running slower (which they traditionally have)

 

[forerunnerg34]

People saying OHH AND NOW THEY ARE GOING TO SUE APPLE BECAUSE OF SHUT DOWNS.

Why do they believe shut downs are normal and expected on mobile phones? I think Apple just lowered they general expectations. Seems to be that only the hardware features highlighted in keynotes could be considered premium, everything else... well.. shut downs.

Apple shipped a device with good hardware and garbage hardware, garbage hardware failed, Apple tries to protect the brand by hiding the fact that they shipped low quality batteries, after they were discovered they sold the idea that is normal that a battery will shut down you phone. Is like Samsung saying well all batteries are susceptible to explode but we prevent that with software. The solution is don't scam your cusomers and ship quality parts.

 

[UL2RA]

Get a new battery problem solved lol

Except when Apple denies you a battery replacement [lol].

 

[essential]

It's not that we are against choice (in my opinion), it's that some people are not aware that random shutdowns will likely happen with this feature turned off. So many people and news outlets were spreading the false pretense that this was planned obsolescence and refuse to look into the actual reason why Apple throttled these phones in the first place. They're all going to be in for a rude awakening when update comes when they see that Apple were indeed doing right(..ish) by throttling. Even some of the lawsuits don't have the full knowledge of battery degradation issues.

I understand your point, but as I said (which you quoted), I'm sure power management will be ON by default, so only people searching to turn it off will actually turn it off, and those people probably know what they are doing. Even if a user randomly stumbled upon it while looking through their settings, if it's toggled off I sure there will be a pop up, or notification, or something that will inform the user about the possible consequences. All I'm saying is this will be transparency with choice, which I find ideal ... people will be informed.

I'm turning it off immediately, and if my phone is faster and only has issues around 30% like before the throttling update, that's great. If my battery has degraded enough that even at 80% I'm shutting off performing normal tasks, maybe i'll be forced to turn it back on. Either way, I'm glad I have that option, and it'll take the user all of 30 seconds to turn it back on if they have issues. Being given the choice is the right way to do it.

While I agree that I don't really think this was planned obsolescence, the fact that they weren't transparent about what was going on definitely adds fuel to that fire for the people who already believed that was happening. As I posted earlier in this thread, planned obsolescence or not, an unintended consequence of this whole issue is Apple benefited from new phone sales because of slow phones. Now that the issue is know, the estimate is 16 million people in 2018 will opt for battery replacements instead of new phones. If this information was known since iOS 10.2.1 (January 2017) when throttling was introduced, how many people in the last year would have also opted for new batteries instead of new phones? We can't know that number, but it's a direct result of keeping this information secret.

 

[Mirice99]

I think it might be time to sit the next couple plays out kid.

I'll pass, thanks anyways old man.

 

[deanthedev]

Sorry the truth hurts cultists and kool aid drinkers so much but it's a fact. A choice between a phone that shut down or a phone that is noticeably slower is a crippled phone.

In a couple months. That is nothing more than an outright lie.

Wait you really don't understand the point that Apple can rush out a fix for a jailbreak exploit but will take months and months to turn off a "feature" that crippled a badly designed phone?

Badly designed phone? Just another lie.

Security exploits affect every single user and can have sure consequences. Which is why they get priority. Throttling affects a much smaller number of users, so it’s a low priority.


If they collected all the salty tears in this thread they could rehydrate the Dead Sea.

 

[lederermc]

About time. It’s a shame it took hundreds of lawsuits to push Apple to do the right thing.

Lawsuit had nothing to do with it. They will all fail. The power management feature actually extended the usefulness of the iPhones with degraded batteries and anyone with at least half a brain can figure that out.

 

[deferredAnon]

Let's thank all the lawsuits and government officials who stood up to Apple.

Complete nonsense what they did. And also Tim Cook, you are a liar.

 

[gbc204]

Can they turn the freaking battery percentage display back on already? I hate have to swipe down to see it.

 

[mrzz]

Finally. I've been waiting to have a feature that causes my phone to randomly shutdown while I'm in the middle of something.

you can wait for whatever you want, the rest of affected users are waiting for an option to disable that nasty feature which significantly affected performance of previously perfectly working phones not affected by any restart issues

 

[UL2RA]

Can they turn the freaking battery percentage display back on already? I hate have to swipe down to see it.

Yes, swiping down to see it is immensely dumb.

 

[44267547]

Welcome news to get more info. This will also quieten the panicked hysteria surrounding the power management. Maybe...

I think this is the first step Apple needs is be more open with iPhone consumers about the power management and battery health related data, high this update will be a good thing long term. I think you can never have too much information about your phone versus two little and not fully understand exactly what is happening for battery management, being how important it is.

 

[Fiachers]

The CPU slowdown issue doesn't affect me so much as iOS 11 (being as terribly inefficient as it is) completely destroys my iPhone 6.

 

[simonmet]

Finally. I've been waiting to have a feature that causes my phone to randomly shutdown while I'm in the middle of something.

If the risk of a random shut-down with greater than 50% battery remaining is so great that it requires throttling - as in the picture above your post - then the battery is flawed, inadequate or too degraded and should be replaced.

I think most people accept reduced performance at under 10 or 20% in low-power mode but Apple didn’t give you the option to restrict throttling to that condition.

 

[conifer]

I got a random shutdown today on 6s on 10.2. Battery health is roughly 89 percent with 475 cycles. It shut down at 60 percent charge and battery health app recorded it as only 70 percent battery health. I was in roughly 40 degree weather at the time. I was only using iMessage — texting at the time with taking and sending some photos prior to that point.

I have a mophie so turned on the charge and restarted the phone while still in cold weather. Now in warm place and app is back to saying I have 88 percent health.

Edit: battery was 13 months old when this started. AppleCare is trying to argue that if I updated , battery would be fine. I explained this is because of the throttle which she denied. She didn’t seem to get the fact that her position was illlogical —old software that worked fine when it debuted and has been working fine for the past year , would cripple the phone. She reminds me of tHe AppleCare person who said last week that Apple only patches latest Mac OS and doesnt release patches for older software.

 

[jamface]

Finally. I've been waiting to have a feature that causes my phone to randomly shutdown while I'm in the middle of something.

At least we'll know both sides...

 

[BugeyeSTI]

I for one am happy this will finally be implemented. I haven’t suffered any throttling or shut downs on my backup 6S but, more options and information is always a good thing.

 

[Baymowe335]

One does wonder why Apple didn't take the universally known battery degradation into account when designing the CPU's power requirements and tolerances.

How do you know they didn't? Obviously, they do! 1B+ phones are a lot of tolerances to manage. Everyone's battery conditions are slightly different and there is a tipping point for power efficiency, performance, etc. The "problems" we hear about might actually impact 1% of all phones, so they aren't going to manage to that. They will manage to the 99% which are probably just fine.

Remember, 1% of 1B is 10 million phones if that's the failure rate. In the end, no one knows how many phones were impacted.
[doublepost=1516820378][/doublepost]

People will ask why Apple is so incompetent and can't design a phone that "just works".

Again, Apple isn't a magic company. There are problems when you sell a billion phones in 5 years. If 99% of them are perfect, that's A LOT of issues (10 million).

 

[nwcs]

I think this is the first step Apple needs is be more open with iPhone consumers about the power management and battery health related data, high this update will be a good thing long term. I think you can never have too much information about your phone versus two little and not fully understand exactly what is happening for battery management, being how important it is.

This I totally agree with and Apple should learn from this experience. There wasn’t a need to prevent us from seeing the information. I get why they did it but it was unnecessary.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

You obviously don't understand the issue.

The battery throttling issue effects EVERY iPhone (of the relevant models). Once your battery falls below the threshold from normal use (and recharge) it will throttle your phone. The only question is WHEN not IF it will be throttled. For many people it be within 2 years. (those posting a 'few months' incorrectly believe hyperbole helps their argument)

People aren't upset about the occasional manufacturer defective battery which is unavoidable.

People are upset the Apple didn't adjust the battery and/or the CPU design so that it continued to operate normally after a relatively short time window because of a well known issue with batteries degrading over time. (commonly referred to as manufacturing tolerances)

But hey those leaps in CPU power look great on the keynote graph right?

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but what this says to me is, "Apple should have built throttling right into the CPU, rather than do it in software."

Now, in terms of public outcry, would it really matter whether "Apple's software crippled my iPhone" or "Apple's CPU crippled my iPhone?" Either way, Apple tries to engineer a solution to a fact of physics - batteries degrade over time. Either way, the public appetite for scandal would rather attribute the worst motivations to Apple.

Basic fact of life - hard work requires more energy than light work. It's true for the human body, it's true for a CPU. If you're in good physical condition, you may be able to do heavy work at a fast pace. If your condition is not quite so good, you may have to perform that task at a slower pace. Work too hard, and you may collapse. As we get older we have to put more effort into physical conditioning in order to keep working at our accustomed pace...

 

[LovingTeddy]

I'll still take slowdowns over crashes, thanks.

Here is the choice for you. You can either enable the throttling feature or you can disable it. It is up to you. I want to disable the throttling feature, because I want faster phone than a slow phone. That is my choice.

You see, it is good to have options right?
[doublepost=1516826230][/doublepost]

Haha right, crippled in a few months. You guys crack me up. Batteries go bad. If you happen to have a battery that has gone bad, either replace it or throttle your phone so it can last longer. Stop crying like Apple owes you something.

You know the dollar store battery that used on my Bluetooth keyboard last forever. I believe a thousand dollars phone should have a battery that last more than 2 years. But that is just me.

I am OK with my 300 dollar Android phone has battery dies on my in 2 years, but i am not OK with a thousand dollar phone's battery dies on my in 2 years.