5 ms·

I don't think it's a completely manufactured scandal, although most of the reporting was deceptive (as is, I'm starting to suspect, most reporting, full stop).

by dilap 9y ago

I don't think it's a completely manufactured scandal, although most of the reporting was deceptive (as is, I'm starting to suspect, most reporting, full stop). I think the non-manufactured part of the scandal is having your phone throttle itself w/o telling you it's doing that is pretty annoying. You're left wondering, is my phone running slower or is my mind playing tricks on me? I think Apple's response here is great.

matt4077 9y ago
> (as is, I'm starting to suspect, most reporting, full stop). Don't hate on all journalism (or anything, really) just because of some bad apples. Even if it were true (which it isn't), it takes away all motivation for people in that industry to do the right thing. Why bother spending time on well-researched reporting, if all you get back is "fake news" or "all journalists are corrupt and produce clickbait"-hate on Twitter? More specifically, here's a Q&A, and a previous article, discounting Apple conspiracy theories by The New York Times: "Is Apple Slowing Down Old iPhones? Questions and Answers": https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/technology/iphone-battery-problem-slow.html?mtrref=www.google.com https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/technology/iphone-battery... "A New Phone Comes Out. Yours Slows Down. A Conspiracy? No.": https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/technology/personaltech/new-iphones-slow-tech-myth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/technology/personaltech/n...
- reaperducer 9y ago
  > Don't hate on all journalism (or anything, really) just because of some bad apples Unfortunately, since these days anyone with a smartphone can call themselves a "journalist," it's become like the lawyer situation — the 90% bad ones give the 10% good ones a bad name.
- tomcam 9y ago
  “Bad apples.” hehe
- alangpierce 9y ago
  I've also seen news reporting be frustratingly inaccurate on plenty of occasions, but I guess the right approach is to apply some amount of skepticism and think about the limitations of news reporting and the signs that the reporting is biased or editorialized. In this case, I saw lots of headlines like "Apple admits it deliberately slowed down old phones". To me, the word "admits" is a big red flag. It's a loaded term that you can apply to pretty much any public statement, and it suggests (but doesn't directly imply) that Apple is admitting to wrongdoing. Phrasing like that signals to me that the reporting is untrustworthy.
- dilap 9y ago
  that's the thing, incentives are all wrong in general for media to be accurate.
baddox 9y ago
I’m curious whether anyone who was organically affected by this power management feature actually could notice the peak CPU throttling, and especially if the throttling would be anywhere near as noticeable as the gradual increase in random shutdowns. Of course it will show up in synthetic benchmarks, but I haven’t heard any analysis of whether people’s perception that their old phones are getting slow had anything to do with this power management code.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  Yes I was noticing it. I was really noticeable compared to my wife’s iPhone that’s newer but of the same model. The time it takes for search to return was the biggest thing that was bugging me. A $50 battery replacement for 2.5 years of service is totally reasonable.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    Small note, it’s not $50. That’s the price REDUCTION. So now it’s only $30. I made the same mistake, which someone else pointed out to me. There are a lot of companies that make their money fixing iPhone batteries for $30. If this isn’t a limited time offer they’re in deep trouble.
    - latexr 9y ago
      > If this isn’t a limited time offer It is. > starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018.
- MBCook 9y ago
  Yes. It may depend on various factors, but I know someone with an iPhone 6+ that is ridiculously slow. At times it can’t keep up with typing terribly well. Or you’ll go to open a simple app and it will take a couple of seconds. And iPhone 6 that one of their relatives purchased on the same exact day does not exhibit this behavior. At least not to a noticeable degree. The phone is three years old and has had a hard life. It gets discharged down to 10% pretty often. As soon as the articles about this started to come out it fit perfectly. We’ll find out when they try and replace the battery, but I suspect this is the issue. However this is also probably one of the worst cases. I mean if my phone was throttled 10 or 15% I’m not sure I would really notice. If things get bad and it starts being 40%+ I can see how it would be noticeable.
andrei_says_ 9y ago
No, my mind is not playing tricks on me. My 6 slowed down to a barely usable pace after an iOS upgrade. This happened suddently, and not gradually, right at the time Apple was releasing new devices. It is normal to be suspicious. My battery did not wear out overnight.
- dilap 9y ago
  the theory is that your battery was already worn out, putting your device at at greater risk for sudden shutdowns. when you updated your software, it started throttling. per that theory, a new battery should put you right again. (or wait for a future software update, which will tell you for sure if it was throttling.) i think there is a little more going on, though, because my old ipad mini is slow a.f. w/ the new software update, and it shouldn't be affected by this throttling. my guess is it's simply lazy software engineering: apple doesn't seem to try to target good performance on old devices.
  - andrei_says_ 9y ago
    I will likely take advantage of Apple's battery replacement policy and give my old unlocked phone a few more years. It's perfect for travel.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    It is knowing that sometimes reinstalling the OS from scratch can make a big difference on iOS devices. Even John Gruber posted about it today. I’m not sure what it is but there can be some sort of “gremlin“ on a few old installs. It’s possible that’s your issue if the problem is especially severe.
cornholio 9y ago
> I think Apple's response here is great. I have bought a device of a certain performance, fully expecting that the battery will degrade and hold a smaller and smaller charge, but NOT expecting the performance of the device to suffer. I was given absolutely no warning that, come a certain age or use-pattern, the performance of the device will degrade. Apple went behind my back and installed software that prevented device lockup, and gave me no info about it. What if I was entitled to a warranty replacement of the battery, but the software hid that from me by devaluing my purchase? This is not 'great', it's sleazy. Apple is essentially getting away with installing lower performance batteries and/or reducing it's warranty costs compared to competitors. The behavior itself is good from an engineering point of view, the communication was deceptive and fraudulent; the feature should be made optional, enabled at the user's discretion to extend the life of terminals that are outside of warranty and start to lock up, or the customer should be thoroughly informed at the time of purchase that the performance of the terminal will significantly degrade.
- dilap 9y ago
  right, i agree! original behavior was shitty, but their response is good. their response is - an apology - a promise to update the software so you know when you're getting throttled - cheap battery replacements i think that's pretty solid.
  - uw_rob 9y ago
    I don't think the response is good enough. - They make no promise of the target lifespan of their devices. It appears that their internal culture believes that devices that last only 1 year is acceptable. They do not say if they want to deviate from this. - No transparency on the expected battery degradation and performance impact over time.
    - dilap 9y ago
      batteries seem to be tricky for everyone (remember the exploding samsung notes?). visibility into the battery status and official replacements after 1 year for $30 seems pretty darn good to me. more generally the useful lifespan of iphones is definitely more than a year. i was recentlu able to sell still-perfectly-functioning iphonr 7 for almost half it's cost new. my 3-year-old ipad mini only started feeling slow a couple months ago. this seems better than what my friends with android experience, anecodotally.
forrestthewoods 9y ago
> I think the non-manufactured part of the scandal is having your phone throttle itself w/o telling you it's doing that is pretty annoying. If you have a laptop then I have bad news; your CPU throttles itself. Especially if you play games. It gets too hot and slows itself down to prevent damage. There’s not even a direct way to detect this. Which I do admit is annoying. Apple deserves this PR egg on their face. But they aren’t doing anything super wrong. Additional battery life info will go a long ways towards doing things right.
- dilap 9y ago
  fair point, tho there are a few salient differences: the laptop always does this; it's not something where it magically (and mysteriously) gets slower as it ages. it's also obvious when this is happening, even if not directly indicated: the fan will be cranking and the laptop will be really hot to the touch. and, there's also somehow more of a feeling that a phone is a controlled system that will "just work," whereas computers/laptops are always screwing up in one way or another...
  - MBCook 9y ago
    > it's not something where it magically (and mysteriously) gets slower as it ages In some ways that does happen. As computers get more lint in them that often start heading thermal barrier’s and automatically throttling themselves without telling the user. As for whether the fan makes it obvious I guess that depends on how loud the fan is. Or this could happen to a desktop that you just have placed out of the way enough that you can’t hear it well.
- altcognito 9y ago
  > There’s not even a direct way to detect this. I'm not sure what you mean by this, but you can run software that will give you these details and much, much more about the state of the CPU.
  - forrestthewoods 9y ago
    It can be detected analytically, but you can’t directly query the CPU for throttle state. https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/defective-heat-sinks-causing-garbage-gaming/ https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/defective-heat-...

by dilap 9y ago

matt4077 9y ago

> (as is, I'm starting to suspect, most reporting, full stop). Don't hate on all journalism (or anything, really) just because of some bad apples. Even if it were true (which it isn't), it takes away all motivation for people in that industry to do the right thing. Why bother spending time on well-researched reporting, if all you get back is "fake news" or "all journalists are corrupt and produce clickbait"-hate on Twitter? More specifically, here's a Q&A, and a previous article, discounting Apple conspiracy theories by The New York Times: "Is Apple Slowing Down Old iPhones? Questions and Answers": https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/technology/iphone-battery-problem-slow.html?mtrref=www.google.com https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/technology/iphone-battery... "A New Phone Comes Out. Yours Slows Down. A Conspiracy? No.": https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/technology/personaltech/new-iphones-slow-tech-myth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/technology/personaltech/n...

reaperducer 9y ago
> Don't hate on all journalism (or anything, really) just because of some bad apples Unfortunately, since these days anyone with a smartphone can call themselves a "journalist," it's become like the lawyer situation — the 90% bad ones give the 10% good ones a bad name.
tomcam 9y ago
“Bad apples.” hehe
alangpierce 9y ago
I've also seen news reporting be frustratingly inaccurate on plenty of occasions, but I guess the right approach is to apply some amount of skepticism and think about the limitations of news reporting and the signs that the reporting is biased or editorialized. In this case, I saw lots of headlines like "Apple admits it deliberately slowed down old phones". To me, the word "admits" is a big red flag. It's a loaded term that you can apply to pretty much any public statement, and it suggests (but doesn't directly imply) that Apple is admitting to wrongdoing. Phrasing like that signals to me that the reporting is untrustworthy.
dilap 9y ago
that's the thing, incentives are all wrong in general for media to be accurate.

baddox 9y ago

I’m curious whether anyone who was organically affected by this power management feature actually could notice the peak CPU throttling, and especially if the throttling would be anywhere near as noticeable as the gradual increase in random shutdowns. Of course it will show up in synthetic benchmarks, but I haven’t heard any analysis of whether people’s perception that their old phones are getting slow had anything to do with this power management code.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago
Yes I was noticing it. I was really noticeable compared to my wife’s iPhone that’s newer but of the same model. The time it takes for search to return was the biggest thing that was bugging me. A $50 battery replacement for 2.5 years of service is totally reasonable.
- MBCook 9y ago
  Small note, it’s not $50. That’s the price REDUCTION. So now it’s only $30. I made the same mistake, which someone else pointed out to me. There are a lot of companies that make their money fixing iPhone batteries for $30. If this isn’t a limited time offer they’re in deep trouble.
  - latexr 9y ago
    > If this isn’t a limited time offer It is. > starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018.
MBCook 9y ago
Yes. It may depend on various factors, but I know someone with an iPhone 6+ that is ridiculously slow. At times it can’t keep up with typing terribly well. Or you’ll go to open a simple app and it will take a couple of seconds. And iPhone 6 that one of their relatives purchased on the same exact day does not exhibit this behavior. At least not to a noticeable degree. The phone is three years old and has had a hard life. It gets discharged down to 10% pretty often. As soon as the articles about this started to come out it fit perfectly. We’ll find out when they try and replace the battery, but I suspect this is the issue. However this is also probably one of the worst cases. I mean if my phone was throttled 10 or 15% I’m not sure I would really notice. If things get bad and it starts being 40%+ I can see how it would be noticeable.

andrei_says_ 9y ago

No, my mind is not playing tricks on me. My 6 slowed down to a barely usable pace after an iOS upgrade. This happened suddently, and not gradually, right at the time Apple was releasing new devices. It is normal to be suspicious. My battery did not wear out overnight.

dilap 9y ago
the theory is that your battery was already worn out, putting your device at at greater risk for sudden shutdowns. when you updated your software, it started throttling. per that theory, a new battery should put you right again. (or wait for a future software update, which will tell you for sure if it was throttling.) i think there is a little more going on, though, because my old ipad mini is slow a.f. w/ the new software update, and it shouldn't be affected by this throttling. my guess is it's simply lazy software engineering: apple doesn't seem to try to target good performance on old devices.
- andrei_says_ 9y ago
  I will likely take advantage of Apple's battery replacement policy and give my old unlocked phone a few more years. It's perfect for travel.
- MBCook 9y ago
  It is knowing that sometimes reinstalling the OS from scratch can make a big difference on iOS devices. Even John Gruber posted about it today. I’m not sure what it is but there can be some sort of “gremlin“ on a few old installs. It’s possible that’s your issue if the problem is especially severe.

cornholio 9y ago

> I think Apple's response here is great. I have bought a device of a certain performance, fully expecting that the battery will degrade and hold a smaller and smaller charge, but NOT expecting the performance of the device to suffer. I was given absolutely no warning that, come a certain age or use-pattern, the performance of the device will degrade. Apple went behind my back and installed software that prevented device lockup, and gave me no info about it. What if I was entitled to a warranty replacement of the battery, but the software hid that from me by devaluing my purchase? This is not 'great', it's sleazy. Apple is essentially getting away with installing lower performance batteries and/or reducing it's warranty costs compared to competitors. The behavior itself is good from an engineering point of view, the communication was deceptive and fraudulent; the feature should be made optional, enabled at the user's discretion to extend the life of terminals that are outside of warranty and start to lock up, or the customer should be thoroughly informed at the time of purchase that the performance of the terminal will significantly degrade.

dilap 9y ago
right, i agree! original behavior was shitty, but their response is good. their response is - an apology - a promise to update the software so you know when you're getting throttled - cheap battery replacements i think that's pretty solid.
- uw_rob 9y ago
  I don't think the response is good enough. - They make no promise of the target lifespan of their devices. It appears that their internal culture believes that devices that last only 1 year is acceptable. They do not say if they want to deviate from this. - No transparency on the expected battery degradation and performance impact over time.
  - dilap 9y ago
    batteries seem to be tricky for everyone (remember the exploding samsung notes?). visibility into the battery status and official replacements after 1 year for $30 seems pretty darn good to me. more generally the useful lifespan of iphones is definitely more than a year. i was recentlu able to sell still-perfectly-functioning iphonr 7 for almost half it's cost new. my 3-year-old ipad mini only started feeling slow a couple months ago. this seems better than what my friends with android experience, anecodotally.

forrestthewoods 9y ago

> I think the non-manufactured part of the scandal is having your phone throttle itself w/o telling you it's doing that is pretty annoying. If you have a laptop then I have bad news; your CPU throttles itself. Especially if you play games. It gets too hot and slows itself down to prevent damage. There’s not even a direct way to detect this. Which I do admit is annoying. Apple deserves this PR egg on their face. But they aren’t doing anything super wrong. Additional battery life info will go a long ways towards doing things right.

dilap 9y ago
fair point, tho there are a few salient differences: the laptop always does this; it's not something where it magically (and mysteriously) gets slower as it ages. it's also obvious when this is happening, even if not directly indicated: the fan will be cranking and the laptop will be really hot to the touch. and, there's also somehow more of a feeling that a phone is a controlled system that will "just work," whereas computers/laptops are always screwing up in one way or another...
- MBCook 9y ago
  > it's not something where it magically (and mysteriously) gets slower as it ages In some ways that does happen. As computers get more lint in them that often start heading thermal barrier’s and automatically throttling themselves without telling the user. As for whether the fan makes it obvious I guess that depends on how loud the fan is. Or this could happen to a desktop that you just have placed out of the way enough that you can’t hear it well.
altcognito 9y ago
> There’s not even a direct way to detect this. I'm not sure what you mean by this, but you can run software that will give you these details and much, much more about the state of the CPU.
- forrestthewoods 9y ago
  It can be detected analytically, but you can’t directly query the CPU for throttle state. https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/defective-heat-sinks-causing-garbage-gaming/ https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/defective-heat-...