U.S. Government Investigating Apple's Power Management Features That Slow Older iPhones

[Deetlebug89]

This has gotten beyond absurd.n


Apple can do whatever they want with managing CPU and battery performance on any device at any time. It is beyond insane to suggest that anyone outside of Apple has any right to any particular level of CPU performance at any given time.

Tim Cook has embarrassed Apple by admitting wrong where none existed and has opened the company to undue scrutiny.

I have to disagree, BUT ONLY! With parts of your post. FCC has consumers protected against things like this. And then Net neutrality (falls on carriers not Apple) and at the time of iOS 10.2.1 the laws were still in effect for net neutrality. So Apple slowing cpu in turn slowed websites. Sort of causing a catch22. I know. For 6s and under devices iOS 10.2.1 caused this so basically for a9 processors and under.
(Planned obsolescence)
Seems more fitting for this

Responsible disclosure, during the download/updating process should have told consumers. This was going to take effect. Then some would have upgraded anyways not caring and others would have deleted the update and installed a tvOS beta profile to stop all future iOS updates. On older hardware this would effect.

That is where I see Tim / Apple messed up.
11.2.0 does the same thing with Iphone 7 devices. Once again was we told by Apple? NO!

Personally I don’t care I have many iPhones... original iPhone, 3g, 3GS, 4, 4s, 5, 5s, 6,6+ 6s,6s+ 7,7+ and IPhone X ( no interest in the 8 series) all my iPhones are on original firmwares designed and released with the device (ex. Iphone 4 is ios 4.2) and a few are one update above the original iOS released with them. (ex. 7+ 11.1.2)
Purchased it with a broken screen and I repair iPhones / electronics so I told them let me install a screen make sure no passcode lock and iCloud is enabled and boom 80$ a1661(unlocked model) 7+ 128gb. Yes it did have passcode but no ICloud asked them to type it in. And logged into my iTunes handed them, $80 and away I went. Best deal I’ve ever got tbh and not sure I’ll ever beat that one.

But we as consumers, have the power to use our devices as desired... Apple has loosened its restrictions a bit. Look at Xcode and cydia impactor allowing apps to be signed outside App Store policy for 1 week of testing... (major consumer win) Apple knows jailbreaking happens and can do nothing about it. Why, courts decided your device can run anything you wish to install ( legally ) so don’t pirate apps and your 100% legal to use your phone as you desire...

Apple loves security so of corse they will patch any glitches and exploits used to create a jailbreak.

But, if not for the laws above to protect us users ios would update itself. No warning no asking just simply would do it... but they can’t and they know this.


“Your statement”

It is beyond insane to suggest that anyone outside of Apple has any right to any particular level of CPU performance at any given time.

Web based exploits do still exist and not all are released to the public... so (I’m a jailbreaker) “maybe you have figured this out” or maybe not. But from os2-ios 11 every device I have is jailbroken

You connect your iPhone to WiFi. Go to sleep as always feeling your iOS device is invincible... let’s say I or another person already have your I.P.

I open my computer, send your IP address mostly the WiFi router a code, ( a special message that only iOS devices will recognize and install),airplane mode turned off whatever it doesn’t matter. It will turn it on and allow my exploit to work. Then bam remotely jailbroken...

Original iPhone default password is alpine. And guess what all other iPhone root passwords are (correct alpine)

ALL IPHONES FROM ORGINAL - iPhonex

So I
Open terminal on my computer (Mac) or if I want use winspc (windows)

Simply type a port number to link into your device. A bash command to link
And finally a username of root with password of alpine.

in 10-15 min as you sleep I install open ssh and Mterminal hide some apps on springboard and in settings so you never even know it happened...

Then.
Using Mterminal and some bash commands

I type su (super user) if you didn’t know
It’s asks for password: alpine and hit return.

Then I’m at your iPhones/ root#
type passwd I hit return after everything
“Changing root password appears”
Type new password *** or any I want
Confirm new password *** done
I see Iphone Iphone root# mobile passwd
Changing mobile password
Enter new password *****
Renter new password *****

And I’m done

Killall SpringBoard restart device and I can access anything I want at any time.

Var/mobile/Media/DCIM

Apple 100 folder inside will have all your pics,
Another folder with downloads
Another with documents

SO NEVER! Say Apple only has control like that...

I will disclose some sequences were shortened and made simpler to read... without going into major details

But I also promise I will never do this to you or anyone’s device without written or text message consent...

So sleep safe... I could slow your cpu to where you would want to throw it against a wall. And I’m 120% not Apple but do love my iPhones

I HAAATE STOCK IOS THO! But I’m never on it... been playing this game with Apple too long, even have a number of my own. Exploits up my sleeves... but they need to up the ios bounty program $$$$$ if they want my 0 days

 

[Rogifan]

No they can't.
once they sell a product with certain advertised features (ex battery life, speed and performance) and someone buys that product, it becomes buyers property not Apple's,and owner has every right to be annoyed and to took action if Apple removes or reduces advertised features -specially secretly- without explaining the reasons to them before.
it's submissive and naive mentality of likes of you that lets these companies to misuse consumers and suck them dry.

What level of CPU/GPU performance does Apple guarantee? The company never gets into specifics and their TOS/EULA doesn’t reference specific hardware performance. While the hardware may be your property once you buy the device the software is not and Apple’s terms & conditions are pretty clear that they can do whatever they want with the software on your device. The only thing you can do is not install software updates.

 

[tito2020]

Please put resources elsewhere, what a waste of time.

anybody that makes more than the us goverment is a bulls eye.

 

[apolloa]

Actually, I don't see why they did it, this would be something like this:
I buy an Electric Vehicle, it runs fine, then a few years later the battery is degraded to say 75%, but still usable for my daily commute as that still gives me about a 75 mile range, but the manufacture decides that because the battery is degraded to 75%, they are going to make the car not travel at speeds higher than 45 mph, even when the battery is fully charged and they claim that it may turn off randomly if they don't limit it like this.

Now, we all understand if the battery is down to 5%-10%, limiting the speed until it is charged again makes sense, but if the battery is fully charged to capacity at 75%, then full speed should easily be able to be achieved. What Apple chose to do is always limit the speed if the battery is degraded, not just when it got down to 5%-10%, plus Apple never gave any indication that it was doing this. In my EV example, when the battery is down to 5% or so and the vehicle is limiting the speed, there is a clear indication on the dash that this is happening so you know what to do to correct it. If Apple had been honest and upfront about it, you wouldn't see near as much outcry about it.

Also though in your example to copy Apple, you would take it to the dealership to say their is something wrong with its speed, the mechanics would test it and tell you their is absolutely nothing wrong with the car. It’s just too old now, have you seen the new latest model that you can buy if you want better performance and top speed..

This has been claimed many many many times as being the way Apple has reacted which has been pretty much confirmed by them publically stating, your battery will be replaced despite their diagnostics reporting nothing is wrong with your device.
That is a key piece of mis information leading to possible mis selling which is pretty illegal in most countries, I believe Apple will be heavily scrutinised over this and deservedly so! If found guilty they will be heavily fined I would imagine.

It shows they not only failed to inform customers about slowing their devices down, they then failed to inform those customers they were doing so when testing their devices, and they refused to replace batteries when offered money to do so. It all adds up to a pretty daming case against them going on for over a year.

 

[ZombieZakk]

OK this has gotten a bit ridiculous.

the two big factors are lack of communication and people misunderstanding of batteries.

First apple should have just been a little more transparent about what they were doing and how and why they were fixing it, i understand it would have sent people into a frenzy then just like it is now. I understand nobody wants their phone to slow down but when it is 3 years old lithium batteries have been charged a lot. If you figure the average person charged once a day that phone has 1,095 cycles on that battery. That is not including anyone who used their phone a lot and would go through 2 cycles per day. Lithium batteries of 3 years ago were not as efficient as today and would degrade by then hell even batteries today are expected to get 2 years so 730 cycles. not 730 days but 730 times of that battery receiving the equivalent of a 100% charge. It happens in my power tools, and anything else that uses batteries. Now the way apple went about it i felt was a better fix than letting phones shut off but they should have just said there's a bug causing it to shut down so were just gonna throttle devices a bit. People would have cried but gotten over it. I am sure there was a calculated conversation had over the loss potential with that statement versus the one they had to deal with if they got caught. No company that size does anything without looking at the numbers no matter how greedy or benevolent we like to think they are it is always about money.

Unfortunately a lot of people still buy phones and keep them for years and years and that's great but to not expect performance to degrade is silly. Your car does not have the same horsepower it did when it left the factory after it gets older. Are we shouting planned obsolescence at Toyota? No because we understand or aren't forced to notice it enough. Now yes is there some planned obsolescence of course! apple is a hardware company and Toyota is a car company and dell is a computer company. If your device lasts forever until you physically damage it that is bad for business, now these companies are not necessarily actively killing their own products but they are also not creating redundancies to ensure they stay running as best they can. They have the ability but it is a bad business move so products are built with a shelf life. And in today's climate the average life span of a phone is 2 years for better or worse. Now most of us on here are tech savvy people but i am sure most of us know family and friends with windows based pc's that they bought 3-5 years ago that are slow and batteries don't last. so they take them to geek squad or ask us to clean them out basically. But a lot of them will go and buy a new laptop simply citing it as old. Now i have plenty of windows pc's i use so this is not a windows bash but to pretend this does not occur is a joke. But how come this is an accepted practice. How come Dell saying that the xxxyh model 3 years ago had 5 hours battery life and i am only getting 3. or that my machine is so bogged down. it is now painfully slow. Where are the inquisitions there? Dell did not put out statements, etc. But the consumer was expected to investigate the problem to determine if it was malware, virus, full hard drive, bad battery. But not here? or is it just that we have come to accept this practice. I think the only people who have a claim here are ones who sought help from Apple, and were advised to buy a new device. But because your neighbor said to does not validate that your device was faulty. We have a responsibility as a consumer to be educated about our devices and products we use we cannot trust corporations that they will do what is best for us.

 

[Supermacguy]

Apple's response should be: "Batteries degrade over time. High power draw from certain apps on the phone mean high battery drain. High drain may mean the phone shuts off completely. We limit the high draw peaks, so phones continue to run and not shut off unexpected. End of story."

 

[kdarling]

I believe the explanation was that unexpected shutdowns were occurring on a small number of devices, they looked into it, and realized the issue was the CPU drawing too much power from degraded batteries. They then issued the update to ensure the problem didn't spread.

In Dec 2016 Apple said shutdowns were due to some iPhone 6s batteries having been exposed for too long "to controlled ambient air" (whatever the heck that means) during assembly, which they said made them degrade quicker.

Apple then said they'd put out a new iOS version with diagnostics to see why other iPhones OUTSIDE of the bad "air" battery serial numbers ALSO had shutdowns.

In Jan 2017 they brought out iOS 10.2.1, which instituted throttling, but the notice on people's phones only said:



And even the online doc only said:

They gave no details on what "power management" meant, obviously preferring to avoid mentioning throttling. A technical person might infer it, but guess what? NOBODY DID.

But regardless, I think most people agree Apple's communication was quite poor. What makes absolutely no sense in any context is the idea that Apple did this intentionally, and accusations on this forum of illegality are similarly baseless.

I think it's obvious that Apple intentionally avoided mentioning throttling for PR reasons.

Was this meant to make people upgrade? That's for a judge and jury to decide, but I would think that it was just a lucrative side effect of Apple avoiding telling the public that their talk about fast custom CPUs didn't always apply after a year or so of usage.

In any case, the bigger story to me is that it seems Apple was caught with their engineering pants down, and had no idea that the battery size they used could fail to provide enough power so soon.

 

[deanthedev]

In any case, the bigger story to me is that it seems Apple was caught with their engineering pants down, and had no idea that the battery size they used could fail to provide enough power so soon.

Surprised you (an engineer) could make such a ridiculous statement. How do you explain all the people who DON'T have throttling issues? Are they lucky? Should they be buying Powerball tickets?

You have absolutely no data on how many devices are affected to make such a claim.

 

[techwarrior]

WTF! Don't the DOJ and SEC have anything better to do with their resources?

Apple took a reasonable approach to the issue of inherent battery degradation, albeit shortsighted in not giving users a choice. They are committed to regaining trust with both an at-cost battery replacement program and controls to let users choose to allow their devices to crash vs slow down.

There is nothing DOJ or SEC can force Apple to do to fix the inherent physics challenges with current generation batteries. And, should new batteries become available without these inherent issues, you can bet Apple, and every other device manufacturer will jump all over it!

I chalk this up to shifty lawyers trying to make a name for themselves at the expense of those with deep pockets.

 

[kdarling]

Surprised you (an engineer) could make such a ridiculous statement.

On the contrary, Apple themselves made it perfectly clear that they were caught unawares, when they stated they had to investigate the cause of sudden shutdowns outside of incorrectly assembled batteries. Apple said this on Dec 6, 2016:

"We looked for any other factors [other than bad factory batteries] that could cause an iPhone to shut down unexpectedly. After intensive investigations, no new factors have been identified. We will continue to monitor and analyze customer reports."

Indeed, we know that iOS originally lacked the power management means (throttling) to prevent such shutdowns when the battery power was insufficient. It was only (quietly) added later when they figured it out.

So there's no other conclusion except that their engineers had failed to foresee the problem. If you claim that they DID foresee it, but failed to code power management for it, then that's even worse engineering. And worse, that would mean they were being disingenuous stating they had found “no new factors.”

In any event, I don't think this was a master obsolescence plot from the top. It smacks more of CYA from some engineering group.

 

[617660]

Only stupid people who don't read the terms and conditions BEFORE pressing agree are the ones that are mad. The terms and conditions strictly says " YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, USE OF THE iOS SOFTWARE AND ANY SERVICES PERFORMED BY OR ACCESSED THROUGH THE iOS SOFTWARE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU". Honestly if you press agree without reading what you are "signing your life away to" you deserve everything that happens thereafter.

People who bring up user term and agreement are totally defenseless. It's almost like they have nothing to back them up so they bring up something that's totally one sided and is superceded by pretty much every single law out there.

 

[doctor-don]

BUSTED!!! Time for Tim Cook to go!

Stop that spit right now; trolling is your thing, but you and those who like your comment must all be trolling to see what you can get.
It is ridiculous for the U.S. government to investigate Apple because of their modification to the power management when the purpose is to prevent the iPhones with older batteries from shutting down due to low battery problems. Are other phone makers being investigated as well because they have included the ability for the user to select Power Saver or Extreme Power Saving Mode (to maximize battery life)?
Those frivolous lawsuits should be thrown out of court as soon as they are filed.

My HTC phone will warn me when the battery percentage drops to a particular level. Then I can plug in the charger.

 

[deanthedev]

On the contrary, Apple themselves made it perfectly clear that they were caught unawares, when they stated they had to investigate the cause of sudden shutdowns outside of incorrectly assembled batteries. Apple said this on Dec 6, 2016:

"We looked for any other factors [other than bad factory batteries] that could cause an iPhone to shut down unexpectedly. After intensive investigations, no new factors have been identified. We will continue to monitor and analyze customer reports."

Indeed, we know that iOS originally lacked the power management means (throttling) to prevent such shutdowns when the battery power was insufficient. It was only (quietly) added later when they figured it out.

So there's no other conclusion except that their engineers had failed to foresee the problem. If you claim that they DID foresee it, but failed to code power management for it, then that's even worse engineering. And worse, that would mean they were being disingenuous stating they had found “no new factors.”

In any event, I don't think this was a master obsolescence plot from the top. It smacks more of CYA from some engineering group.

Logical fallacy. It’s not an “either-or” situation, so why are you trying to make it into one? You are doing nothing more than making assumptions without any evidence to back them up.

 

[kdarling]

Logical fallacy. It’s not an “either-or” situation, so why are you trying to make it into one?

Either Apple already knew that the batteries would sometimes not provide enough power or they didn't. There's no third choice on that topic.

You are doing nothing more than making assumptions without any evidence to back them up.

You mean you wish to ignore the evidence.

We do know for a fact that they didn't implement power management that would keep the phone running until iOS 10.2.1, a year after the initial reports of sudden shutdowns on iPhones 6 that first occurred e.g. when power levels fell below 30%.

As I've said many times, I don't think their intentions were evil. They were just trying to avoid bad PR by leaving out details.

 

[deanthedev]

Either Apple already knew that the batteries would sometimes not provide enough power or they didn't. There's no third choice on that topic.

You’re ignoring the fact there are multiple reasons why different batteries have issues. Manufacturing defects, normal aging, abnormal use by users, temperature/climate and so on. Each of those scenarios Apple either knew about or didn’t know about. That leaves us with numerous possibilities.

What you’re trying to do is imply that Apple either knew or didn’t know. The fact is they could have known about some issues but not about others. So they wrote software to catch all possibilities.

You mean you wish to ignore the evidence.

We do know for a fact that they didn't implement power management that would keep the phone running until iOS 10.2.1, a year after the initial reports of sudden shutdowns on iPhones 6 that first occurred e.g. when power levels fell below 30%.

As I've said many times, I don't think their intentions were evil. They were just trying to avoid bad PR by leaving out details.

That’s not much evidence to go on. The only way we’ll find out is when (or if) any cases go to court. Apple will be able to give a timeline of what they did, and what data they used to make decisions (like how many devices had shutdowns). Until then it’s all conjecture.

 

[dewski]

Afterwards, we can go after Auto manufacturers for installing governors.

We can if they turn on those governors after I have been driving it for a year.

 

[buckwheet]

I'm sure it's been said already, but the really pathetic thing about all this is that, if Apple hadn't done anything, the infants would have been bitching and moaning about battery life, or about apps quitting... Your phone's old, your battery is crap; deal with it. (btw, I have an iPhone 6, so I fully understand the "problem"...)

Making matters worse, I've been waiting for 10 days for Apple to replace the LCD on my 2016 MacBook Pro—which has now failed TWICE—all because Apple buckled to these ignorant, whining children, thus driving their service backlog through the roof... soooooo incredibly annoying...

 

[2010mini]

I mean there’s a lot of things that aren’t acceptable and slowing down old iPhones is one of them.

Would Steve wanted us to settle?

Not even the almighty SJ can prevent performance issues related to aging lithium batteries. The software fix is not about slowing the phone down. It’s about managing peak performance so the phone doesn’t shut off to prevent failure. That is actually the smart way to do it. If the battery is swapped out, the issue goes away.

If Apple was really purposely slowing down old phones, a new battery wouldn’t matter.
[doublepost=1517423928][/doublepost]

This. My pet peeve as well. And please stop the incessant and annoying upgrade reminders.

You do realize those annoying upgrades come with a lot of very important security fixes. Apple just like every other software vendor are constantly trying to keep your data safe. But you know what...... ignore the alerts. If/ when you get your data stolen.... you have only yourself to blame.

 

[newellj]

I mean there’s a lot of things that aren’t acceptable and slowing down old iPhones is one of them.

Would Steve wanted us to settle?

NEWSFLASH: Steve would have told you you're holding it wrong. And that's a fact.

 

[UL2RA]

NEWSFLASH: Steve would have told you you're holding it wrong. And that's a fact.

People keep forgetting that Apple has been doing things like this for quite some time. I don't think anything will ever top "you're holding it wrong" though. That was some next-level idiocy.

 

[mi7chy]

WTF! Don't the DOJ and SEC have anything better to do with their resources?

 

[Phonephreak]

Funny how this won’t go away. People still complaining about. People defending Apple Cases/investigations keep coming. Governments involved. This isn’t going away Apple.

 

[617660]

I wonder how much $$ Apple needs to reserve for litigation cost from tomorrow's earning report. Could be interesting to find out.

 

[newellj]

I wonder how much $$ Apple needs to reserve for litigation cost from tomorrow's earning report. Could be interesting to find out.

Might not be in the earnings release or call (although there may be analyst questions), but could be in the Form 10-Q, which is likely to be filed within a day or so of the earnings call. I wouldn't expect any break-out for this contingency, though.

[doublepost=1517436114][/doublepost]

People keep forgetting that Apple has been doing things like this for quite some time. I don't think anything will ever top "you're holding it wrong" though. That was some next-level idiocy.

Yeah - nearly messianic. :ego:

 

[mi7chy]

I wonder how much $$ Apple needs to reserve for litigation cost from tomorrow's earning report. Could be interesting to find out.

Just for the US government alone it'll be more than the $450 million that Apple had to pay for eBook price fixing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_Inc.

When considering all the cases worldwide it'll probably be a few billion total.