7 ms·

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 i

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%.
- mistercow 9y ago
  Do you have a source on lithium ion batteries working this way, because all of the sources I'm finding (and it's not the first time I've researched this) say that shallow cycles dramatically improve battery longevity. My understanding is that "cycles" are used in discussing battery lifespan for the purposes of warranties and the like because they're an easy-to-define user behavior, not because they actually reflect how the batteries perform.
  - blattimwind 9y ago
    > shallow cycles dramatically improve battery longevity. Not necessarily; cycle depth is a big factor, but the interval covered is very important as well. I.e. a few cycles to a high charge end voltage ages cells more quickly than more cycles to a lower charge end voltage. This obviously directly relates to the amount of energy stored. The correlation is approximately exponential: you get somewhere between two to eight times the cycles for lowering charge voltage by 50-100 mV. You very quickly get to zero cycles raising it. Another factor is cycle length, i.e. cell current, and temperature, as always.
  - chrisper 9y ago
    >There’s no need to let it discharge 100% before recharging. Apple lithium-ion batteries work in charge cycles. You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge. For instance, you might use 75% of your battery’s capacity one day, then recharge it fully overnight. If you use 25% the next day, you will have discharged a total of 100%, and the two days will add up to one charge cycle. It could take several days to complete a cycle. The capacity of any type of battery will diminish after a certain amount of recharging. With lithium-ion batteries, the capacity diminishes slightly with each complete charge cycle. Apple lithium-ion batteries are designed to hold at least 80% of their original capacity for a high number of charge cycles, which varies depending on the product. From https://www.apple.com/ca/batteries/why-lithium-ion/ https://www.apple.com/ca/batteries/why-lithium-ion/
    - 9y ago
canuckintime 9y ago
> This feels like a no win situation for Apple... If Apple fucked up, why should there be a 'win' situation for them? The obvious solution would be Apple replacing the batteries for free. Instead Apple won't even let you pay them to replace the battery if it's not in EOL mode — despite throttling starting well before then.
- ako 9y ago
  Why should apple replace batteries for free? Do you expect a car company to replace car-batteries or tires for free? Some components just wear and need to be replaced. Apple just provided a workaround that ensures your device doesn't crash due to the worn out component.
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    Apple decided to not let the consumer have the choice or ability to swap their own batteries. They've painted themselves into a corner here - and I think they should pay for this, indeed. Its clear that these moves were made solely to maximise profit for Apple, not to protect the consumer and provide them the best-quality experience.
    - konceptz 9y ago
      It shouldn’t be hard for Apple to “prove” that there are benefits, outside of maxing profit, to having a sealed battery.
      - mmjaa 9y ago
        Its also not hard to prove that it was a big mistake and they shouldn't have devolved this feature.
    - lostmsu 9y ago
      Why do you keep insisting there's a problem with a battery? There's no problem with the battery, it behaves like any other battery in any other phone. The problem is that phone's compute ability stops matching its advertised value soon after purchase.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
misja111 9y ago
The obvious solution is that this should have been a user-configurable setting.
Vintila 9y ago
Maybe the attitude to run the battery low before charging it comes from NiCd batteries which have the so called memory effect [1]. Could education be the answer? I've never bought an iPhone, do they include a few paragraphs about proper battery care? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effect
- newscracker 9y ago
  Apple has had a web page about batteries and good maintenance practices [1] for several years now. But most people wouldn't know about it or read it unless they searched for it. [1]: https://www.apple.com/batteries/ https://www.apple.com/batteries/
washadjeffmad 9y ago
Not quite the issue. Batteries have known charge-loss curves, and they lose capacity in a way that can be predictably engineered for. This is why during the first month or so, they seem to stay on for days barely losing charge, then they seem to keep on about a day or two at general use after that. So the battery loses down to maybe 90% capacity very quickly, then falls a little more slowly to somewhere around 70% by the next year or so, and will much more slowly lose after that. But engineers that choose the batteries and design the electronics know this, so they plan the phone around the battery having that 65-85% capacity, never the 100%. That's what I think Apple did knowingly wrong and against good conventions. Apple designed those iPhones in a way that either prematurely decreased the life and ability of the batteries they chose to power them (evidenced by the shut-offs), or they used inferior batteries that unpredictably or improperly lost the ability to maintain the required draw. That they only issued the scaling patch after shut-offs became an issue tells me that this was an engineering failure, whether by Apple, ATL, or TLB- not user error.

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%.

mistercow 9y ago
Do you have a source on lithium ion batteries working this way, because all of the sources I'm finding (and it's not the first time I've researched this) say that shallow cycles dramatically improve battery longevity. My understanding is that "cycles" are used in discussing battery lifespan for the purposes of warranties and the like because they're an easy-to-define user behavior, not because they actually reflect how the batteries perform.
- blattimwind 9y ago
  > shallow cycles dramatically improve battery longevity. Not necessarily; cycle depth is a big factor, but the interval covered is very important as well. I.e. a few cycles to a high charge end voltage ages cells more quickly than more cycles to a lower charge end voltage. This obviously directly relates to the amount of energy stored. The correlation is approximately exponential: you get somewhere between two to eight times the cycles for lowering charge voltage by 50-100 mV. You very quickly get to zero cycles raising it. Another factor is cycle length, i.e. cell current, and temperature, as always.
- chrisper 9y ago
  >There’s no need to let it discharge 100% before recharging. Apple lithium-ion batteries work in charge cycles. You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge. For instance, you might use 75% of your battery’s capacity one day, then recharge it fully overnight. If you use 25% the next day, you will have discharged a total of 100%, and the two days will add up to one charge cycle. It could take several days to complete a cycle. The capacity of any type of battery will diminish after a certain amount of recharging. With lithium-ion batteries, the capacity diminishes slightly with each complete charge cycle. Apple lithium-ion batteries are designed to hold at least 80% of their original capacity for a high number of charge cycles, which varies depending on the product. From https://www.apple.com/ca/batteries/why-lithium-ion/ https://www.apple.com/ca/batteries/why-lithium-ion/
  - 9y ago

canuckintime 9y ago

> This feels like a no win situation for Apple... If Apple fucked up, why should there be a 'win' situation for them? The obvious solution would be Apple replacing the batteries for free. Instead Apple won't even let you pay them to replace the battery if it's not in EOL mode — despite throttling starting well before then.

ako 9y ago
Why should apple replace batteries for free? Do you expect a car company to replace car-batteries or tires for free? Some components just wear and need to be replaced. Apple just provided a workaround that ensures your device doesn't crash due to the worn out component.
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Apple decided to not let the consumer have the choice or ability to swap their own batteries. They've painted themselves into a corner here - and I think they should pay for this, indeed. Its clear that these moves were made solely to maximise profit for Apple, not to protect the consumer and provide them the best-quality experience.
  - konceptz 9y ago
    It shouldn’t be hard for Apple to “prove” that there are benefits, outside of maxing profit, to having a sealed battery.
    - mmjaa 9y ago
      Its also not hard to prove that it was a big mistake and they shouldn't have devolved this feature.
  - lostmsu 9y ago
    Why do you keep insisting there's a problem with a battery? There's no problem with the battery, it behaves like any other battery in any other phone. The problem is that phone's compute ability stops matching its advertised value soon after purchase.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

misja111 9y ago

The obvious solution is that this should have been a user-configurable setting.

Vintila 9y ago

Maybe the attitude to run the battery low before charging it comes from NiCd batteries which have the so called memory effect [1]. Could education be the answer? I've never bought an iPhone, do they include a few paragraphs about proper battery care? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effect

newscracker 9y ago
Apple has had a web page about batteries and good maintenance practices [1] for several years now. But most people wouldn't know about it or read it unless they searched for it. [1]: https://www.apple.com/batteries/ https://www.apple.com/batteries/

washadjeffmad 9y ago

Not quite the issue. Batteries have known charge-loss curves, and they lose capacity in a way that can be predictably engineered for. This is why during the first month or so, they seem to stay on for days barely losing charge, then they seem to keep on about a day or two at general use after that. So the battery loses down to maybe 90% capacity very quickly, then falls a little more slowly to somewhere around 70% by the next year or so, and will much more slowly lose after that. But engineers that choose the batteries and design the electronics know this, so they plan the phone around the battery having that 65-85% capacity, never the 100%. That's what I think Apple did knowingly wrong and against good conventions. Apple designed those iPhones in a way that either prematurely decreased the life and ability of the batteries they chose to power them (evidenced by the shut-offs), or they used inferior batteries that unpredictably or improperly lost the ability to maintain the required draw. That they only issued the scaling patch after shut-offs became an issue tells me that this was an engineering failure, whether by Apple, ATL, or TLB- not user error.