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My wife and I both just upgraded our iPhone 6's because they became unusably slow after iOS 11. Prior to the upgrade they had been running fine with no issues.

My wife and I both just upgraded our iPhone 6's because they became unusably slow after iOS 11. Prior to the upgrade they had been running fine with no issues. We tried many things including disabling all background app usage, full wipe and restore, etc. My wife eventually took hers into the Apple store and they said they didn't know why it was slowing down but that she shouldn't have upgraded and that there was nothing they could do. So faced with unusably slow phones, and no resolution, what other choice is there? We both upgraded. She bought an iPhone X and I bought a Pixel 2 XL. We would have both been happy sticking with our iPhone 6's as they were under iOS 10. The crux of the matter is this: our phones were fine before iOS 11, then unusably slow. We upgraded because we were forced to (unknowingly at the time) by a software update.

izacus 9y ago
Well but you DID buy another iPhone right? Apple got exactly what they wanted - you spending another 700$+ to replace a perfectly functional device after just a few years. The iPhone now goes to the garbage bin adding to pollution even though it can run the OS just fine without being crippled via update.
- blocked_again 9y ago
  Holy shit. You people just throw away the old iPhone after buying a new one? That is a luxury almost no one in my country has. So weird that the people get to live the life on basis of how well the seed generator of Universe performed during their birth.
  - ktta 9y ago
    Welcome to the concept of inequality. Most people in the world don't have the access to internet you have. And I would imagine some would say "Holy shit. You people browse message boards? I would rather spend that time on a MOOC". While it is weird looking at the affluence scale above, it is very depressing looking what's at the bottom of the scale. I don't mean to chastise you. It is just a realization I've come to.
    - blocked_again 9y ago
      I am aware of it. I was not complaining but just amused. If you think about it there is no way the Universe could have existed if it was not for the randomness or inequality :)
      - ktta 9y ago
        Looking back, my reply was unnecessarily snarky. Sorry about that. Inequality is necessary, but the extent of it and the effects bother me sometimes.
  - leonroy 9y ago
    No one in the West (that I’ve ever met) literally throws away old iPhones. They either get handed down to a kid (merits of which are for another thread) or a friend or relative. Some folk do trade in their old phone and a lot flip them on the used market. I think getting more life out of those devices for the original purchaser is of paramount importance though if we are to stop polluting our environment with the consequences of smartphone manufacture.
    - philjohn 9y ago
      I upgrade my iphone every 2 years, and put in a sell order with a mobile phone recycler just before the keynote for the new phone starts, that gives me the best price (it goes down super quick once people see the keynote and decide to upgrade), and I get more than the upgrade on a new 2 year contract will cost ... win win.
    - specialist 9y ago
      I've kept all my old iOS devices. I keep thinking I'm going to finally use that iPod to control my Lego Mindstorms. Or use old iPhones as wifi security cams. I am using one old iPhone to video record meetings.
  - mch82 9y ago
    People in the United States aren't throwing away old iPhones. Apple has a recycling & buy back program, https://www.apple.com/recycling/ https://www.apple.com/recycling/. other companies also buy back old phones.
- williamscales 9y ago
  Can you install Linux on it and run a small server or something? That at least would get some more use out of it rather than straight into the garbage bin.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    If it's given to a place that specifically recycles phones, it may end up refurbished (or not) and sold for another couple of years' use in a poorer country.
- alecthomas 9y ago
  You seem to be aggressively agreeing with me that being forced to upgrade for effectively no real reason is ridiculous?
mistercow 9y ago
>but that she shouldn't have upgraded and that there was nothing they could do. The "blame the user for using the product normally" mentality that seems to has arisen around Apple products drives me crazy. I recently upgraded to High Sierra, and Mail decided to delete all of my filters in the process. When I went looking for a fix, I found someone with a similar issue on Apple's forums, and most of the responses were basically berating the user for not taking a backup before upgrading. The attitude was as though this were a perfectly reasonable way for software to behave, and the user was stupid for not anticipating it. It must be nice to build tech products knowing that your users will blame themselves if you screw up.
UweSchmidt 9y ago
What other choice is there? Other than buying a 1000$ phone from a vendor you are not satisfied with? You could do a 2-3 year upgrade cycles with mid-range android devices. They are shiny and fun when new but of course also (subjectively) slow down over time...
- alecthomas 9y ago
  Agreed, there is no decent choice :( I would have happily kept using the iPhone 6 indefinitely. And given the option I would have bought another battery.
garyrob 9y ago
Why not just replace the battery rather than get new phones? My iPhone 6's lightning port broke around the time iOS 11 appeared, so I used the insurance we had on it to get a replacement. The replacement was another iPhone 6, with a new battery. That new battery is working fantastically well for me under iOS 11. I have gotten through 2 days straight of use without a recharge. No exaggeration. It happened to be relatively light use, but it wasn't in low-power mode, and it did everything I wanted it to do for 2 days.
- alecthomas 9y ago
  Because nothing was wrong with the batteries as far as we could tell, and Apple "support" didn't mention anything. That's the whole point of these law suits. Apple didn't tell consumers that a) their batteries were degraded or b) that performance would be dialled back to compensate. If people were told they would have just swapped batteries, as we would have. I'd much rather pay $150 for a new battery than $1000 for a new phone. Prior to iOS 11 they still lasted all day, no random shutdowns, no issues at all. After iOS 11 the phone was slow as hell and the battery drained extremely quickly... the opposite of what you would expect given the recent revelations, but that's what we observed.
  - garyrob 9y ago
    OK, makes sense. No indication that anything was wrong with the batteries before iOS 11, so why assume new batteries will help. It's strange though, because my experience, with a "new" replacement iPhone 6, is that iOS 11 works great for battery life. It's hard to understand, unless the replacement iPhone 6's they're making now have some difference compared to the old ones that has to do with battery life.
specialist 9y ago
My household has both an iPhone 6 and 6s. Both have become noticeably slower, more battery consuming. I just did the full backup and restore trick. We think it worked. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/12/22/glenn-iphone-slow https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/12/22/glenn-iphone-sl... http://mglenn.com/blog/2017/12/22/apples-bungled-battery-feature http://mglenn.com/blog/2017/12/22/apples-bungled-battery-fea... My boss (she who must be obeyed) and I both "feel" that our phones are now more responsive and some features have resumed working like normal. Such as retrieving voicemails, which had become unresponsive. For both of us. I had been blaming our cell provider (carrier). My bad.

izacus 9y ago

Well but you DID buy another iPhone right? Apple got exactly what they wanted - you spending another 700$+ to replace a perfectly functional device after just a few years. The iPhone now goes to the garbage bin adding to pollution even though it can run the OS just fine without being crippled via update.

blocked_again 9y ago
Holy shit. You people just throw away the old iPhone after buying a new one? That is a luxury almost no one in my country has. So weird that the people get to live the life on basis of how well the seed generator of Universe performed during their birth.
- ktta 9y ago
  Welcome to the concept of inequality. Most people in the world don't have the access to internet you have. And I would imagine some would say "Holy shit. You people browse message boards? I would rather spend that time on a MOOC". While it is weird looking at the affluence scale above, it is very depressing looking what's at the bottom of the scale. I don't mean to chastise you. It is just a realization I've come to.
  - blocked_again 9y ago
    I am aware of it. I was not complaining but just amused. If you think about it there is no way the Universe could have existed if it was not for the randomness or inequality :)
    - ktta 9y ago
      Looking back, my reply was unnecessarily snarky. Sorry about that. Inequality is necessary, but the extent of it and the effects bother me sometimes.
- leonroy 9y ago
  No one in the West (that I’ve ever met) literally throws away old iPhones. They either get handed down to a kid (merits of which are for another thread) or a friend or relative. Some folk do trade in their old phone and a lot flip them on the used market. I think getting more life out of those devices for the original purchaser is of paramount importance though if we are to stop polluting our environment with the consequences of smartphone manufacture.
  - philjohn 9y ago
    I upgrade my iphone every 2 years, and put in a sell order with a mobile phone recycler just before the keynote for the new phone starts, that gives me the best price (it goes down super quick once people see the keynote and decide to upgrade), and I get more than the upgrade on a new 2 year contract will cost ... win win.
  - specialist 9y ago
    I've kept all my old iOS devices. I keep thinking I'm going to finally use that iPod to control my Lego Mindstorms. Or use old iPhones as wifi security cams. I am using one old iPhone to video record meetings.
- mch82 9y ago
  People in the United States aren't throwing away old iPhones. Apple has a recycling & buy back program, https://www.apple.com/recycling/ https://www.apple.com/recycling/. other companies also buy back old phones.
williamscales 9y ago
Can you install Linux on it and run a small server or something? That at least would get some more use out of it rather than straight into the garbage bin.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  If it's given to a place that specifically recycles phones, it may end up refurbished (or not) and sold for another couple of years' use in a poorer country.
alecthomas 9y ago
You seem to be aggressively agreeing with me that being forced to upgrade for effectively no real reason is ridiculous?

mistercow 9y ago

>but that she shouldn't have upgraded and that there was nothing they could do. The "blame the user for using the product normally" mentality that seems to has arisen around Apple products drives me crazy. I recently upgraded to High Sierra, and Mail decided to delete all of my filters in the process. When I went looking for a fix, I found someone with a similar issue on Apple's forums, and most of the responses were basically berating the user for not taking a backup before upgrading. The attitude was as though this were a perfectly reasonable way for software to behave, and the user was stupid for not anticipating it. It must be nice to build tech products knowing that your users will blame themselves if you screw up.

UweSchmidt 9y ago

What other choice is there? Other than buying a 1000$ phone from a vendor you are not satisfied with? You could do a 2-3 year upgrade cycles with mid-range android devices. They are shiny and fun when new but of course also (subjectively) slow down over time...

alecthomas 9y ago
Agreed, there is no decent choice :( I would have happily kept using the iPhone 6 indefinitely. And given the option I would have bought another battery.

garyrob 9y ago

Why not just replace the battery rather than get new phones? My iPhone 6's lightning port broke around the time iOS 11 appeared, so I used the insurance we had on it to get a replacement. The replacement was another iPhone 6, with a new battery. That new battery is working fantastically well for me under iOS 11. I have gotten through 2 days straight of use without a recharge. No exaggeration. It happened to be relatively light use, but it wasn't in low-power mode, and it did everything I wanted it to do for 2 days.

alecthomas 9y ago
Because nothing was wrong with the batteries as far as we could tell, and Apple "support" didn't mention anything. That's the whole point of these law suits. Apple didn't tell consumers that a) their batteries were degraded or b) that performance would be dialled back to compensate. If people were told they would have just swapped batteries, as we would have. I'd much rather pay $150 for a new battery than $1000 for a new phone. Prior to iOS 11 they still lasted all day, no random shutdowns, no issues at all. After iOS 11 the phone was slow as hell and the battery drained extremely quickly... the opposite of what you would expect given the recent revelations, but that's what we observed.
- garyrob 9y ago
  OK, makes sense. No indication that anything was wrong with the batteries before iOS 11, so why assume new batteries will help. It's strange though, because my experience, with a "new" replacement iPhone 6, is that iOS 11 works great for battery life. It's hard to understand, unless the replacement iPhone 6's they're making now have some difference compared to the old ones that has to do with battery life.

specialist 9y ago

My household has both an iPhone 6 and 6s. Both have become noticeably slower, more battery consuming. I just did the full backup and restore trick. We think it worked. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/12/22/glenn-iphone-slow https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/12/22/glenn-iphone-sl... http://mglenn.com/blog/2017/12/22/apples-bungled-battery-feature http://mglenn.com/blog/2017/12/22/apples-bungled-battery-fea... My boss (she who must be obeyed) and I both "feel" that our phones are now more responsive and some features have resumed working like normal. Such as retrieving voicemails, which had become unresponsive. For both of us. I had been blaming our cell provider (carrier). My bad.