Apple's Alleged Throttling of Older iPhones With Degraded Batteries Causes Controversy (macrumors.com) 183
An anonymous reader shares a report: A Reddit post over the weekend has drawn a flurry of interest after an iPhone 6s owner reported that a battery replacement significantly increased the device's performance running iOS 11. The ensuing discussion thread, also picked up by readers in the MacRumors forum, has led to speculation that Apple intentionally slows down older phones to retain a full day's charge if the battery has degraded over time. According to TeckFire, the author of the original Reddit post, their iPhone had been very slow after updating to iOS 11, especially compared to their brother's iPhone 6 Plus, so they decided to do some research with GeekBench and battery life apps, and ended up replacing the battery.
Unlike samsung (Score:4, Funny)
Who makes their phones BLAZING fast
Re: (Score:2)
The Note 7 was blazing because of a new battery, too!
Might be a nice option (Score:5, Insightful)
But they shouldn't force it.
Re:Might be a nice option (Score:5, Interesting)
But they shouldn't force it.
You think that because you come from Android. Obviously I'm talking generalities here and there are plenty of exceptions but Apple and Android have a different philosophical approach.
Apple try to provide a good service, in part by making it simple to operate so the end-user doesn't have to make any decisions. They make an educated decision on behalf of their user base. (many who are old and don't really understand the technology, so appreciate that).
Android try to leave many decisions in the hands of the users. A lot of them make poor decisions, but it is their decision to make. A lot of them are uneducated about the decisions, but again, if they wanted to they can learn and customize the operating system and the whole experience much more minutely than can be done on Apple's part.
Apple understands their customer base. By and large, it's older and more wealthy than the Android customer base. It's less tech savvy, and wants an experience provided for them. They don't want an operating system that is work for them to configure. Yeah, it might be nice to default it on and give them an option to change it, but the more options there are, the more complexity there is in configuring.
Re:Might be a nice option (Score:5, Insightful)
And basically this is entirely invalidated by designing the phone such that the battery is not user-replaceable.
Apple designed a device that will intentionally run slower without the end user paying someone else to disassemble the phone to replace parts. Given the cost to service an older device weighed against the cost of a new device, a lot of users are going to opt for the new device, especially if they don't realize that the reason the phone is operating poorly is because of the battery.
Re:Might be a nice option (Score:5, Informative)
And basically this is entirely invalidated by designing the phone such that the battery is not user-replaceable.
First of all, I've replaced batteries in iPhones many times and its incredibly easy. Here's a guy replacing one in four minutes [youtube.com]. And you can even get a specific set of tools that will make it simple including the battery for around $25 [amazon.com].
If that's too complicated there are thousands of places both local and online that will replace your battery for a very nominal fee.
It would take me probably half an hour to replace the PSU in my PC but I don't refer to it as being "not user-replaceable".
Re: (Score:3)
And you're a tech enthusiast, possibly a tech professional.
Now, how does the average nontechnical end user even know that the battery is why the phone is running slowly to begin with?
Re:Might be a nice option (Score:5, Interesting)
How many people have access to a tech enthusiast or professional who can perform such a thing? And in every mall is a kiosk that will do it for $25 plus parts while you wait (30 minutes tops)
This is not a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
I've personally seen more iPhones ruined by the $50+parts shops, and you're advocating that he cheaper labor won't fuck it up? There are a very slim number of people who should be trusted to service these devices: the manufacturer, the actual owner, and a handful of skilled repair facilities typically not found in such a dusty environment a
Re: (Score:2)
Dusty? Please. This is not a hard drive or a chip fab.
The screens are sealed to the digitizers in modern iPhones, so that's not an issue either.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I see you failed to address my main point about water resistance. Why?
It's a non issue, at least on my iPhone 6. I replaced the battery on my 6 a month ago because it didn't last a day anymore. All I did was buy a $20 battery at one of those mall stands. The 6 and 6s are incredibly easy to open, and it took me more time to soften the glue with a hairdryer than open/close and everything.
As for the water resistance: if you don't mess with any of the other parts, you should be able to have the same resistance. Remember that water resistance is not water proof.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's talk about a more recent model, though; one that's actually considered (and advertised by Apple) as water resistant. The iPhone 7, a year old now, but a whole two years newer than your iPhone 6, is advertised to survive being submerged in up to 3ft of water for up to 30 minutes. The repair process is more or less identical; the type of screws and the battery part num
Re: (Score:2)
in this case, I'm going to have to disagree with you. Popping out the screen and digitizer is a 5 min job, tops. As long as you don't squeeze it with pliers or use a metal chisel, the chance that you're going to screw up that seal is minimal.
There is no headphone jack in the 7 and the speakers, mics, and lightning jack are all sealed. Provided you don't remove those parts (a goal post planted by the person I was replying to), you don't have to worry about them leaking. The seal around the screen is the glue you're removing when you take it out and, well, phones tend to get a little warm (understatement of the year) internally so wax wouldn't really hold up; why do you think they don't use it from the factory? Have you ever actually had one of t
Re: (Score:2)
Again, we're talking about retaining water resistance. To retain a feature, the phone would have to have come from the factory with tha
Re: (Score:2)
They are among the brands, yes. I still hold they're a bigger pain than the 6S and prior for the reasons stated, by both of us.
I suppose if you lack the proper tools, yeah, they're kind of a pain to work on. When you can get a passable set of watchmakers' tools for under $100 (you have to buy a couple individually, but the total should still be well below $100) and piecemeal replace the ones you actually use frequently enough with better ones... well, there's no excuse not to have the right tools if you're a collector and actually wish to maintain them yourself.
I've only had one give me a problem; a Movado ESQ (their cheaper line
Re: (Score:2)
But yeah, the glue around the iPhone 7 (and 8 and X) screen is a critical component. Horrible design, IMO, when a 0.1mm silicone gasket could serve the purpose just as well and improve serviceability immensely (keeping it at iPhone 6 l
Re: (Score:2)
Find another term besides "not user replaceable" which is demonstrably incorrect. You don't need an engineering degree you need $25, access to youtube and a few free minutes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And that "4 minutes" includes cuts for some steps and speeding up the footage of trying to pry out the glued-in battery without breaking anything.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Laptop batteries last at most 2 years before needing replacement. And new batteries are about 25% of the cost of a new laptop (on the low end). On the otherhand, upgrading to SSD and replacing the battery on an older laptop makes it feel like a brand new one.
Designed to be obsolete.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The UK HE site has given 3 years as standard for about 15 years. I think that it's standard for other corporate customers too, and can be purchased by anyone ('AppleCare'). The Consumer Rights Act (and before that, the Sale of Goods Act) require that the product last for a reasonable length of time, defined in part by manufacturers claims and can be returned for a full refund
Re: Might be a nice option (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure why you'd ding Dell for exactly the same thing you're praising apple for. (well, maybe I can guess)
Batteries ARE consumables. How *fast* they're consumed is another story and varies with the quality, chemistry, and usage. Not voiding the warranty most certainly is still an argument though. Apple will often refuse to replace a battery within warranty unless it's severely degraded. If, however, you don't think missing 25% of your battery capacity is a good thing you're stuck paying apple's p
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure why you'd ding Dell for exactly the same thing you're praising apple for.
Huh? Apple has replaced batteries for us out of warranty if they don't retain 80% charge in under their rated number of discharge cycles. Dell refuses to replace batteries for machines that are under warranty. How do you think this equates to dinging Dell for the same thing I'm praising Apple for.
The difference with the iPhone batteries is that they don't (that I know of) provide users with a mechanism for seeing the full charge capacity or the recharge cycle. This means that the only way that you have
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
FYI: If you take it to a shop and they screw up and breaks the LCD, the replacement will be a cheap knockoff.
Re: (Score:2)
FYI: If you take it to a shop and they screw up and breaks the LCD, the replacement will be a cheap knockoff.
While it's certainly possible, making blanket statements like this is just silly.
Re: Might be a nice option (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>iphone batteries are user-replaceable
You're retreating to an absolute metric.
If you assume the industry has a spectrum of UR/nonUR, iphone is in the non-UR end. Easily.
If you assume a binary condition for the market's phones, iphone is non-UR. Easily.
AKSHUALLY won't change the hard facts above.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're still hiding the verdict behind "anyone can do it".
In question was their non UR intent/design. Every overdressed lens flare of press release, every page of documentation, every leashed puppet word from staff, every fine print on the boilerplate. The original point was about their business strategy, and for all your faith in users it still stands.
Engine oil is UR, with no respect to the capabilities/preferences of the population. By design. This stands whether 100% or 0% of drivers let the local lube
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I've had to completely remove the motherboard to get the power supply out on several computers. Yes, that is a bad design.
Re:Might be a nice option (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Might be a nice option (Score:2)
Snapdragon 810 (Score:2)
Here is an interesting difference between Apple and Google.
The CPUs in the Nexus 5x and 6p are prone to burning out the fast cores [xda-developers.com]. When this thermal damage takes place, the phones go into boot-loops.
If you were smart enough to unlock the bootloader, you are able to install a version of TWRP that locks down the fast cores, and only uses the slow ones. From there, you can load a custom kernel that does the same, and restore limited functionality.
You would think that any sane company would immediately roll th
Might be mandated by physics (Score:2)
I read elsewhere that itâ(TM)s not just a good idea from a usability perspective but itâ(TM)s also a good idea from a safety perspective. Namely if you are pushing further into and old batteryâ(TM)s low voltage regime you may be altering the battery chemistry in a way that degrades the battery faster, or builds up excessive heat is you demanded the same current as a new battery.
Re: (Score:2)
Was it the same phone unit? When I asked to replace my battery a year ago, they gave me a (refurbised?) new unit. Maybe he is seeing new flash performance.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and iFixit also rates the iPhone on par with many Android phones in terms of repairability
So that makes it all better? You're saying that the Android phone manufacturers are right, then, because that means your beloved Apple is also right? They could all be wrong, too, you know...
Nice whataboutism, though.
If not an option, then at least inform the user (Score:2)
The very least they should do is to inform the user: "Your battery is degraded and performance is reduced as a result. It is recommended you have the battery replaced."
Having said that, I don't agree that an advanced option somewhere an average user won't even know to look, is "increasing complexity in configuring". Heck, it seems every time my iPad gets a major update I have to go through a handful of screens worth of iCloud logins and what not. This is stuff I _already_ configured. If Apple feels that is
Re: (Score:2)
Update: I browsed the Reddit real quick, and it seems likely it's not just a trick to retain a day's worth of battery, but to prevent devices from shutting down by drawing too much power. If that is the case then obviously an option to run full blast would be a bad idea. Informing the user would still be a grand idea, though.
Re: (Score:2)
This also applies to political philosophies as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Or even some of us who simply want a smartphone to work - who don't really do much in the way of "configuration". Plenty of tech savvy people use iPhones an Apple products simply because the integration of Apple's walled garden is in and of itself very, very good. I also work supporting other people all day long and sometimes when I come home I just want to do a bit of coding and not have to worry about
Re: (Score:2)
I am upset. The whole problem is they are making the phone perform worse. Worse. WORSE that is. Slower is bad. Apple is supposed to give you fast products. Plus who the hell thinks "my phone is going slower, I guess it needs a new battery", that absolutely is misleading.
I am quite sure over 50% of users of old products would rather the old phone perform just as fast but need to be recharged one more time per day. Apple is going the other route because they would rather you just buy a new phone. That's dirty
Re: (Score:2)
I can see just as much anger going if it was an option. I have recently upgraded my 6. Mostly due to the fact that its battery wasn't lasting a day, the phone would drop to 50% at the end of the day if I didn't do anything with it. If I used it for any tasks I may be able to get it past 5:00 PM. Being that it is an older model of phone it wasn't worth it for me to fix the battery, so I upgraded. While there is a low power mode feature in iOS which reduces functions, it was nice to know the phone was des
Speculation (Score:2, Insightful)
So when does speculation make the leap to fact?
Re: (Score:2)
Have you been living under a rock. We live in a world where everything is untrue, except for the person who is stating it to be absolute truth, but we don't believe them because everything is untrue. Not explaining thing in absolutes shows weakness.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
After they finish the testing TFS mentions.
Oh wait.
No real controversy, IMO (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No real controversy, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
The real controversy is the lack of communication to the owners of the devices. They should be fully informed of this 'innovative technology' so they can spend the $40 to get a new battery installed, instead of giving up and buying a new iGadget.
Re: (Score:2)
What? And miss the opportunity to sell a new I-Device?
Apple is a lot of things, but stupid isn't among them. Some of their customers however....
Personally, I figured this was the case anyway. That old I-Device gets slower for two reasons though. 1. The battery has less capacity so they try to keep he device running longer by scaling back power consumption. 2. IOS is getting bigger and slower as more capabilities are added and because apple has this "Unified user interface" concept to keep up they have
Re: (Score:2)
This is a pretty easy DIY repair, if you are so inclined.
Remove the two pentalobular screws and gingerly open the phone with a guitar pick.
< strikethrough>Smash it with a hammer and replace with android< /strikethrough>
The battery is held in with two adhesive strips, but there is a trick to removing it. at the bottom of the battery is a little black tab. Peel that off of the battery. The adhesive strips are like the 3m command adhesives, and that little tab is what you carefully pull to remov
Re: (Score:3)
But in case of an emergency, will Apple's "help" drop your call to 911 because the cellular radio is in a low-power state?
Re:No real controversy, IMO (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
The discussion is about them lowering the processor speed unconditionally to avoid drawing higher voltage on a battery that was only 20% degraded, to prevent phone shutdowns while the battery still had power. This is likely a similar problem to the phone shutdowns that other phone makers have experienced, such as the Nexus 6p, which Google ended up replacing many of with Pixel phones under warranty. Apple is trying to avoid warranty replacement instead of having a battery control circuit that detected tha
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When a phone is in a lower power state, power management can do several things to extend longevity: run the processor slower, dim the screen, operate the cellular radio in a lower power state. A worn out battery could potentially cause one or more of these things to happen.
It wouldn't be if the OS would notify the user about the said throttle. For instance, Power Saving Mode.
I don't know for you, but when I'm buying a phone with great performance, I'm expecting the phone to be running at those spect at all time.
Re: (Score:2)
Huh - a subject I'm entirely divided on (Score:5, Insightful)
On the one hand it's eminently sensible to slow the device if that will eek out enough battery for the expected usage - a dead phone has zero performance. And batteries degrade as they get older, that we know... but if the user has no visibility of this, if they have no idea that it's happening or how to fix it then their device is being hobbled without an obvious fix.
Everybody knows that if battery doesn't last, you should replace the battery. But if the phone gets slower... the fix isn't visible. And we know Apple employees aren't the most honest when you ask for diagnosis...
Sensible thing to do, but as all closed-source bundles, if the user isn't informed then it's still pretty anti-consumer.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Another possible title is "apple sells phone with defective batteries; uses software to avoid having to replace them until the phone warranty runs out."
Apple uses children with AIDS who are chained to rats nests and fed only rotted chickens to assemble their phones.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Huh - a subject I'm entirely divided on (Score:5, Funny)
"eke". Not "eek". That's the sound a mouse makes.
Actually, the original spelling was correct. I use a hamster-wheel generator to charge my phone.
Re:Huh - a subject I'm entirely divided on (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't about making the battery last longer. It's about making the phone work at all. It has to do with battery chemistry.
Old batteries don't just "last less". They also have an increased internal series resistance. That resistance actually limits the amount of power you can pull out of it. The more current you draw, the more energy is wasted as heat, and the lower the output voltage. As internal series resistance increases, it becomes physically impossible to get more than a certain amount of power out of the battery, and this limit also decreases as the battery drains during a given discharge cycle. It's a hard physical limit. The I-V curve just never hits your power target. If you try, your voltage sags and then the phone shuts down. This is what triggers a common syndrome in old devices, where the battery meter shows 30% but then you try to open up a CPU-intensive app and the device immediately shuts down. Chances are that's not the battery meter being wrong or miscalibrated: there really was 30% charge remaining in the battery. It just wasn't capable of handling that much power draw at that charge level. There's 30% charge remaining and there's a hidden limit as to how fast you can drain it.
It's almost certain that what Apple did here was start throttling phone performance when battery voltage sags below a critical threshold, to prevent hard shutdowns. On older batteries, this would appear as a performance limit as the battery empties. But it was never about making the phone last longer. It's just a physical limitation. The alternative is your phone shuts down. That's obviously not good.
The right solution, of course, is to have a notification or something that tells users when this is happening. Something along the lines of "Your battery cannot supply enough power to keep your device working at full performance. To maintain optimum performance, a battery replacement is recommended.".
My phone (and battery) worked fine in iOS 10 (Score:2)
My iPhone 6 worked fine running the final version of iOS 10. I can remember 2 spontaneous shutdowns over the last two years. Those were annoying when they happened, but they didn't happen often.
The day I upgraded to iOS 11, performance on my phone went into the toilet. It was sluggish. The screen stuttered. I had trouble switching between apps. I had to tap buttons on the screen several times before the taps
Re: (Score:2)
What that means is that if you keep your phone charge in the ideal 20-80% charge level, you will get 50% of the stated specs 100% of the time.
Re: (Score:2)
You may well be right, they did have some issues with premature shut down that seemed to be related to times of high load on the battery.
The thing is, it's bad design. They use very small batteries compared to other similarly sized phones. It's the old form over function decision, 0.01mm thinner at the expense of having an inadequate battery.
Also reminds me of the iPhone 4 antenna. Simple lack of experience designing phones, leading to them forgetting to test things like holding it or when the battery is ag
Re: (Score:2)
If any of what you wrote was remotely true it would happen with other phones. Instead Android phones just get shorter and shorter lives but has the same performance.
Re: (Score:2)
That's because most Android phones do *not* do this and then succumb to the sudden death syndrome. That's what my Nexus 10 started doing after its battery went kaput. It would run for ages on standby or with the screen brightness on low and not doing much, but instantly die as soon as It tried to play back a video (but would boot right back up and the battery voltage shot up to near fully charged levels after shutdown). Internal resistance.
On the other hand, I have heard anecdotal reports from friends with
Re:Huh - a subject I'm entirely divided on (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing is that Apple DOES give the user some visibility to this issue. When iOS senses that the battery is failing, it puts up a "Battery Performance Degraded" warning in the Battery section of the Settings screen. I saw it on my iPhone 6, but not until it got to the point where the phone would only last 3 hours on a charge and the phone would just randomly power itself off when the battery got below 40% charge. I got the battery replaced, and now it goes 2 days on a single charge again.
They might want to put that battery warning in a place more prominently, but it is there.
Re: (Score:2)
I would bet that this isn't even to preserve battery life, but intentionally to make the phone seem old/slow. If someone pays the Apple tax and gets a new battery, they get some more performance for a while.
Everyone knows that the last iOS device made available for a given iPhone is always going to be a performance killer. It happens every time. Not to mention new features are artificially hardware restricted many times too.
Re: (Score:2)
In the reddit thread, tons of people are talking about how even having the thing plugged into power doesn't allow max performance. There are also several saying the same thing happens on Macbook laptops. And most of these guys are posting real stats from different performance testing apps and whanot. This is dirty of Apple, I don't care how you slice it or them.
Re: (Score:2)
Too confusing. Apple gadget buyers are paying for a streamlined experience where they can know almost nothing about the technology they use.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like when you drive a car, you want to just get where you are going, and not worry about setting a slider to adjust the engine based on power vs gas consumption? That level of not knowing anything about the tech you use?
Re: (Score:2)
Users don't spend time thinking through the problem. My little sister complained that her two-year old iPhone wouldn't last her through the day. Turns out she doesn't plug it in at night, just in the car to/from work and her mophie when she needs more battery. That will obviously degrade the battery, but not everyone seems to understand these things.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that your phone is discharging for 6-8 additional hours per day, and doing a fast charge to boost the battery. When you charge frequently from a low state, the phone tries to get as much capacity as quickly as it can each time; when you are charging from 50% it is doing a slow charge.
Tesla has the same issue with their superchargers; they don't recommend using them all the time.
Why is this a problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why is this a problem? (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps they could include a battery door so you can swap in a fresh battery at a small cost.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
With the tiny addition that in the same model apple admitted a manufacturing defect in the battery for a range of serial numbers, and initiated a replacement program - not for all phones, just for that range.
It couldn't have anything to do with that defect, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If the consumer doesn't know the cause is the battery, then I disagree. Most consumers would rather spend ~$100 on a new battery than $699 on a new phone.
Give us OPTIONS (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes I know, most Apple users aren't nerds, etc.
However, it would be nice to do the same thing Tesla does with their cars: always keep the battery between 30~70% (or was it 40~80%?). Letting the phone charge its battery to 100% every time and letting it drop to 0% just kills lithium-ion batteries.
Just let the user set "maximum battery run time" or "maximum battery longevity".
Re: (Score:3)
You're assuming that 100% on the battery meter corresponds to 100% of the chemical potential in the battery.
There's no particular reason Apple has to do that. And they don't.
Re: (Score:3)
Apple learned a long time ago to wait until the battery discharges below 95% before charging again. That last 5% is really hard on Li-ion batteries. I know this because I had a "Pismo" Powerbook back in 2000-2001 and the battery died after just a year of use, probably because I kept sleeping it, then plugging it in. (It didn't help that I ran OS X beta on it, which didn't sleep everything properly.) A couple of years later they added the 95% recharge threshold.
I see this behavior all the time on my current
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting. Source?
Re: (Score:2)
iPhones/iPad/MacBooks etc. will let the battery discharge down to 90 or 95%, even when plugged in, and then charge back up, since holding a Li-Ion battery at 100% is bad for it.
As demonstrated with 787s.
degraded battery degrades phone's performance (Score:2)
because it can't suck enough energy fast enough.
News at 11.
Conspiracy theories right now.
Anecdotal but this explains a lot (Score:2)
I still use iOS 4 on my iPhone 4 (Score:2)
Simple stupid test (Score:2)
What are the benchmarks like when the phone is plugged in and charging?
6s had large number of defective batteries (Score:2)
It was not "over time" - it was in less than 4 months. Apple would not or replace my battery until some lawsuit came about. "Apple has admitted that some iPhone 6S devices can suddenly shut down for no apparent reason. The tech giant is offering owners of the problematic smartphones free replacement batteries. ... Apple's battery replacement offer for the iPhone 6S applies worldwide."
Yet we keep. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I have never heard of this before. Admittedly I do not play in the forced-induction world, but for naturally-aspirated vehicles, of which are the vast majority, vehicle performance degrades over time as wear on the rings reduces effective compression and wear on the various bearings increases friction. This takes far more miles than a simple 20,000 mile major service interval. You're talking hitting upwards of 100,000 miles before it's a major issue.
Re: (Score:2)
As vehicles age, they build up carbon in the cylinders. Carbon causes hot spots and predetonation. So the ECU retards the ignition timing. Just pop the cylinder heads off, clean out the carbon and you get better performance.
Re: (Score:2)
I just pulled the heads off of a 2002 Audi A6 this summer. There was a pretty good layer of crud on the piston and heads. Well tuned? Until it ate its valves, it passed every emissions test with no CEL.
Re: (Score:2)
macOS will activate the burner to "scratch" the disc
Citation needed, but YIKES!