13 ms·

I really like Linus' (Sebastian, not Torvalds) thoughts about this: https://youtu.be/TJUeHmdzSx4?t=11m22s https://youtu.be/TJUeHmdzSx4?t=11m22s Basically, Appl

I really like Linus' (Sebastian, not Torvalds) thoughts about this: https://youtu.be/TJUeHmdzSx4?t=11m22s https://youtu.be/TJUeHmdzSx4?t=11m22s Basically, Apple chose to tune the phones to run at a dangerously high configuration to increase benchmarks, knowing that the battery will degrade like this (and that when the iphone X2 comes out, nobody will be talking about this, instead they'll be talking about how much faster the X2 is than the X). His exact quote is that "they are running them so close to the red line that surely they must know, when they're shipping these things (Because it's not like LiOn batteries are especially new tech at this point, and Apple has done TONS of research in this field), Apple knows pretty much exactly what's going to happen with this, pretty much perfectly, and they're making the conscious decision to do this" Before I heard this I thought "Oh come on, Apple truely is protecting your phone here", but after hearing his argument I changed my mind.

sa1f 9y ago
What does "running them close to the red line" mean? Do iPhone batteries degrade faster than other phones?
- chipperyman573 9y ago
  Optimizing for speed instead of device survivability. Basically, instead of running at 110% for the first year then throttling to much less so the device doesn't break, they should have shipped them running at 90-100% so they can last longer. (Those numbers are random but the point is still valid)
  - arcticbull 9y ago
    I don't think that's a fair representation of what's happening though. The reality is that running it at 110% (for whatever that means) is using a new battery at its maximum discharge rate. As the battery ages, its maximum discharge rate decreases, and would have whether run at 110% or 90%. You need to go way out of spec to prematurely age batteries by discharging too fast. They age mostly by being exposed to high temperatures, stored fully charged, and by being fully discharged (partial charge cycles are better). Artificially limiting performance to the post-degradation level can be seen as wasteful, can it not? Now the way Apple handled it, silently, throttling performance without a configuration option is interesting. I think the benchmarks may not be truly representative of what is happening, and it's probably closer to a TDP limit on the CPU where it runs real fast until it realizes it can't then it ... doesn't. That comes across as maximally efficient in real life but slow in benchmarks. This is all in the marketing. Either you can look at it as "iPhone find a way to squeeze every last bit of battery life out of both new and old devices" or you can look at it as "my phone slows down over time" -- the reality of the chemistry of lithium ion devices. IMO this should be handled with a configuration switch and a notification when performance starts to become limited, though how many would be totally confused by this? That hundreds of millions of users took years to notice should be an indication this whole thing worked pretty well IMO.
    - dsharlet 9y ago
      > That hundreds of millions of users took years to notice should be an indication this whole thing worked pretty well IMO. People absolutely have been noticing, this has been a very popular and long running issue. It took years for Apple to admit it, not for people to notice. I think this could have been better handled by throttling according to the actual condition of the battery, rather than controlling it via software updates. The former seems reasonable, the latter is pretty shady. (Maybe this is actually what is happening and the press has confused what is going on.)
      - garretraziel 9y ago
        They are throttling it according to battery's condition (but actual throttling apparatus was added via an update). If you replace old battery with a new one, phone starts running at full speed again.
      - mehrdada 9y ago
        > People absolutely have been noticing, this has been a very popular and long running issue. It took years for Apple to admit it, not for people to notice. The behavior in question was introduced in 10.2.1 which was first released in Feb 2017. So no, it was not a conspiracy going on for years. The annual slowdown was just poor unoptimized software. Occam's razor.
  - sa1f 9y ago
    Hmm, just a bit skeptical about that. I'm pretty sure that peak "110%" usage rarely happens throughout the day; Maybe during video playback or gaming. This is especially true since the iPhone 7, with its two low power cores who's entire purpose is to extend battery life.
    - thisacctforreal 9y ago
      IIUC the low power cores could be configured to both extend short-term battery life (daily cycles), and decrease long-term battery life. The uproar is strictly re: long-term battery life.
- chrisper 9y ago
  It's like overclocking your CPU very close to the limits of your cooling ability. You will get great benchmark scores, but your CPU will also last a lot less as well (though with CPUs it doesn't matter if they now run for 20 years or 32 years, but if you push it a lot more you might damage it. But hey, at least you got great benchmark points).
  - amelius 9y ago
    Wouldn't you also get more hardware errors, causing e.g. sudden kernel panics and stuff like that? And wouldn't that damage the brand more than the speed improvement is worth?
    - chrisper 9y ago
      Yeah. One could argue that if you are getting hardware errors you are already at the red line (and not just close to it). Regarding damage: It depends what your goal is. Some people want to get as much performance out of the CPU as possible since they maybe upgrade after a year or two anyway. Some people even try to set records by using crazy cooling systems.
simonbarker87 9y ago
If Apple slowed the phone down upfront then people would complain that Apple were throttling as the user is “too dumb to look after their battery properly” so instead they are doing when they can point to a proven need to throttle the device. This feels like a no win situation for Apple unless they had/will put in “throttle my phone so it doesn’t go weird” switch in settings. Side note: we’ve known for years that hammering a battery day in day out causes problems, my wife and I have had our 6S phones for the same amount of time - I plug mine in as much as possible (over charging is not a problem anymore) and she runs hers into the red all the time. After 2 years my phone runs fine and, when needed, I get a days charge out of it but she barely gets 4 hours and is noticeably slower. If people looked after their batteries better this would be less of a problem.
- mplewis 9y ago
  On that note, it'd be nice if Apple were more user-friendly about battery cycle counts. I don't think there's a way for me to see battery health without installing an app, and I've never seen a message asking me to replace the battery in my two-year-old iPhone.
  - mdwrigh2 9y ago
    If the battery does degrade to the point of needing to be replaced, there is a message in the battery settings page: http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/iPhone-battery-servicing-warning.jpg http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/iP...
- chrisper 9y ago
  LiOn is all about loading cycles. In the same amount of time (let's say 5 days) she has used up way more cycles than you did. You probably charged 5 * 20% while she maybe charged 5 * 90%. Obviously she is using up her load cycles much faster than you are. So no surprise her battery isn't very good anymore. I don't think you two are using the phone equally much (meaning using up the same loading cycles in the 5 days). Like for example, she charging 2 * 90% and you charging 4 * 20% and 1 * 10%.
netsharc 9y ago
For those interested this is Linus Sebastian (or his last name "Tech Tips"), not Torvalds... As the video was loading I was wondering if Torvalds had started commenting on general tech news.
- szatkus 9y ago
  Well, Linus Torvalds posts at RWT.
abalone 9y ago
This is just sensationalist poorly sourced crap. > "they are making these devices that it's difficult to replace the battery for..." No. It's free under AppleCare and a whopping $79 out of warranty, and you can do it via mail. > "they are running them so close to the redline that they can only handle it for a year" No source cited for this. There is no indication that iPhones are regularly degrading beyond 80% within or shortly after one year. > [compares to volkswagen emissions cheat] Seems reasonable. :-/ It's ironic that this guy invokes the specter of benchmark cheating when Apple actually has been one of the only manufacturers that hasn't engaged in it.[1] [1] https://www.xda-developers.com/benchmark-cheating-strikes-back-how-oneplus-and-others-got-caught-red-handed-and-what-theyve-done-about-it/ https://www.xda-developers.com/benchmark-cheating-strikes-ba...
- izacus 9y ago
  Many throttled 6S phones show up as "green" on Apple diagnostic which means that Apple stores will generaly refuse to do the battery swap.
- jackvalentine 9y ago
  I'm one of the people defending Apple's charge for battery replacement as reasonable, but his point is it's actually a physically difficult thing to do, to replace the battery. It takes real skill to replace a modern iphone battery without ruining it. > "they are running them so close to the redline that they can only handle it for a year" As for this, he's citing the fact the iPhone 7 is affected - a phone that came out just over a year ago.
  - waterphone 9y ago
    It doesn't really take that much skill. I did it in 15 minutes for the first time with no advance reading/watching. The kits you can buy online come with a full set of tools and instructions.
    - jackvalentine 9y ago
      Counter anecdote: my housemate totally ruined his girlfriends phone trying.
frik 9y ago
Why is this news hidden? Every second interesting news gets hidden away these days
specialist 9y ago
I love this hack. It's awesome that a device was made adaptive to its context. Tunable. We can chip our cars to optimize performance. We can even remotely update satellites, probes, rovers to extend their lives. Awesome. Better would be a "check engine light" when a new battery is needed. Best would be full transparency. I want coconutBattery functionality on the iOS device. I want the option of running the diagnostic utilities the Genius Bar uses.

sa1f 9y ago

What does "running them close to the red line" mean? Do iPhone batteries degrade faster than other phones?

chipperyman573 9y ago
Optimizing for speed instead of device survivability. Basically, instead of running at 110% for the first year then throttling to much less so the device doesn't break, they should have shipped them running at 90-100% so they can last longer. (Those numbers are random but the point is still valid)
- arcticbull 9y ago
  I don't think that's a fair representation of what's happening though. The reality is that running it at 110% (for whatever that means) is using a new battery at its maximum discharge rate. As the battery ages, its maximum discharge rate decreases, and would have whether run at 110% or 90%. You need to go way out of spec to prematurely age batteries by discharging too fast. They age mostly by being exposed to high temperatures, stored fully charged, and by being fully discharged (partial charge cycles are better). Artificially limiting performance to the post-degradation level can be seen as wasteful, can it not? Now the way Apple handled it, silently, throttling performance without a configuration option is interesting. I think the benchmarks may not be truly representative of what is happening, and it's probably closer to a TDP limit on the CPU where it runs real fast until it realizes it can't then it ... doesn't. That comes across as maximally efficient in real life but slow in benchmarks. This is all in the marketing. Either you can look at it as "iPhone find a way to squeeze every last bit of battery life out of both new and old devices" or you can look at it as "my phone slows down over time" -- the reality of the chemistry of lithium ion devices. IMO this should be handled with a configuration switch and a notification when performance starts to become limited, though how many would be totally confused by this? That hundreds of millions of users took years to notice should be an indication this whole thing worked pretty well IMO.
  - dsharlet 9y ago
    > That hundreds of millions of users took years to notice should be an indication this whole thing worked pretty well IMO. People absolutely have been noticing, this has been a very popular and long running issue. It took years for Apple to admit it, not for people to notice. I think this could have been better handled by throttling according to the actual condition of the battery, rather than controlling it via software updates. The former seems reasonable, the latter is pretty shady. (Maybe this is actually what is happening and the press has confused what is going on.)
    - garretraziel 9y ago
      They are throttling it according to battery's condition (but actual throttling apparatus was added via an update). If you replace old battery with a new one, phone starts running at full speed again.
    - mehrdada 9y ago
      > People absolutely have been noticing, this has been a very popular and long running issue. It took years for Apple to admit it, not for people to notice. The behavior in question was introduced in 10.2.1 which was first released in Feb 2017. So no, it was not a conspiracy going on for years. The annual slowdown was just poor unoptimized software. Occam's razor.
- sa1f 9y ago
  Hmm, just a bit skeptical about that. I'm pretty sure that peak "110%" usage rarely happens throughout the day; Maybe during video playback or gaming. This is especially true since the iPhone 7, with its two low power cores who's entire purpose is to extend battery life.
  - thisacctforreal 9y ago
    IIUC the low power cores could be configured to both extend short-term battery life (daily cycles), and decrease long-term battery life. The uproar is strictly re: long-term battery life.
chrisper 9y ago
It's like overclocking your CPU very close to the limits of your cooling ability. You will get great benchmark scores, but your CPU will also last a lot less as well (though with CPUs it doesn't matter if they now run for 20 years or 32 years, but if you push it a lot more you might damage it. But hey, at least you got great benchmark points).
- amelius 9y ago
  Wouldn't you also get more hardware errors, causing e.g. sudden kernel panics and stuff like that? And wouldn't that damage the brand more than the speed improvement is worth?
  - chrisper 9y ago
    Yeah. One could argue that if you are getting hardware errors you are already at the red line (and not just close to it). Regarding damage: It depends what your goal is. Some people want to get as much performance out of the CPU as possible since they maybe upgrade after a year or two anyway. Some people even try to set records by using crazy cooling systems.

simonbarker87 9y ago

If Apple slowed the phone down upfront then people would complain that Apple were throttling as the user is “too dumb to look after their battery properly” so instead they are doing when they can point to a proven need to throttle the device. This feels like a no win situation for Apple unless they had/will put in “throttle my phone so it doesn’t go weird” switch in settings. Side note: we’ve known for years that hammering a battery day in day out causes problems, my wife and I have had our 6S phones for the same amount of time - I plug mine in as much as possible (over charging is not a problem anymore) and she runs hers into the red all the time. After 2 years my phone runs fine and, when needed, I get a days charge out of it but she barely gets 4 hours and is noticeably slower. If people looked after their batteries better this would be less of a problem.

mplewis 9y ago
On that note, it'd be nice if Apple were more user-friendly about battery cycle counts. I don't think there's a way for me to see battery health without installing an app, and I've never seen a message asking me to replace the battery in my two-year-old iPhone.
- mdwrigh2 9y ago
  If the battery does degrade to the point of needing to be replaced, there is a message in the battery settings page: http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/iPhone-battery-servicing-warning.jpg http://media.idownloadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/iP...
chrisper 9y ago
LiOn is all about loading cycles. In the same amount of time (let's say 5 days) she has used up way more cycles than you did. You probably charged 5 * 20% while she maybe charged 5 * 90%. Obviously she is using up her load cycles much faster than you are. So no surprise her battery isn't very good anymore. I don't think you two are using the phone equally much (meaning using up the same loading cycles in the 5 days). Like for example, she charging 2 * 90% and you charging 4 * 20% and 1 * 10%.

netsharc 9y ago

For those interested this is Linus Sebastian (or his last name "Tech Tips"), not Torvalds... As the video was loading I was wondering if Torvalds had started commenting on general tech news.

szatkus 9y ago
Well, Linus Torvalds posts at RWT.

abalone 9y ago

This is just sensationalist poorly sourced crap. > "they are making these devices that it's difficult to replace the battery for..." No. It's free under AppleCare and a whopping $79 out of warranty, and you can do it via mail. > "they are running them so close to the redline that they can only handle it for a year" No source cited for this. There is no indication that iPhones are regularly degrading beyond 80% within or shortly after one year. > [compares to volkswagen emissions cheat] Seems reasonable. :-/ It's ironic that this guy invokes the specter of benchmark cheating when Apple actually has been one of the only manufacturers that hasn't engaged in it.[1] [1] https://www.xda-developers.com/benchmark-cheating-strikes-back-how-oneplus-and-others-got-caught-red-handed-and-what-theyve-done-about-it/ https://www.xda-developers.com/benchmark-cheating-strikes-ba...

izacus 9y ago
Many throttled 6S phones show up as "green" on Apple diagnostic which means that Apple stores will generaly refuse to do the battery swap.
jackvalentine 9y ago
I'm one of the people defending Apple's charge for battery replacement as reasonable, but his point is it's actually a physically difficult thing to do, to replace the battery. It takes real skill to replace a modern iphone battery without ruining it. > "they are running them so close to the redline that they can only handle it for a year" As for this, he's citing the fact the iPhone 7 is affected - a phone that came out just over a year ago.
- waterphone 9y ago
  It doesn't really take that much skill. I did it in 15 minutes for the first time with no advance reading/watching. The kits you can buy online come with a full set of tools and instructions.
  - jackvalentine 9y ago
    Counter anecdote: my housemate totally ruined his girlfriends phone trying.

frik 9y ago

Why is this news hidden? Every second interesting news gets hidden away these days

specialist 9y ago

I love this hack. It's awesome that a device was made adaptive to its context. Tunable. We can chip our cars to optimize performance. We can even remotely update satellites, probes, rovers to extend their lives. Awesome. Better would be a "check engine light" when a new battery is needed. Best would be full transparency. I want coconutBattery functionality on the iOS device. I want the option of running the diagnostic utilities the Genius Bar uses.