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

[LovingTeddy]

Well, if your Bluetooth keyboard did the work a cellphone does, that dollar store battery wouldn't last long at all.

Do you also assume that a $100,000 car should get three times the gas mileage as a $30,000 car? No, you'd probably understand that "it depends." It depends on whether the vehicles are designed for energy efficiency or high speed/acceleration. It depends on electric vs. gas vs. gas-electric hybrid. It depends on power-to-weight ratio, the cost and weight of body work and upholstery, passenger and cargo capacity, even the distance-between-fillup/charge capacity of the fuel tank/battery (and the resulting weight that must be moved)... Generally, people pay more for stuff because it has "more" - greater comfort, better fit-and-finish, sexy materials, speed, durability, perceived (and measured) quality, status/brand name, desirability, enthusiastic media reviews... And other people may find a more sensibly-priced product if they care less about some of those characteristics.

Nobody should buy a product (or choose a mate) expecting that it be something that it is not. Did Apple ever say, "Our batteries last more years than their batteries?" No? Then why should you expect it, considering how persuasive a selling point that would be, if Apple were to claim it?

Battery life is (primarily) not a function of "quality," it's a function of work load and chemistry. Different battery types have different characteristics. A lead-acid battery would last longer before degradation, but it's not practical to have an acid-filled wet-cell sloshing around in your pocket (even the sealed variety). A one-time-use carbon-zinc or alkaline has higher energy density (longer life) than a rechargeable NiCad, but the long-term costs are higher than rechargeables. NiCads have characteristics that lead to far poorer performance and useful life than rechargeable lithium ion batteries... Lithium ion batteries are the most expensive to make....

While it's possible to have poorly-made batteries of any sort, it's short-sighted for a company like Apple to buy cheap when your cost of warranty repair/replacement is high. "Poor quality" may lead to shorter lifespan, but it also leads to premature failure. While I doubt Apple buys gold-plated batteries (at least, I haven't seen any gold), they're not going to cut corners if it means they have to make good during the two-year term of an iPhone's AppleCare contract, or the three-year term of a MacBook Pro's AppleCare contract. And with many countries having consumer laws that extend manufacturer responsibility well beyond the one-year life of the manufacturer warranty... there's little or no incentive to use "crap batteries."

Yes. I do expect a Mercedes Benz cranks more millage than a cheap low quality US cars. I have had so many problems with GM car, I would never buy one again. Benz in facts gets lot more millage than US car.

There should a general expectations on how much years each product last. Your house builders never advertising how long your house will last, so you OK with your house classp before a year old?

If my cheap 300 dollars Android phone battery goes down before 2 year, I am OK with that. Not a thousand dollars iPhone. I have more expectations on iPhone. If Apple can't deliver a phone that is 3 times faster 300 dollar Android phone or if Apple can't deliver a phone last longer than 300 dollar Android phone, then Apple rips people off.
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If you have a source for these "quality" batteries, why aren't you a billionaire? What are you doing posting ignorant comments on a web site?

Apple used cheap Chinese battery. That is there source for low quality battery. They can otherwise use quality Sanyo or Japanese cell. But I guess than Apple will have lower margin. This is unacceptable for greedy Apple.

 

[RickInHouston]

I'm kind of wondering what's going to happen when the 7S throttling begins, then the 8 throttling begins, then the...

How will apple respond to that? Well, you knew about it? We warned you?

 

[kazmac]

Watch and wait. I need my 7+ to last for at least another 18 months, so I will hold off as I have with MacOs.

 

[Scottsoapbox]

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."

You are reading it wrong and not understanding how manufacturing tolerances work.

The design flaw is that their CPU needs more power to operate than their battery can offer.

All CPUs have certain voltage and amperage requirements that increase with clock speed. All batteries have certain voltage and amperage that they can provide that degrade with age/usage. These are known figures that EVERYONE designs around.

Apple engineers didn't have to break the laws of physics, just do what all the other electronics engineers do: account for the battery decay in the design.

They could have
A) designed a CPU with lower power requirements
B) increased the power capacity of the battery
C) both.

Instead they released a product knowing that CPU would be out of power spec within 2 years of battery usage.

And they did this multiple years in a row, which speaks to a systemic problem at Apple not some design mistake.

 

[C DM]

I don't care about shutdowns. I don't want my phone to slow down. End of story.

You are saying you won't care if your phone would randomly shut down on you, let's say while you are in the middle of something or even while it's in your pocket or somewhere else where you might not realize that it has shut down for some time?
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I'm kind of wondering what's going to happen when the 7S throttling begins, then the 8 throttling begins, then the...

How will apple respond to that? Well, you knew about it? We warned you?

7S?

 

[Radon87000]

You are saying you won't care if your phone would randomly shut down on you, let's say while you are in the middle of something or even while it's in your pocket or somewhere else where you might not realize that it has shut down for some time?
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7S?

Would you prefer a phone which randomly shuts down during the day but probably only once or twice or a phone which is slowed down to iPhone 6 speeds permanently for the whole day?

 

[C DM]

Would you prefer a phone which randomly shuts down during the day but probably only once or twice or a phone which is slowed down to iPhone 6 speeds permanently for the whole day?

Considering I've used an iPhone 6 for over two years, if those are the only two choices, I'd go with the slower phone that I at least know I can use and not have it just turn off on me in the middle of something or find it off in my pocket at some point not realizing that it was off for maybe an hour or two and I missed some calls or something else along those lines. Seems like you sill haven't answered the question though.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

You are reading it wrong and not understanding how manufacturing tolerances work.

The design flaw is that their CPU needs more power to operate than their battery can offer.

All CPUs have certain voltage and amperage requirements that increase with clock speed. All batteries have certain voltage and amperage that they can provide that degrade with age/usage. These are known figures that EVERYONE designs around.

Apple engineers didn't have to break the laws of physics, just do what all the other electronics engineers do: account for the battery decay in the design.

They could have
A) designed a CPU with lower power requirements
B) increased the power capacity of the battery
C) both.

Instead they released a product knowing that CPU would be out of power spec within 2 years of battery usage.

And they did this multiple years in a row, which speaks to a systemic problem at Apple not some design mistake.

Apparently you don't know the difference between engineering to account for manufacturing tolerances (the variability of components right out of the box) and designing for a worst-case scenario (performance under sub-optimal conditions).

Degrade initial performance so that as the battery loses capacity the system still works within tolerance, or over-build the system so it performs at spec for a longer period or under more extreme environmental conditions (eg. higher and lower ambient air temperatures).

Say they increased the capacity of the battery. In early use, just to pull a number out of a hat, let's say the battery lasts 20% longer between charges than it does currently (pun intended). In two years the battery may have lost that 20%, and users will still moan that battery life isn't what it used to be. It may be less susceptible to unexpected shutdowns, but unexpected shutdowns are one of those trees in the forest - if they don't happen, people don't perceive their absence as a benefit.

Say they match the CPU performance to the capacity of a 2- or 3-year-old battery (and trust me, no computer or phone-maker would do that intentionally). All that will happen is the press and public will compare that to the performance of the latest competitive product. "Apple sucks, they never use state-of-the-art CPUs."

Effectively, this is the Kobayashi Maru test, a no-win proposition.

 

[Scottsoapbox]

Effectively, this is the Kobayashi Maru test

Bwahahahaha! I was going to respond until you lost all credibility with that statement. Oh my goodness, at least mention some sci fi from this century. Thanks for the good laugh though. I needed it.

 

[Kate Black]

i'd like to upgrade my 7 plus from ios 11.2.5 to ios 11.3, but now the full version of ios 11.3 hasn't come out, i just used ianygo to upgrade to ios 11.3 beta successfully, now my phone can stay high battery for a whole day.