27 ms·
A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance
- buryat 9y ago> First and foremost, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Didn't they degrade the user experience by slowing down the cpu? I definitely wasn't enjoying my slow iPhone
- derpaderp1 9y agoThey have to say that for legal because reasons.
- l4yao 9y agoIt's choosing the lesser of two evils. The two options are to have the phone run slower, or have the phone shut down unexpectedly with shorter battery life. Personally, I agree with Apple's call on this one.
- wslh 9y agoThere is an obvious third option: replacing your battery with a new one instead of playing this planned obsolescence game.
- curiousgal 9y agoMake it an option? Plus, having the phone shutdown would force users to upgrade out of necessity without feeling swindled.
- l4yao 9y ago>Make it an option? Hmm, that could work, but I feel like that might go against Apple's ethos. Not malicious, they just seem to like telling the user what's best and surfacing fewer options. I feel like the average user doesn't want to have to make this decision >Plus, having the phone shutdown would force users to upgrade out of necessity without feeling swindled. I'd disagree, but may be in the minority. I would hate having to upgrade because my battery life is shot. A large reason I chose iPhone was the battery life
- BoorishBears 9y agoAs the owner of an iPhone 6 that was degraded enough that even with the mitigation I had the issue, I agree. Any time my phone was under ~15% battery, it would randomly crash during demanding tasks. I'd think the battery had died, but turning it back on would work immediately and my battery wouldn't be at 1%/0%. At that point the battery capacity might as well be 85% of the already degraded value since the phone stops being stable.
- rconti 9y agoMy 6 would die at 30% with some regularity, even though supposedly only the 6S was impacted and hence only the 6S got free repairs.
- strictnein 9y agoThe right call is actually targeting performance at a level that would allow for longer consistent performance state. If they're having to go to measures this drastic to keep their phones from shutting down, their batteries are underspec'd and their processors are overspec'd.
- minimaxir 9y agoThe issue only affected the 6/6S generation (EDIT: with overwatch for the 7); presumably Apple identified and fixed the issue for the 8 onwards.
- strictnein 9y agoNo, that's not what is being stated here. The iPhone 7 came out a year ago. iPhone 7 users are also being offered the $29 battery replacement.
- minimaxir 9y agoFixed comment with clarity.
- mmcnl 9y agoAre you sure? I bet the iPhone 7 batteries simply haven't aged enough.
- l4yao 9y agoI agree, and imagine they probably tried. Maybe it's a new supplier, maybe newer apps are more power hungry than predicted?
- jasonlotito 9y agoThe other option would have been to alert the user this was going on. This didn't always happen. They were degrading users phones while showing the battery as fine. That's the problem, you can't just start degrading performance without telling people why. When you have people running 3rd party apps to determine whether their phones are still running fine, and then going to get battery replacements and finding performance returning, and nothing the OS told them indicated anything was wrong, that's a problem.
- michaelt 9y agoThat's a false dichotomy; Apple has many options other than slowing down the phone and having it randomly restart. For example, they could have altered the calibration of the battery indicator so 0% charge corresponds to the charge level where random restarts/throttling starts to occur.
- MBCook 9y agoDepending on how bad the battery is that me end up giving someone 30 to 60 minutes of battery life. That seems almost useless. Certainly worse than having a slower phone that has hours of battery life.
- Posibyte 9y agoBut it could prompt them to see an Apple Care Rep and get a new battery, which would fix the ultimate issue according to them.
- l4yao 9y agoWhat are some other options? Calibrating for a new "0%" effectively lead to a "shorter battery life". I don't know the intricacies of these options, but I can make a guess. The point which a phone resets isn't accurately predicted. Some user actions may cause larger voltage drops than others. For which action do you calibrate to 0%? What if you only do that action once a day? Is this trade off worth sacrificing 1% of your full capacity? What about 10% or 30%?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- flamedoge 9y agoThere is an obvious third option - have the phone run slower but tell user about it, that it's running in limp mode because of deteriorated battery.
- b4lancesh33t 9y agoKeep reading the article and you will find out.
- nixgeek 9y agoRock and a hard place for Apple, after 600 cycles or 2 years 'average usage' (based on reports I've seen in the past) the battery might only have 50-60% of the design capacity, so their choice is between reducing battery consumption (via throttling) or having users whose phones are totally drained in significantly less than an 'average working day'.
- ropiku 9y agoIt's not just battery life, some people might live with 50% battery but due to chemistry they can't put out the designed voltage leading to the iPhone suddenly turning off.
- jdietrich 9y agoIf iPhones are really experiencing that rate of degradation, then Apple are solely to blame for using such an aggressive battery management profile. If they had given up a millimetre of thickness, overprovisioned the battery and managed it less aggressively, they could have easily reduced battery degradation to <20% after 1,500 cycles. Adding 50% to the capacity also gives you 50% more current at the same C-rate. I think this is a clear case of Apple prioritising shelf appeal over durability; it's the same root cause as the Galaxy S7 battery crisis.
- baddox 9y agoIdk if the grandparent comment is correct about the degradation rate, but I’d need to see more evidence supporting the claim that Apple is doing something aggressive relative to the rest of the industry. Overprovisioning the battery is silly, and would deservedly cause a much bigger controversy if it were discovered.
- jdietrich 9y ago>Overprovisioning the battery is silly, and would deservedly cause a much bigger controversy if it were discovered. Really? Would there be a strong negative reaction if Apple said "we've designed the iPhone 9 to give you all-day battery life for four years"? Would customers be angry that their device was built to last longer and perform better? To my mind, it's a marketable feature. All battery management is a trade-off between capacity and durability. Manufacturers have an obvious commercial incentive to sacrifice durability - you get a thinner device with longer initial battery life. Purchasing habits are starting to change in the mobile market. Pricing is moving away from an all-inclusive line rental price to separate usage charges and device payments. As the market matures, customers are holding onto their devices for longer. I think it's inevitable that manufacturers will have to improve durability as we move away from the lock-step of 24 month contracts.
- derpaderp1 9y ago"We’ve been hearing feedback from our customers" (sic: "we've been sued")
- kevinherron 9y agoSlowing down the CPU is a better experience than your phone shutting off or battery lasting half a day...
- mulmen 9y agoThey said they wouldn't degrade the UX to drive upgrades but said nothing of other reasons to degrade the UX.
- jhgg 9y agoWould you rather have a slightly slower phone, or one that shuts off at random due to the battery not being able to provide peak current. I think the only major mistake Apple made here was not being originally transparent about this. I don't think that Apple is being 100% noble in its intents either. In addition to driving users to buy new devices, there's the much less obvious side-effect which is a lot of people attempting to get their batteries replaced at roughly the same time as devices age. Which creates a tremendous support burden at Apple Stores around the world as people pile in to get their batteries replaced. (Although more daring consumers may attempt the DIY route, but I expect that to be a very small minority).
- Y-bar 9y agoI am affected by this issue. I would rather have a risk of my phone shutting down at <40% than my phone gas lighting me with performance degradation. If my phone shut down when it shouldn't then I know to search out diagnostics about my battery. But if my phone slows down I have actually done these things: * complained to developers that their apps are slower, wasting their time and resources when my battery should have been changed. * reinstalled my OS. Which did not help when I should have changed my battery. * searched and searched and searched resources online. When I should have researched a new battery. * I also have to mea culpa all friends to whom I have ensured through the years that Apple never intentionally slows down their hardware. I have lied to my friends and need to apologise to them.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago> Would you rather have a slightly slower phone, or one that shuts off at random due to the battery not being able to provide peak current. I wish people would stop inventing this false dichotomy. What people want is a phone that doesn't degrade horribly after only a year, regardless of whether that degradation is that it shuts itself off at 40% (which is fucking ridiculous) or that it gets noticeably slower. When a phone degrades so noticeably after only a year, people feel like they've been cheated. Do any other phones turn themselves off at 40% charge? My android phones certainly don't.
- 9y ago
- mikestew 9y ago“degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades” (emphasis mine because you left that important part out) If you bought a new phone strictly because your old one was slow, you might have an anecdotal point to make.
- asendra 9y agoI did. 6s to X one year before planned.
- fezz 9y agoWhy is it that low power mode is usable but slowed down mode because of a battery is sometimes almost unusable?
- baddox 9y agoProbably because low power mode is completely different, and probably doesn’t do much to reduce the CPU usage peaks that the old battery protection code protects against.
- bobbles 9y agoWhat theyre doing to fix it: "Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com. Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance."
- nixgeek 9y agoThis basically means they're giving you the battery for free. Takes 30-45 minutes of semi-skilled labor to replace it, loaded cost of the employee for even 30 minutes has got to be pretty close to the $29 they're charging. Wonder if this means we'll see 12-24 month phones popping up on eBay with battery health reports, or receipts showing the owner(s) had them changed out just prior to sale.
- oblio 9y agoThey wouldn't have to give anything for free if, like for many other phones, the owner could replace the battery in 1 minute flat with no special tools...
- on_and_off 9y agoI would love HN to force people to explain why they are downvoting something. Batteries fail after a while, it has been a constant for a very long time. What has changed is that in many recent phones it is a pain to replace it yourself.
- oblio 9y agoMy guess is that the downvote was a sort of "offtopic" one: "yeah, we can't change the battery ourselves, c'est la vie, it's Apple, get over it, let's discuss the issue at hand".
- 9y ago
- lddemi 9y agoCoincidence that they waited till after Christmas to release this?
- luigi23 9y agoEveryone was having fun, eating and singing Mariah Carey. Christmas is over and moods are worse, so here's the good Santa Apple Claus is bringing you a gift. That's the logic behind this, I guess... ;)
- erikpukinskis 9y agoWhat would the non-coincidence reason be?
- chx 9y agohttps://www.thelocal.fr/20171228/french-lawsuit-launched-against-apple-for-alleged-crime-of-slowing-down-iphones https://www.thelocal.fr/20171228/french-lawsuit-launched-aga...
- lddemi 9y agoThe news could have slowed upgrades to iPhone 8/X ahead of the holidays if buyers thought adding a battery could speed up their device.
- erikpukinskis 9y agoBut they already admitted such before Christmas: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/21/572538593/apple-says-it-slows-older-iphones-to-save-their-battery-life https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/21/572538593...
- simpsond 9y agoHopefully they chose to wait, so employees could spend time with family.
- lddemi 9y ago
- leadingthenet 9y agoReducing the battery replacement by $50 is a great move. While I think this is a completely manufactured scandal, this will definitely take away the last argument people have against them. I'm sure some people will still hate them for something, though.
- greggarious 9y agoPersonally I think this is great news. I like my 6s. I like my headphone port. I don't do anything CPU intensive on the phone. As long as security updates continue to be issued, I don't see a need to upgrade. I got lucky and wasn't affected by the battery shutdown issue even though my serial # was eligible for a free battery replacement, so I was able to put off the free battery replacement for a couple years and get a new one free. In another 2 years I'll probably swap it again for 25 bucks :D
- bluedino 9y agoSame here. I already had my battery replaced under that replacement plan, and for $25 why not get it replaced at some point this coming year and hopefully get another year out it.
- jwineinger 9y ago> for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced I'm guessing they'll have some criteria on that
- mewse 9y agoApple has criteria for whether or not they'll replace your phone's battery at all. I assume that eligibility for the lower battery replacement price will be identical to the eligibility test they're already doing for the battery replacement service. When you take your phone in, they'll do a test on the battery's current capacity and status, using a custom app. If the battery has reported errors, or if the reported capacity is low enough (below 80% capacity remaining, as I recall), then they'll agree to replace the battery. Takes a couple minutes to run the test, and then about an hour to swap the battery. (Caveat: I was last through this process on my old iPhone 5, about six months ago. I assume that the procedure and policies are basically the same for newer iPhones, and haven't changed substantively since then. My battery's remaining capacity was below 40%, and was reporting errors, when I had it replaced.)
- IBM 9y agoI still think Apple should sue some publications for defamation for the manifestly bad reporting about this story [1]. Here's John Siracusa about it [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15995018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15995018 [2] https://overcast.fm/+CdQP59ws/56:00 https://overcast.fm/+CdQP59ws/56:00
- joselreyes 9y agoThis would be a bad PR move. A giant insanely-rich company suing news publications? Apple has dealt with overblown controversies before (Antennagate, etc.) and the best way to deal with them is to do what they're doing: communicate better, improve their software, make repairs or returns more affordable.
- on_and_off 9y agodon't they already snub publications that they don't like anyway ?
- joselreyes 9y agoYes, if they want to be petty about bad publicity, there's other effective strategies like denying access to the publication as they did to Gizmodo back in 2010.
- IBM 9y agoI don't think it's an either/or. They should do what they announced today and sue for defamation. When they announce the suit they could state that they intend to donate any awarded damages/settlement to charity to counter the "Big Company sues blogger" stories. But I think the reputation damage is very real and it would give Apple the opportunity to testify under oath (if it went to trial).
- joselreyes 9y agoEven if they took publications to court, the public opinion would not change for the better because people stop paying attention to any story within two weeks of when it's revealed. The damage has already been done. The only potential reasonable argument to do something like this is for Apple to scare off other publications from publishing damaging headlines in the future. But the benefit of this strategy would be little when balanced by the negative PR hit it would take by every other news publication writing articles and OpEds on Rich Big Corp vs small, struggling, important-for-democracy news organizations. There's no faster way to torpedo your public approval than to go after news publications.
- octasimo 9y agoThis smells like a direct response to latest lawsuit from France [0]. [0] - https://www.thelocal.fr/20171228/french-lawsuit-launched-against-apple-for-alleged-crime-of-slowing-down-iphones https://www.thelocal.fr/20171228/french-lawsuit-launched-aga...
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoThis is a good smell though. It likely will adversely affect the efficacy of the lawsuit. Company internal investigation followed by public facing change is pretty much the death knell in a civil/monetary lawsuit.
- MBCook 9y agoI kind of doubt it. This is been going on for what, a week or two? I’m guessing they’ve been working on this response that entire time, not just in the last 24 to 48 hours.
- strictnein 9y agoApple is in this situation because they've very invested in having the fastest mobile processor on paper. So you get a high performing part when your phone is new, and all the reviews and benchmarks are done with the high performing part, but after a while the battery can't handle it, so they're forced into these shenanigans.
- lev99 9y agoSimple solution. Replace your battery once a year.
- MBCook 9y agoIt’s not like android phones are purposefully running with multi year old chips to avoid this issue. The high-end found they are all rush to have the newest chips as well. I’ll ignore the “on paper“ comment. It was totally unnecessary.
- mtgx 9y agoHis point was that Apple's latest chips promise something like 2x the performance of the best Qualcomm or Samsung chip. If that gain is indeed real, or mostly real, then the difference may be explained by the fact that Apple makes some compromises that other chip makers don't - such as increasing the boost performance of the chip more than the battery and the heat management can handle. As for the "on paper" claim, I think it's justified, because largely we only know the Apple chips are "so much faster" from synthetic benchmarks. But in real world tests it doesn't seem to make much of a difference.
- MBCook 9y agoIt’s the “on paper“ that I took issue with. From what I’ve seen from developers (which is admittedly limited) the chips Apple has do seem to be incredibly fast. Between that and the benchmarks I have no reason to think Apple chips are artificially optimized to look good on benchmarks and aren’t noticeably better on normal tasks.
- mmcnl 9y agoThis is a great response imho. It doesn't fully tackle the issues I'm having with the approach Apple is taking, but at least Apple acknowledges its customers in a human way. This is almost un-Apple.
- netsharc 9y agoHow many times have Apple written "We apologize" in press releases this year? I think I read one during the whole disk encryption fiasco a few months ago.. Edit: no, that was the username: root, password: (blank) fiasco. And literally less than a month ago.
- caio1982 9y agoAt least now they are finally making it very clear what they were caught doing behind the curtains (from the new support page on battery performance, linked in the press release): In cases that require more extreme forms of this power management, the user may notice effects such as: Longer app launch times Lower frame rates while scrolling Backlight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center) Lower speaker volume by up to -3dB Gradual frame rate reductions in some apps During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UI Apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch Many key areas are not impacted by this power management feature. Some of these include: Cellular call quality and networking throughput performance Captured photo and video quality GPS performance Location accuracy Sensors like gyroscope, accelerometer, barometer Apple Pay
- gallerdude 9y agoThis was a Half-Life 3 kind of issue. They kind of got backed into a corner where they could never really talk about what the truth was. Would it have been better to go out and announce: "we're not working on Half Life 3"? Tough to say.
- satysin 9y agoTo be fair that is a pretty decent response. The reality is batteries do degrade over time and they have to manage that. They should have been transparent about what they were doing and I'm not sure giving the user control over it is all that sensible. Are there any battery experts who can chime in with their opinion on this?
- ClassyJacket 9y agoI'm not a battery expert, but it needs to be pointed out that other smartphone manufacturers do not have this problem. It was Apple specific - it's not as if every device with a lithium battery shuts off at 40%. So it still feels like they're doing it to mitigate a fault with the device, and should've been more transparent about that in the first place.
- stock_toaster 9y agoYeah, some other manufactureres phones just carch fire instead.
- baddox 9y agoIs there any evidence that, all else being equal, Apple’s batteries degrade faster or degraded iPhones shut off during peak usage more than other smartphones?
- akvadrako 9y agoOf course there is no evidence of that - because then people would have a legitimate (though different) complaint.
- tjtrapp 9y ago> It was Apple specific Maybe these symptoms are Apple specific but Samsung had fire and explosions: http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-note-7-battery-fires-heres-why-they-exploded http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-note-7-battery-...
- 9y ago
- nikisweeting 9y agoThis whole battery scandal is ridiculous. It's literally the opposite of planned obsolescence, they're prolonging the usable life of these phones by underclocking them enough to stay functional for a full day, when otherwise they'd be shutting off randomly. I wish I could underclock even with a fresh battery in order to have solid 2-day battery life.
- chowyuncat 9y agoNo, the consumer doesn't have enough information in this case. They are more than likely going to buy a new phone rather than a new battery.
- MBCook 9y agoUnder the old software, where the phone would randomly turn off on you, what do you think they would’ve done? Probably the same thing. Buy a new phone.
- singhrac 9y agoI think the argument is that one would notice that the battery drains very quickly, and starts shutting off at a certain percent. Then they could know the battery is a problem, and pay $79 to get that replaced, instead of upgrading.
- MBCook 9y agoThat makes sense. So I question the question is would users be happier having their phone slow down or having the battery appear to drain extremely fast? I guess my answer to that would depend on how bad the average “slowdown“ is. I think you’re right if the issue is serious, but if most people only take a 10% hit when your phone is old then the slowdown may be a better option.
- goialoq 9y agoThat's not how it works. The phone crashes when the CPU load spikes higher than the degraded battery can support.
- azhenley 9y ago> Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance. Thank you! I've always thought phones should provide info about battery health.
- pookieinc 9y ago> To address our customers’ concerns, to recognize their loyalty and to regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apple’s intentions, we’ve decided to take the following steps: > Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com. > Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance. > As always, our team is working on ways to make the user experience even better, including improving how we manage performance and avoid unexpected shutdowns as batteries age. I cannot think of a better move from Apple than these three options. Bring awareness to the user by displaying battery performance and if updating the battery would resolve their power issues, you have a (now even cheaper) method of fixing it. As I understand it, the only way to tell if one needs to update their battery is by downloading some third party app (that costs money) and then praying that it helps in some way. Also wanted to point out that by going deeper into the issue with this article shows (at least to me) some sense of transparency and should be really encouraged. While I disagree that they needed a scandal to bring clarity and it should've been brought up a while back, it's still great they did it nonetheless. This has been a conspiracy for some time, glad to see Apple has shed some light on it.
- myrandomcomment 9y agoI need to see the word iPad here. Need to replace a battery in an iPad Air and would love the reduced cost.
- xuki 9y agoBecause iPads were not affected by this.
- myrandomcomment 9y agoThat we know of yet... :)
- ProfessorLayton 9y agoMy 6S was affected by the faulty batch of batteries, and it was a miserable experience to have my phone shut down unexpectedly at 40% if I was using it outside in ~60F or colder weather. Apple replaced the battery once they admitted to the faulty batch, and my phone has been great since, but the way they handle battery issues is extremely frustrating. Going to an Apple Store and having them to their standard test, being told everything is fine and there's nothing they can do is not what I expect from them.
- chx 9y agoThe elephant in the room is, of course, Apple's obsession with thinness which makes it near impossible these days to get a usable laptop because PC makers totally copied Apple alas. It also gave us nonreplaceable batteries and any successful lawsuit that comes out of it is totally justified. No one asked for this. Lighter, somewhat, yes but thin to the point where batteries are barely functional? Samsung's colossal Note failure is just another symptom of this. I had a Panasonic CF-Y5, a 14" 1.5kg laptop ten years ago and somehow it managed to be that light without this thinness craziness.
- on_and_off 9y agoIs it also why we have these awful keyboards on the new mbp ? I feel them absolutely awful to type on (I have never complained about a keyboard before but I just can't stand this one), although it is subjective, some people are fine with it. What is unquestionably bad though is that you need to replace the whole keyboard if one key has an issue (and apparently it happens a lot). I know several people for which Apple had to reset the whole laptop after a keyboard issue, but I can't make sense of it.
- yodsanklai 9y ago> I feel them absolutely awful to type on (I have never complained about a keyboard before but I just can't stand this one), although it is subjective, some people are fine with it. I don't know why some people hate these keyboards. I don't really have a strong opinion about them. They feel slightly different and noisier but I get identical typing speed results compared to the previous one.
- yodsanklai 9y agoI totally agree with you. I'd rather have a slightly bigger laptop with the ability to replace the battery easily. I slightly disagree with this though: > but thin to the point where batteries are barely functional? My previous MBP (mid-2014) was still very usable after 3 years of intensive use. Overall, I can't say I suffered from not being able to change the battery easily. (I passed the problem to the next owner...).
- 9y ago
- hendersoon 9y agoThat's a great response PR-wise, but it doesn't answer the question of why these batteries are degrading to a point where unexpected shutdowns are a concern in a single year. The iPhone 7 is only one year old. That just isn't OK.
- askafriend 9y agoA uniform answer to that question isn't possible. There are many different environments that batteries operate in and those environments produce wildly different results.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoDesign flaw. They use small batteries so there is absolutely no slack.
- hendersoon 9y agoPerhaps. That could explain why other phone manufacturers don't do it. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/12/28/16825288/htc-motorola-dont-slow-processor-speeds-old-batteries-apple https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/12/28/16825288/...
- jsz0 9y agoPeople who constantly re-charge their batteries (more charging cycles) are more likely to have the problem.
- whamlastxmas 9y agoThe Nexus 6P recently had a big consumer backlash and refund process bc phones would shut off randomly below 20% charge once they got older. I would guess the same thing is happening here. I would have much rather had reduced performance than a phone unusable under 20%. Luckily I got a free upgrade to the Pixel to fix it.
- matwood 9y agoYeah, I have owned various Android and iPhones over the years and this was a pretty common issue especially with an older phone in either a hot or cold climate.
- t3rmi 9y agoI second that. My 2 year old Moto G was near unusable at the end. When it reached 15% charge it would just die.
- Fej 9y agoSame issue here. Google won't do anything now. A lot of people took advantage of the Pixel handouts. (I'm not defending them, it's total BS.) Usually they send you to Huawei who wants a few hundred bucks to fix it. ...no.
- marklyon 9y agoMy wife’s 6+ was incredibly slow after the iOS upgrade. My 6+ drained the battery incredibly quickly. I was told that upgrading the iOS would fix that problem [0]; it didn’t. Instead it slowed my phone to the point of being unusable. If I’d have known replacing the battery would have fixed both of them, I’d have done that. Instead, I stupidly bought two new, very expensive phones. Since we were already locked into the Apple ecosystem (with paid apps and media), we bought iPhones. This does nothing to compensate or win back the trust of customers like me. [0] https://i.imgur.com/OYZr7zd.png https://i.imgur.com/OYZr7zd.png
- reaperducer 9y ago> This does nothing to compensate or win back the trust of customers like me. What is it that you want Apple to do to make you personally feel better?
- Game_Ender 9y agoThey could offer to buy back any functioning iPhone 6S at an above market rate from anyone who recently purchased a new phone. Its sort of a crazy idea, but close to what people want.
- saagarjha 9y ago> Its sort of a crazy idea, but close to what people want. Of course, what people want is free iPhones. Apple isn’t going to do it just because it’s what everyone wants.
- blhack 9y agoQuestions like this always perplex me. People aren't asking for apple to do something. They're asking for them to not do something.
- Fnoord 9y agoHow about free battery replacement? That's not asking much. The solution to underclock to make sure the device doesn't go off is a hack. A cool hack, because it ensures the device stays somewhat useable, but a temporary one. Which also targets devices which don't suffer from the problem.
- blondie9x 9y agoApple is doing what is best for the user and the battery. This was poorly reported on by those without technical backgrounds.
- ArlenBales 9y agoNo. They did what was best for their bottom-line. It was common knowledge that lithium batteries chemically degrade over time. It was not common knowledge, even to those with technical backgrounds, that the iPhone compensated by degrading performance. That was only made recently public by user research. Many consumers have been buying new iPhones after at least 1 year because of this performance degradation. Had Apple been transparent about its performance degradation strategy from the beginning, people would have spent far less money. This will have a substantial effect on Apple's revenue next year as people buy new batteries instead of new iPhones.
- kodablah 9y agoEek, I wish I hadn't capitulated so quickly when iOS 11 came out and my wife complained and complained about performance issues on her 2-year-old iPhone 6 until we just decided to buy an 8 and be done with it. It's not like she would be willing to move off Apple, and we had the money. I doubt my situation is unique. Oh well.
- tanderson92 9y agoIt's not clear to me why this doesn't also apply to the 5S. The same software is in operation on these, no?
- Jedd 9y agoLots of people saying that Apple only had two options - make old handsets slower, or have them randomly shutdown. Might be a reflection of the culture those commenters are from, but it's disingenuous to assert. Other options existed -- notably to advise the user, as part of the update, via mail-out, etc, that this choice had been made from them, and (optionally) what they could do about it.
- cooper12 9y agoWhat are they gonna do about it, "Yes I do want my phone to shut down immediately instead of continuing to be able use it"?
- dingo_bat 9y agoThis is not realistic. The actual options are a) slow the phone down b) make the battery percentage accurate so that people will know when the battery is empty I have used Samsung phones for a long time (since Galaxy S4), and I've never had a phone turn off on me when the battery percentage was anything other than 0%. Are we supposed to believe that the maker of the "world's most advanced smartphone" (their words) cannot figure out how to prevent random shutdowns without slowing down the whole phone?
- cooper12 9y agoYou know, you shouldn't comment if you haven't even bothered to read the article or don't understand the issue being discussed right? HN really does turn into a low-effort circlejerk any time Apple comes up.
- asendra 9y agoStating that a battery replacement will fix it instead of letting them suffer and increasingly slow phone or buying a new one unnecessarily.
- igravious 9y agoAgreed. The comments here apologising for Apple are so disheartening. Inform the user that the battery has degraded or failing that at least allow the batteries to be user or third-party serviceable. I know car analogies are overused but … I would be classed as literally insane if I replaced my car because the battery had become degraded. When this happens you get a mechanic to replace the battery. (Or, if the owner is very competent they replace it themselves.) If we do it for cars, why not for phones? I would absolutely love if this issue got regulated across the board the same way the charging cable connection (everything has to be usb-micro or usb-C) got regulated. Though somehow Apple didn't comply and didn't get penalised.
- notfried 9y agoI'm really infuriated about this. Since mid-2016, my iPhone 6 Plus started to act "weird". It'd shut down sporadically, would reach 40% and then suddenly deplete, and started to get slow. But the problems were not consistent. I went to the Apple Store, and the phone passed all their diagnosis checks, even the battery. A few months later, after my AppleCare+ expired, the problems intensified. And I spent most of 2017 with a very slow and unreliable phone. I honestly thought it was iOS 10. Had I known it was the battery, I'd have paid to replace it. Or I'd have forced them to upgrade it for me for free when I had AppleCare+. I upgraded to an iPhone X, thinking the 6 Plus had reached its EOL, but now I think I've been lied to!
- akvadrako 9y agoYour issue isn't this "scandal" though. This is about preventing sporadic shutdowns by throttling, so if your phone was shutting down it was an undiagnosed bad battery, which is a legit complaint.
- ComputerGuru 9y agoYes it is. The “fix” was introduced to avoid these crashes by throttling instead of browning out. It’s in the article.
- akvadrako 9y agoThe fix, the throttling, is the controversial part, NOT the sporadic shutdowns. It's absurd, because throttling is much better than brownouts, but that's what the lawsuits are about.
- ComputerGuru 9y agoI don’t get it. You are acting as if the brownouts are typical behavior of a year-old battery in a phone? The real scandal is the shoddy design and engineering that led to brownouts that necessitated either a massive recall or this throttling.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago1. You're still trying to fix a design flaw with software. 2. Good move on lowering cost of a replacement, because it sure seemed like you were trying to extend the battery to a point where Apple care ran out. However,some people are reporting throttling at 89% battery capacity as reported by coconut battery. This is absurd! Why? Because you won't replace batteries until at least the 80% mark! Thanks for the clarity, but you need to stop using tiny batteries. Edit: Let's be clear. We are here because Apple chose to use small batteries. An 1810maH battery will degrade to a point where the iPhone shuts down faster than a 2200maH battery would have. They didn't design the iPhone for longer than 1 or 2 years with those tiny batteries. Period.
- jlian 9y agoOne thing that Apple hasn't addressed is if the Geekbench results [1] over-represents or exaggerates the the throttling effect. Since Geekbench pushes the iPhone to its limits for the duration of the benchmark, iOS needs to throttle performance to prevent shutdown while being tested. This results in lower-than-expected test scores every time. But how much does this map to real-life, visible performance drop? Edit: Another question I have is how do other devices handle battery degradation? Do Android phones just let devices shutdown unexpectedly or is there also performance throttling? Or is the problem non-existent on non-Apple devices somehow? [1] https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-and-battery-age/ https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-an...
- dannyw 9y agoThe problem isn't very prevalent in Android devices, because they have more "voltage headroom". The chipsets are not pushed to the limits / the red line, so battery degradation won't result in performance drops or sudden shutdowns. Sudden shutdowns do still occur for some devices, but it is nowhere as iPhone devices pre-throttling. It's also something that didn't affect previous iPhones before the 6, because those devices did not have a very thin redline.
- tschwimmer 9y agoI think this is a good response, and I think a lot of the outrage over this issue is overblown. At the end of the day there's a fundamental tradeoff that Apple needs to make on behalf of their customers: performance or stability. They chose stability, and I think they have a convincing argument as to why: "It should go without saying that we think sudden, unexpected shutdowns are unacceptable. We don’t want any of our users to lose a call, miss taking a picture or have any other part of their iPhone experience interrupted if we can avoid it." I have two concerns: 1) They still haven't fully eliminated the sudden shutdown behavior. My old 5S would shut down randomly under 20% without warning. Sometimes it would make it all the way to 1-2%, but most of the time it was between 5-15%. You'd think they'd scale performance throttling untilt this wasn't an issue. 2) I think their messaging with respect to battery health and the battery being a consumable is pretty poor. As far as I can tell there's no built-in battery health indicator in iOS. Sure there are those dodgy "Super Battery Health Plus Pro" apps, but it seems like a diagnostic menu in settings would go a long way. Even more puzzling is that techs at the Apple Store have access to some sort of diagnostic that does this already. Last time I went to get another issue fixed the guy said that my battery was at 70% capacity and the voltage was pretty low. Why wait until '2018' to ship a self-serve version of this?
- phonon 9y ago> My old 5S would shut down randomly under 20% without warning. Sometimes it would make it all the way to 1-2%, but most of the time it was between 5-15%. "avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE[...]we recently extended the same support for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus" They did not apply the change to the 5S.
- rajacombinator 9y agoThe change definitely didn’t fully solve the problem in the effected models either. (Can’t comment on if it was partially effective.) Recently had a sudden shutdown from 50%->0% on a 6S. It’s a decent response by Apple, although would have been better if they didn’t require a scandal to reduce their absurd markup on batteries.
- jmull 9y ago> Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29... > Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance. There we go. It took too much trouble and too long for it to happen, but Apple is stepping up and doing the right thing. Actually, the cost of battery replacement is now excellent. If they hadn't screwed this up by not communicating what was going on, I think they could have easily justified $49 - $59. So I take the drop to $29 as a tangible apology, which I appreciate. (Well, personally, I've already replaced my battery using a $25 kit from Amazon, but obviously that's not viable for the great majority of iPhone owners.)
- jhack 9y ago> It took too much trouble and too long for it to happen, but Apple is stepping up and doing the right thing. The right thing would have been for Apple to either stop this behaviour or give users the option (retain performance or retain battery life). They're doing neither.
- askafriend 9y agoI disagree. I think they're doing the right thing here. Most users shouldn't need to manage their battery performance actively at all. What's next? Users should manage their own RAM usage? Absolutely not. They're giving away batteries for free, and giving users more visibility into the health of their battery in an upcoming update. That's the right thing.
- PacketPaul 9y agoThe batteries are not free. How about a user replaceable battery design?
- austenallred 9y agoThe trade-offs that come with that would completely destroy everything that makes iPhones great.
- RayVR 9y agoIt wasn't until I upgraded to ios 11 that my iphone 6 began shutting down at 30% battery. This coincided with the phone being completely unusable. I could not launch apps, using the message application was nearly enough to make me quit apple.
- decebalus1 9y ago> First and foremost, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Yeah, intentionally or not, it does happen. In light of the latest Apple 'innovations' I would also look at Grey's law (just look at what a piece of shit ITunes is). There have been numerous class action lawsuits in the past years, which I agree, don't prove anything except for the fact that consumers do notice that their older devices often degrade to not being usable. Anecdotally this is how I lost my 2012 MacBook Pro. The hardware was excellent but software upgrades made it almost unusable. Browsing was ok-ish but I ended up using it mainly in 'terminal mode'. I couldn't find a Linux distribution that ran properly on it so one day I decided to go with El Capitan because of it's focus on 'performance' and that it's hardware requirements were compatible - MacBook Pro Mid/Late 2007 or newer. It worked fine but two days later I fried my video card while reading a PDF in Preview. I'm not saying the upgrade fried my computer but I was really frustrated I only got 3 years of use out of a superb (and expensive) piece of hardware. And yes, after using an Asus for a few (awful) years, I bought another Macbook on which I'm writing this now.
- kayhi 9y agoHow long has this been happening? I upgraded from iPhone 4 to the 6S due to the declining performance.
- danieltillett 9y agoI have a 4S from 2010 running on the original battery and it is fine. Of course I have not upgraded the os past 7. I love the size of the 4S. Please, please, please someone make a phone as small as the 4S. Phones and pants pockets love each other :)
- kayhi 9y agoSmart not to upgrade
- danieltillett 9y agoIt is amazing how this phone just keeps on working doing everything I want it to do. The only thing I wish it had was a better camera, but apart from that it is near perfect.
- fnovd 9y agoAll Apple would have had to do is enable a "Battery Saver" mode in some deep nested menu and turned it on by default, and this would have never been an issue in the first place. The fact that they hid it and denied it is going to cost them. It signals a deliberate misleading of consumers, and is a legitimate scandal. You can't hide the bad intentions in good ones and call it a wash. "Extending the battery life for consumers" isn't a good enough reason to do what they did. A menu option ticked by default would have given the 80% who didn't mind this the same exact experience and the 20% that did the freedom to run their battery to the ground. However, doing so would have forced them to admit that the battery life was going to degrade over time given normal usage.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ajoseps 9y agoman... i literally just got my battery replaced. Wish I saw this an hour earlier
- Improvotter 9y agoI really hope this price drop is also available in Europe. It's currently 99 EUR at Premium Resellers, but it should also be 29 EUR.
- africasiaeuro 9y agoI was never a fan of i-phones. Main reason - battery. I have seen my friends keeping their i-phones permanently on charge - i mean - permanent. Apple presently has been slapped with class action suits in several high courts in the U.S. The move maybe too little too late as more are considering to follow suit. As a result I will never switch my Android for an i-phone, in spite of all pros vs cons.
- ValentineC 9y agoI like the idea of first-party battery replacements, but I have chipped the glass on the side of my iPhone 6S screen from a drop — I wonder if Apple would still charge me the $29 battery replacement fee, or ask me to pony up the full amount.
- ilamont 9y agoSo how long will getting a replacement battery take? Is this something that can be done in an Apple Store in a few minutes, or is it a matter of leaving/sending the phone away for a few days?
- avar 9y agoThey've either been grossly overcharging consumers for these battery replacements for years, and are now just listing a "normal" price, or they're taking a loss on it for PR purposes and folding the price decrease into other products. I don't see how either of those builds customer trust.
- frou_dh 9y agoApple's prime business trait is making big margins on everything relating to hardware. The fact that battery replacements were not historically being done "at cost" should surprise precisely no one.
- avar 9y agoI'm not surprised at their behavior, I'm surprised that so many in this thread think this is a good response to these complaints. Plenty of their customers will have already bought new phones thinking their current ones are just broken, and their response is to stop adding a 100% margin to this one product category temporarily. If I was a regular customer of a company that overcharged me by that much, I'd expect to have correspondingly awesome customer support that would make me whole when they screwed up. I.e. in this case refund the new phone I bought because mine was slow. But I suppose I should stop being surprised at the low expectations people have for Apple.
- staunch 9y agoOn the upside, there is now a very easy way to see which "tech journalists" understand the concept of engineering trade offs. The tech reporters at NY Times, Linus Techtips, etc have never actually created products. They are not technical experts. They're personalities and communicators. And in this case, wacky conspiracy theorists.
- misio 9y agoMy god it's like all the comments on this post are Apple shills. "If you don't accept this you're a wacky conspiracy theorist" Fuck me. That's right out of the handbook mate. The problem that's been complained about for years is decreased performance on upgrade, and no decent downgrade path. Where were the legions of complaints about random shutdowns that prompted such severe throttling? People accepting this explanation blindly have never worked for a large company in a PR storm. They don't suddenly start telling the whole truth, especially if the truth was as benign as they state this is. If it's such a non issue, why not mention it in release notes? Because it was hidden, because this is bullshit.
- staunch 9y agoYou're literally inventing conspiracy theories with zero evidence. Decreased performance on upgrade is an extremely common feature of most software. Servers, desktops, and smartphones are just computers running operating systems and applications. Upgrades bring new functionality, which usually has a cost in terms of system resources like CPU/memory. This is the primary explanation for "slowdown on upgrade" problems. If you didn't know this, you're probably not an engineer who works on these problems i.e. an expert. This is just one example of how non-technical people get themselves very confused and start inventing conspiracy theories.
- misio 9y agoActively throttling is different to slowdown due to a bigger load being placed on the system. Apple have stated that they intentionally throttle. Their reason is battery conservation. Also please don't talk down to me. You're way, way off base with your assumptions.
- milankragujevic 9y agoIt's funny, a service center replaced my whole iPhone for free (thought with terrible customer service included) when it started rebooting, being slow and -- get this -- the screen started popping out on one side cause the battery puffed up. This was before this problem was publicized.
- aetherspawn 9y agoJust going to throw this one out there. I swapped from an Nexus 5 to an iPhone 6+. I bought the iPhone 1.5yrs second hand to get a significant amount off its price. It is dented significantly on the back, but still serves me like a new phone apart from a noticed slow-down. On the other hand, the Nexus randomly started shutting off and the battery only lasted half a day after charging every day for the following 2 years. The phones are now effectively the same age and Apples fix has prolonged the apparent age of my phone, I guess (thanks). But I think people are being harsher because Apple products have longer expected life but use the same battery technology. This isn’t really fair, is it? Ftn. I have designed and manufactured 3 battery assemblies for electric vehicles in a racing context.
- computerex 9y agoYour sample size is too small. You may have gotten a lemon phone. I don't know what point you are trying to make based on your personal experience with 1 nexus phone. I have personally never experienced what you are talking about.
- anaganisk 9y agoAnd yeah my iPhone 6 lasts a day still, c'mon everything doesn't happen for everyone it depends on how you use, charge, and many more factors
- aetherspawn 9y agoMy point was both phones experience similar degradation after similar periods of time, but the iPhone 6 is more usable as a result of the performance scaling, so (IMO) I don’t think their original motif was malicious [ftn 1]. I’m actually very happy they’re bothering to do it even though they surely realised the potential to become a PR nightmare. [1] I could probably at this point even sell my phone again for like 200 bucks and someone would buy it, which could even be hurting them.
- Etheryte 9y agoYou say you haven't experienced the issue the parent comment is discussing, but at the same time, your sample size probably isn't any bigger.
- dr1337 9y agoIt's very interesting to see the cognitive dissonance of all these posts complaining about how Apple has lost their trust etc. yet still wanting to cling onto the brand. There wouldn't be this pseudo-Stockholm syndrome if people just became more rational and voted with their wallet. Go buy a phone that you mostly own instead of buying the right to use and iPhone from Apple.
- tzs 9y agoI'm curious about how much slimness people would be willing to give up for easy, cheap battery replacements for phones. One could design a phone the thickness of the original iPhone that would be able to take AAA batteries. 8 AAA Eneloops have about the same energy as the batteries in iPhone 6s or iPhone 8, and just shy of an iPhone 7. If one would accept a phone about 40% thicker than the original iPhone, 3 or 4 AA Eneloops would do it. I was comfortable with the thickness of my original iPhone, so I would be willing to consider an AAA powered phone. I'd probably even be OK with AA--it would still be thinner than my wallet, which I have no problem with.
- dingo_bat 9y agoJust want to note that Samsung has made their phones thicker for the last 2 generations. It has directly resulted in much better battery life compared to their older phones and I don't think it has hurt sales at all. So maybe people don't really want the thinnest as much as apple likes to believe.
- vizzah 9y agoHow could iOS (definitely) detect if a battery is chemically degraded? If they slow down performance based on the "expectation" that device is old and it's battery _must have_ degraded, then it is obviously a slowdown for many unsuspecting users, whose batteries might be in fact absolutely fine. I have SE and never had any shutdowns; fortunately staying on 9.3.3, without any need nor desire to upgrade. I'd be utterly disappointed if next software update started to "manage" performance for me, suspecting old battery.
- jsz0 9y agoCharging and usage stats are logged so it should be pretty easy for Apple to spot the problem.
- gdilla 9y agoNot only is my 6 slow as molasses since upgrading to 11, i've seen it display a 30% charge and then shut itself off, claiming no charge in the same breath. Standing in line, infact, waiting to show a ticket barcode to get into a show, no less. Had to explain what happened and luckily they could verify my name.
- cfontes 9y agoIphone 5s restarting like crazy because of the battery gets nothing then...
- stalf 9y agoTrying to raise awareness to the fact that Apple's battery letter is only available on the american store. We in Brazil already experience absurd prices (a battery replacements costs R$ 449,00, equivalent to US$ 136,41), but I doubt will see equivalent reductions...
- taspeotis 9y agoThe article does mention price reductions “starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018.“
- pier25 9y ago> available worldwide through December 2018 Which is quite frankly ridiculous. Nothing really justifies waiting a year for this. Apple already has everything it needs to replace batteries worldwide right now (either with third party official repair companies or their own), and the cost of doing so will not likely change from here to December 2018.
- markcerqueira 9y ago> "We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize." Really disappointed, but not surprised, with the wording of this post. We're sorry YOU FEEL disappointed. It's like apologizing for making someone feel offended instead of apologizing for offending them outright.
- m3kw9 9y agoNot only did they have the right design decision to lower the chance of my phone shutting down when I may need it the most, they are lowering the battery replacement price!
- ohiovr 9y agoSo are they wreaking the ux to increase the battery life. Why not just dim the screen?
- jsemrau 9y agoI don't see the difference between the Volkswagen scandal and this. Both companies used software to their own benefit to harm other parties.
- briandear 9y agoWere you actually "harmed?" Let's not compare increasing pollution to you not being able to play Angry Birds with the same level of gusto.
- igravious 9y agoOr, you know, buying a new phone instead of buying a new battery, and all the waste that entails. Do we suddenly not care about the environment now?
- ohiovr 9y agoI would rather pay 30 dollars for ios 10
- andy_ppp 9y agoAfter replacing the battery my iPhone 6s is running fast again... can I return this iPhoneX for a full refund?
- trollied 9y agoI do wonder if this will make Apple look at the good old days of phones where you could have a few spare batteries for your phone :) I know it will never happen because it wouldn’t be aesthetically pleasing to Mr Ive, but ️
- dandersh 9y agoFor years individuals and the tech press have reported about the forced obsolescence of Apple devices, with many detractors claiming otherwise. It would appear that instead of "eating crow" they've decided to double down and are now parroting how this is "manufactured" or "overhyped". Let's be clear: Apple knew that they were pushing the hardware of older devices so hard as to lead to premature expiration. Instead of being forthcoming about this, or reducing the unreasonable load they were placing on older hardware, they used software to throttle the older devices causing many consumers to buy a new (often iPhone) device as a response. This is especially greedy and deceptive and Apple has earned every last bit of negative coverage (and then some).
- misio 9y ago>A chemically aged battery also becomes less capable of delivering peak energy loads, especially in a low state of charge, which may result in a device unexpectedly shutting itself down in some situations. In my years of experience owning smartphones, since the original iPhone, and including a Samsung S4 (decommissioned last month - purchased in 2014). I have never experienced sudden shut off from an aging battery. Have I been lucky or is this extremely rare?
- tlholaday 9y agoYou have been lucky.
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoYou probably just don't run on an extremely low battery very often. I have only experienced it when my device was displaying less than a 15% charge. It also helps if you practice good battery management, not leaving your phone plugged in all night/day. I also have a theory that people are damaging their batteries more if they are a heavy user, while the phone is plugged in. If your phone is charging and you are playing a game my phone seems to get much hotter than at any other time.
- sg47 9y agoI sold my iPhone 6 because the performance became unacceptable after just 1 year. Do I still get $50?
- paulus_magnus2 9y agoApple apologizes for iPhone slowdown drama, will offer $29 battery replacements for a year https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/28/16827248/apple-iphone-battery-replacement-price-slow-down-apology https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/28/16827248/apple-iphone-ba...
- akulbe 9y agoI think part of what's missed here is the fact that Apple's products aren't just the physical things we hold in our hand. A lot of folks would buy stuff because they TRUST Apple to provide a stable and reliable product. It seems like with each release, quality and stability decrease, and customers' trust is further eroded. I wonder if Apple management even considers issues from that perspective?
- et-al 9y ago> A lot of folks would buy stuff because they TRUST Apple to provide a stable and reliable product. Just wanted to emphasise this. I put my parents on iPhones because I wanted to minimise them calling me for technical support. I taught them to update the phone's OS for security reasons, but iOS 11 came out and was dogshit for six weeks until 11.1.2 came out and my mom (a layperson) exclaimed "A[?]'m never updating again!". Tim & Craig need to stop making their customers beta testers. That's why we paid the premium.
- NicoJuicy 9y agoNow for the MacBook
- SimonPStevens 9y agoFrom the statement... "All rechargeable batteries are consumable components" If they are "consumable", why aren't they user replaceable. As far as I'm concerned any company that seals consumable parts inside a device isn't acting the interest of their users.
- astrange 9y agoThey can be replaced for $29.
- pat2man 9y agoOr you can replace them yourself. Its not that hard.
- Outpox 9y agoDoesn't that void your warranty tough?
- lucaspiller 9y agoThat’s no different than replacing parts on a car. You can pay Toyota to replace your brakes, or do it yourself. If you choose the later, then they fail, it’s not Toyota’s fault.
- SimonPStevens 9y agoThat kinda misses the point though (and it's only that price because of recent events, it was more expensive) Apple themselves are describing batteries as consumable, and to me it doesn't work both ways, you can't describe something as consumable and seal it inside the device and still claim to be doing the best thing for the user. Either it's consumable and user replacement should be supported and within warrenty, or it's not consumable.
- lapdanz 9y agoAfter the galaxy note 7 disaster and the apple throttlegate I think it is time for us all to admit the fact that we have reached the limits of lithium batteries. We need to compromise the size of our smartphones if we want to continue seeing progress in their performance and features. Or wait for a miracle from the electrochemists.
- Mikho 9y ago> Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance. So depending on the implementation of the feature iPhone users would be able to see how fast the battery degrades due to its low capacity. Apple could do what every other manufacturer did—provide phones with higher capacity batteries to start from for phones not to burn the battery with too many recharging cycles in the first year. The thing is Apple deliberately supplies small batteries for them to require many recharges and degrade fast. Androids now have on average 3000 mAh batteries. I got 5300 mAh. Small iPhones—1800 mAh.
- geophile 9y agoThat's well and good, but this letter avoids the elephant in the room. Apple has gone way too far in sacrificing functionality for style. I'll accept a seam in the phone, and a slightly thicker phone, if I could replace the battery myself. (That might also avoid the camera bump.) The latest MBP really shit the bed with that poorly conceived touchbar, and the horribly inferior keyboard. And in general, for many years now, Apple laptops have gotten far less serviceable in the name of sleekness. Then there is the issue of software quality. That is a different issue, although perhaps the decline reflects corporate priorities, (sleek hardware is more important than anything). ITunes and Photos are just terrible. Bloated, confusing, inconsistent even within themselves, and certainly across releases. I dread having any contact with Apple's cloud -- it just never acts the way that I want it to, and I tread very carefully to avoid propagating deletes to places I don't want them to go. I don't want files to move seamlessly from one place to another, and to be downloaded on demand. It chews up my phone's monthly data allotment, and it doesn't work at all when I have no connection. Sharing is a disaster. I don't share anything because it is unclear who gets access to what. Another aspect of software quality is a noticeable uptick in bugs. That iOS 11 texting bug (couldn't type "I" correctly) was a huge embarrassment, and it took an astoundingly long time to fix. And I heard many reports of crashes with iOS 11. My iPhone 6 is staying on iOS 10. Then there was the MacOS login-as-root-with-no-password bug. I am seriously thinking about my non-Apple computer future. I have a mid-2015 MBP -- the last good one, as far as I'm concerned. I'm hoping that when I need an upgrade there will be some nice hardware compatible with Linux (fingers crossed for Razer). I'm stuck on the iPhone (because I trust Google not at all), so I'll need to figure out how to get that to coexist with Linux.
- briandear 9y agoInferior keyboard? I LOVE the new keyboard. And Touch Bar works great.
- jasonlotito 9y agoUnfortunately, Apple doesn't seem willing to support the Touch Bar.
- 9y ago
- siproprio 9y agoIn the support article [1], it says: > Many key areas are not impacted by this power management feature. Some of these include: > * Apple Pay How could Apple Pay ever be affected by power management? Why are they even mentioning this service? [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387
- Blazespinnaker 9y agoSure, they don’t intentionally sabotage lifetime of their devices but they don’t really invest in increasing them either.
- gigatexal 9y agoThey acknowledged they made a mistake and I buy their apology. I’ll be getting the battery in my 6 replaced and selling it got an iPhone X now. Kudos Apple but more so to those who sued and all the coverage the sleuthing the Geekbench guy did to get us here.
- hoodoof 9y agoI want the option to turn this off. What Apple is saying in this media release is "pay us and we'll fix it".
- doctorwho 9y agoAll of Apple's battery problems would disappear if I could replace the battery in my device instead of being forced to chuck the whole thing because the battery will no longer take/keep a charge. Surely someone at Apple can design a device with a replaceable battery?
- masonic 9y ago"Of course, when a chemically aged battery is replaced with a new one, iPhone performance returns to normal when operated in standard conditions." I find this disturbingly vague. If the slowdown was strictly due to physical battery degradation (and I haven't heard what specific metric(s) they use to objectively measure age/wear), then replacement should instantly reset performance rationing back to its starting point. They only say it "returns to normal when operated in standard conditions" without defining "standard conditions" and without saying how long it takes before they deign to allow you the performance you paid for. Their official Battery & Power page[1] acknowledges none of this beyond a separate issue affecting only a two-month manufacturing window of September-October 2015. [1] https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power And weren't there earlier iPhone models that weren't designed with user-replaceable batteries?
- MBCook 9y agoI assume they’re referring to some of the other things they talked about, like how performance maybe temporarily degraded if it’s extremely cold outside; not unlike how the phone may have to shut itself down in extremely hot temperatures.
- CrInhabitant 9y agoeven if they offered a free iPhoneX, the answer would still be "hell no"
- CrInhabitant 9y agoEven if the offered a FREE new iPhoneX, the answer would still be a "hell no". Google hacks the Browser, Apple store the phones co-ords, and then they make you upgrade to make it easier to track you, and then their associated product "hi Sarah" crashing and locking out sounds like its trying to contact siri!!! Free iPhone, Hell no
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- eloop 9y ago"making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that." ... Then I suggest that you do something unheard of and really stretch Johnny Ives to come up with the unthinkable, nearly impossible, design task....an easily replaceable battery.
- jasonlotito 9y agoYeah. People talk about how nice the phones are, but honestly, I feel like Apple takes the easy way out in this regard. It's easier to make what they do when you don't have to worry about letting users services the device. The flip side is, when everything is so tightly tied together, the quality has to be that much greater. They should be held to a much higher standard because they have no one to blame but themselves. In this case, this is completely on them.
- rdiddly 9y agoWell hopefully that settles that. All this mass diaper-crapping needs now is a -gate suffix. And ctrl-F-ing on this page I see we already have one: Throttlegate! For when you want to indicate that this is the leader-of-the-free-world-using-illegal-tactics-to-hang-onto-power-and-then-covering-it-up, of iPhone performance!
- askafriend 9y agoSearches of both #batterygate and #throttlegate return a lot of results on twitter.
- stevebmark 9y agoI hope they get sued into the ground :)
- sundvor 9y agoMy son's few-years old iPad (who knows what model since Apple stopped actually naming them) turned into a lagfest after the iOS 11 update. UI operations are choppy where they used to be smooth. Could it be the battery? Samsung, under intense criticism from their Note 7 battery scandal, didn't increase battery capacity with their S8. Instead, they opted to take steps to greatly improve battery life (total capacity loss over time). Whilst I still think retaining 95% after a year is wildly optimistic, I'm happy with this change of focus (yes, I bought one). PS. I noticed that Apple uses lifespan where I use life, and life where I use capacity. Verdict?
- exabrial 9y agoI'm happy with the outcome but I'm not buying their reasoning. It's forced obsolescence and they just got caught this time.
- ianamartin 9y agoI'm glad they did this, but it still doesn't handle the FUD about Apple generally slowing down old hardware in the name of planned obsolescence, which people have been tinfoil-hatting about since forever. The fact is that new OS and software is designed to run on the latest hardware and checked on older hardware to see if it will work at all. The conspiracy theorists think that Apple has been doing this with their phones since they started making them, and for their computers for decades. It's horseshit, of course, and I wish the statement had been stronger. The tinfoil garbage is about like if people complained that game companies were intentionally slowing things down for older graphics cards. No. That's just the natural progression as technology advances. This is a case where Apple is slowing things down, but doing so to improve the user experience, not make it worse. You have almost all of reddit and several other idiot websites that have been complaining for years about perceived slow-downs now feeling vindicated over this. And it's complete garbage. I wish people could separate issues effectively, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.
- katastic 9y agoAs usual, the only thing that corporations listen to... is the threat of the dollar. They didn't give two craps about their policy until this week.
- katastic 9y agoDear downvoter: I dare you to provide logic or a source that rebukes my point.
- cortexio 9y agoApple pays to boost their online reputation. This thread is filled with fake comments and downvotes for comments that are negative towards Apple. It's just common sense, so many companies are doing this right now. It's easy and it works. I wonder if they'll try to downvote me now.
- acd 9y agoA message to Apple, you have made products which users cannot exchange the battery themselves in. Further you degrade the performance of iPhones by cpu throtteling as the device ages and charge a fee for exchanging the battery. Thus you hurt the environment and consumers. One could swap batteries in cell phones previously also in Apple laptops but now batteries and screens are glued to the device. Please engineer phones which are made to be recycled and are easy to self service.
- dayaz36 9y agoGreat now if you can address the hardware planned obsolescence that would be great. Namely the glass screens that constantly shatter (it's 2018...almost)
- hota_mazi 9y ago"We're sorry we got caught, here is a piece of chewing gum".
- garmaine 9y agoApple needs to continue signing iOS 10. It is unacceptable that they have increased the software drain on power for normal activities beyond what supported hardware can run, and then when the problem is recognized not allowed downgrading to revert the experience.
- ksk 9y agoThe whole thing just reveals Apple's bullshit. They oppose right to repair laws and block third party repair by denying them access to parts. The fact that despite all the obstruction and sabotage from apple, you can still get parts is a wonder in itself. >Of course, when a chemically aged battery is replaced with a new one, iPhone performance returns to normal when operated in standard conditions. "Ofcource". Wow! How the heck is a user supposed to know this? >We’ve always wanted our customers to be able to use their iPhones as long as possible. More BS. The iPhone is designed to be unrepairable.
- Girlang 9y agoWhy are all the Apple Apologists tapdancing around the issue?
- sytelus 9y agoI wonder how big a hole this is going to dig in Apple’s balance sheet. I have known many people who bought new iPhone because old one was getting too slow, not because they wanted even more thinner phone. This is especially true with families where cost of replacing iPhone is so prohibitive that no one wants to do it unless it’s absolutely needed. Now that this issue hasn’t got so much media attention I would think iPhone upgrades will hit major breaks.
- perseusprime11 9y agoIt will be interesting to see how other companies which base their products on Lithium ion batteries deal with similar degradation. For example, How will Tesla handle this scenario? Will they slow down the car when the battery performance is not adequate? Interesting to see how companies make tradeoffs.
- greglindahl 9y agoA car motor reacts gracefully to a battery that doesn't put out as much current as expected. That's unlike a cpu, which crashes.
- andys627 9y agoMy iPhone 6 battery health is 91% and it still sucks since the update.
- exikyut 9y ago> Of course, when a chemically aged battery is replaced with a new one, iPhone performance returns to normal when operated in standard conditions. Has Apple ever acknowledged battery replacement that explicitly? It's almost like the iPhone just grew a removable battery door with those words. (Also, for those curious, I'm impressed to see that this has 466 comments only 3 hours after being posted.)
- ohazi 9y agoOne thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is that Apple uses some of the smallest cells in the industry. iPhone 8, 8+: 1821, 2675 mAh Galaxy s8, s8+: 3000, 3500 mAh That's a huge difference. Apple gets away with this because the iPhone is more energy efficient than comparable Android phones, but that's only on average -- peak energy consumption is still comparable. And when cells age, nominally larger cells retain the ability to drive peak workloads without browning out (even if they drain really fast), while Apple's tiny cells eventually just can't do it anymore.
- jimmytucson 9y agoChild, please. Apple has taught a generation about planned obsolescence. Observe: 2017 lawsuit claiming Apple broke FaceTime on iOS 6 to force users to upgrade to iOS 7. [1] 2015 lawsuit alleging iOS 9 degraded performance of iPhone 4s to force users to upgrade their device. [2] 2014 article from the New York Times showing how Google searches for "iPhone slow" coincide perfectly with the release of new devices. [3] 2013 Brazilian lawsuit claiming Apple could have implemented 4th gen iPad features on 3rd generation model. [4] 2013 article from the New York Times about performance degradation coinciding with Apple's release of iPhone 5. [5] 2011 article on Apple's "innovation" of a proprietary 5-point screw to thwart hardware upgrades on iPhone 4, Macbook Pro, and Macbook Air. [6] 2009 TC article on UI becoming sluggish, random restarts, device heating up (is this starting to sound familiar?). [7] 2008 Movie rentals not being available on 5th generation iPods which were released just months prior. [8] I even found an article from 2005 complaining about the high cost of replacing the iPod battery ($250!). [9] [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-lawsuit-facetime-idUSKBN1AG1PJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-lawsuit-facetime-id... [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2015/12/31/apple-lawsuit-iphone-4s-ios-9-mobile-operating-system-upgrade/78134096/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2015/12/31/apple-la... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/upshot/hold-the-phone-a-big-data-conundrum.html?_r=1&abt=0002&abg=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/upshot/hold-the-phone-a-b... [4] http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/02/21/brazilian-lawsuit-accuses-apple-of-planned-obsolescence-with-fourth-gen-ipad http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/02/21/brazilian-lawsuit-... [5] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/magazine/why-apple-wants-to-bust-your-iphone.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/magazine/why-apple-wants-t... [6] https://www.ifixit.com/blog/2011/01/20/apples-diabolical-plan-to-screw-your-iphone https://www.ifixit.com/blog/2011/01/20/apples-diabolical-pla... [7] https://techcrunch.com/2009/06/04/the-short-lifespan-of-the-iphone/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/06/04/the-short-lifespan-of-the-... [8] https://www.wired.com/2008/01/ipod-rentals/ https://www.wired.com/2008/01/ipod-rentals/ [9] https://www.technewsworld.com/story/42328.html https://www.technewsworld.com/story/42328.html
- TekMol 9y ago"We’ve been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones" That's a nice way to describe this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15988913 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15988913
- jfoster 9y agoThis seems like a thorough and good response, but look at what it took in order for it to happen! Apple cultivates a perception that they stand by their products, but you really can't count on that. I've recently had a month-long (and ongoing) to-and-fro of Apple Care repairs to my late 2016 Macbook Pro. I have Apple Care, but it's been more than a month and they're okay with it having taken that long (and being ongoing). The solution to a repair not having fixed a problem is another round of the same tests as last time, followed by a repair that replaces another component. The crash report is easily findable on Google and seems to be a long-standing hardware issue, but Apple Support behave as though it's the first time they've ever encountered it.
- bprasanna 9y agoFinishing sentence says it all: "We are able to do the work we love only because of your faith and support — and we will never forget that or take it for granted."
- Geee 9y agoThat's exactly opposite of what they're doing, so it's a lie. They've just lost my trust, faith and support, and I've sold all of my Apple stock.
- taauji 9y agoiPhone's battery deteriorates to a point of not being able to sustain ideal usage after mere 1-1.5 years. That is a very bad case as per mobile phone standards. $1000 for 18 months averages to about $56 a month after which your phone will start deteriorating to a point of being not usable anymore. Not acceptable no matter how valid their argument is.
- scirocco 9y ago"we began to receive feedback from some users who were seeing slower performance" In the case of Apple, "some users" = millions of users
- itsthejb 9y agoDiscount battery replacement for my 6 will come in very handy
- yummy 9y agoWhat a shitstorm
- tomxor 9y agoOn a related note, they have used underclocking so "solve" hardware flaws on other devices too. If anyone remembers the nVidia unleaded solder microfracture-fest of 2008~. It affected more than just Apple, but the difference is that Apple didn't admit to any issue with their hardware, people who experienced the failure and attempted to go through the Apple care hoops ended up with a logic board with the same issue (another time bomb). Apple pushed a firmware update to underclock all affected GPUs and effectively push the issue outside of their measly 1 year warranty. I learned my lesson: you should only buy Apple hardware if you are happy with it as is, if you can't be certain it will remain that way and something goes wrong you have to accept that you will be ignored and Apple will admit to nothing, at the most they will remotely modify your device at whatever cost to the user to prevent them owning up and making replacements.
- T3RMINATED 9y agoLast time I checked my ASUS Laptop doesnt require to kill my overclocking abilities due to Battery.. MAke it a component users can get fixed boom problem solved.
- gifty123 9y agoGet the hell Outta here, apple isn't even accepting it's mistake like a man
- intellix 9y agoIt's only a temporary reduction in price for replacing a battery. Why is it not at least a little cheaper permanently? Especially when they've made them extremely difficult to replace yourself.
- baby 9y ago> A chemically aged battery also becomes less capable of delivering peak energy loads, especially in a low state of charge, which may result in a device unexpectedly shutting itself down in some situations. I think the people in the Silicon Valley need to take a step back and understand that people in the rest of the world don't change phone every year. If a phone become unusable because of its battery (according to them) during the expected lifetime of the device then batteries need to be easily replacable.
- newscracker 9y agoEasy replacement of batteries is a problem only if you don't have an Apple store or Apple authorized service center nearby (which could be the case for many people across many countries). The batteries have been replaceable for a fee by Apple or an Apple authorized service provider.
- benp84 9y agoWe have very different ideas of "easy". My phone died last night after a day of heavy use, so I pulled the battery out and swapped it with the spare one in its wall charger ($14 for both, shipped) and I was back at 100%.
- hateduser2 9y agoThat’s not actually true. That’s androids Demo, not apples.
- TheCoelacanth 9y agoThere are tons of people who buy used Apple hardware because they can't afford to buy it new. If anything, Apple hardware is probably used for longer than Android phones. People who want a cheap Android phone will just buy a new low-end phone instead of a used flagship phone. People who want a cheap iPhone have to buy a used phone because there are no low-end Apple phones.
- 9y ago
- throwawaymanbot 9y agoPlanned obsolescence. The same thing that wrecked the US Auto industry, is now the same thing thats going to wreck American tech dominance like Apple. The crappy Chinese phone running android does not do this, Further more, its cheap to get parts for it. Twitter and facebook (or whatever app) still run perfectly well on this device. So why am I suffering Low quality decisions from high price Apple?
- wdn 9y agoThis is not limit to Apple iOS. Android has this problem too. If you upgrade your 2 years old phone with the latest Android (if your phone manufacturer did happens to provide update), your phone is not responsive at all. I know, few years ago I updated my Note 1 to Lollipop and it was completely unusable. The good thing is the Note 1 has unlock bootloader and I was able to restore the older software. Unfortunately, you cannot downgrade iOS. I wish I can as I am on 11.2 and the battery drain is crazy. 10% on idle. FU Apple.
- epanchin 9y agoIt’s not ideal manufacturers can state battery life figures as when the phone is new, rather than at the end of their expected life (2yrs).
- SomeHacker44 9y agoI have an iPhone 6 Plus running iOS 10.3.x. I wish they would put a new 10.3 version with the new battery code out. I have every intention of not using iOS 11 due to feature changes that don't work well for me (like the control center wifi/Bluetooth silliness). Won't happen, though - this is Apple. I am afraid of ever breaking this phone because it is my understanding a restore from backup forces an update to the latest code.
- hateduser2 9y agoAre you sure that iOS 11 is as bad as you say? I use it on a 7 and have no problems. maybe you just like to hate Apple, Silicon Valley, or change?
- SomeHacker44 9y agoI am certain. I like the way iOS 10 works and don't want to learn different ways of doing things, and be unable to turn off (really turn off) WiFi/Bluetooth quickly. (I'm a pilot, these things are important.) I like the way macOS 10.12 works (I prefer 10.8, but whatever). At least Apple provides security and patch updates to 10.12 and I can stay on it for several years until they put out another version I either need to upgrade to (for third party reasons) or want to. Apple does not allow me to stay on iOS 10. I have no option to upgrade to 10.3.4 - they won't put out a 10.3.4 even. No, the only option is 11. If 10 is working for me, why am I forced to move to 11? This is very anti-consumer of Apple.
- hateduser2 9y agoThis is indirectly pro consumer of Apple. This means they can engineer for the current gen. Everyone on all platforms should only be served the latest and greatest!
- bertomartin 9y agoIt's back to android for me; it's great to have a choice here, those pixel 2 xl are looking a whole lot nicer all of a sudden.
- newscracker 9y agoJust a day ago I commented on a different thread about the Pixel 2 XL and its display flaws. It won't look a whole lot nicer once you get it (pun intended). [1] The Pixel 2 (non-XL) has a good display though. But you may just be trading for random shutdowns instead of CPU throttling after a while (as other Android users have commented here). [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/pixel-2-and-2-xl-review-the-best-android-phone-you-can-buy/2/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/pixel-2-and-2-xl-rev...
- SteveGregory 9y agoI think a software approach that should be considered is to dim the screen during throttle events. This has multiple benefits: - clear user feedback in the moment of stress on the phone - it would feel more like a battery issue, rather than feeling like a bug - saves some power that can be used to make the processor throttling less dramatic
- dogweather 9y agoI believe this is a poor response because, * In the first paragraph, they only apologized after limiting the limiting the scope to "some" customers who "feel" slighted. Like an irrational person on the defensive, giving a non-apology apology. * They didn't address issues like: the CPU throttling is 24/7, whether the device is running off A/C or not. (!) Completely unnecessary and also — inconsistent with the battery-voltage argument. * Affected users like me have been stuck with a barely functioning phone for a year. Since it stayed nearly unusable even when plugged in, I assumed it was simply due to Apple bloatware affecting older devices.
- camelCaseOfBeer 9y agoPersonally I ditched my iPhone because the updates were forced and diligently increased the workload put upon the device. To what end? I don't know, the change logs were cryptic, God forbid allowing the end user selection of what aspects they want updated. Ultimately every update left you with a less functional device. They can say they didn't plan this obsolescence intentionally until the cows come home, but it doesn't matter, what matters is Apple was fucking up old devices and in turn pushed consumers into buying new devices. Intentional or no - fuck it, fuck the tax dodging, fuck the app store, fuck the developer-hostile platform, fuck the double-blended mocafrappachino cult following, fuck Apple. It's over priced tech-fashion and the masses are catching on.