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So you think a Popup "Hey you're battery is going bad. Do you want to [keep the performance] or [save the battery life]?" Would be too much??

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Or maybe "How long do you want your battery to last?" Choose 6 hours, or 8, or 12.
- mikeash 9y ago
  “How often do you want your phone to suddenly shut off without warning?” [Never] [Sometimes] [Often]
  - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
    Do we actually know the numbers (e.g. battery life and expected number of shutdowns) required to make any of these points more than moot? Because there are definitely values that would win hands-down for either side.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      I don’t think we have any numbers, but the sudden shutdown problem was pretty frequent, enough that Apple issued a recall for one model and a lot of people saw it happen.
mikeash 9y ago
It’s not about battery life. It’s about not pulling so much current that it suddenly shuts down the entire device. Why do so many people think this is just about making a charge last longer?
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  The hardware/software behavior could be 100% justified and it still wouldn't excuse the fact that they've hidden it all this time, driving millions of people to buy new phones when they really just needed a new battery.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I completely agree, I just want criticism to rest on the facts. There’s far too much useless noise because of this misunderstanding.
- j_coder 9y ago
  It is about battery life. This is how the battery should be measured: 100% -> Doesn't charge more 0% -> Do no provide enough voltage/current for safe operation at current power mode. At 5% the phone could switch (configurable) to extended battery mode (low power mode) and alert the user. As the battery ages the user will notice better a faster battery discharge (from 100% to 0%) and not the performance slowdown.
  - garmaine 9y ago
    Your demonstrating the same ignorance the post you’re replying to is complaining about. It is not physically possible for the phone to draw sufficient power off a degraded battery to power it in high performance modes. The battery just doesn’t provide enough electrical current. Apple isn’t stepping back performance on degraded batteries to keep battery life. They are doing it to keep peak current draws at a level the battery can support so that the phone doesn’t hard shutoff when it is receiving insufficient power.
    - ezioamf 9y ago
      I think you don’t read the comment. If the battery do not have enough power the level would be 0%. The time from 100%(plugged in) to 0% will depend on how degraded is the battery. It is not difficult to understand. You are repeating Apple excuses. Mobile phones had been dealing with degrading batteries for a long time.
      - garmaine 9y ago
        That’s not how batteries work. Degration over time causes a battery to not just store less total capacity on a “full” charge, but also to output less current at the required voltage. The latter is what is preventing the phone from operating under a full load at peak performance without a hard shut off. The issue is the device shutting off while there is still charge on the battery, not the battery reaching 0% faster.
      - ezioamf 9y ago
        To be clear: 0% would be when current voltage or current mAh level is bellow what the phone needs to operate at maximum capacity. “Voltage and mAh are two different, but interrelated, things. voltage is a measure of the electrical power a battery can deliver, while mAH (milli-Amp hours) is a measure of how long the battery will maintain usable voltage at a given output current.” https://www.quora.com/How-much-mAh-will-equal-to-1-v https://www.quora.com/How-much-mAh-will-equal-to-1-v
- colejohnson66 9y ago
  Because it fits their biases better. Simple as that.
  - blensor 9y ago
    No. Because it is still about battery life. If it were only about the spurious shutdown then the throttling would happen once in a while, but the reports are about long lasting performance reductions, sometimes down to 50%. If the battery is in a state where the only solution to prevent sudden shutdowns is to continuosly throttle the system to 50% then my hardware is seriously degraded and someome REALLY needs to tell me that.
eh78ssxv2f 9y ago
I think the question is: "Hey you're battery is going bad. Do you want to [keep the performance] or [shutdown the phone]?"
- astrange 9y ago
  You'd never want an instantaneous shutoff of your phone, which is what you'd get from a brownout. That's just asking for data corruption.
stouset 9y ago
Multiply this idea times the six thousand other locations people think this should be done and you suddenly get an frustratingly unusable device. Everyone gets upset that their pet setting isn't available, but nobody stops to think about the consequences of having everyone else's pet setting available.
- blensor 9y ago
  And with that comment we are back at the root of the problem. Apple is the one to evaluate what is and what is not important to the user. And many people who are currently upset think they had their priorities wrong. We can argue all day long what is and what really isn't important. The fact is they decided it isn't and the backlash showed quite strongly that it was wrong.
  - stouset 9y ago
    > The backlash showed quite strongly that it was wrong. What backlash? This same scenario seems to play out practically every month: Apple does something that generates tons of negative comments from — as far as I can tell — people who don't actually use Apple products (removes the headphone jack, throttles performance for phones with aging batteries, releases phone with minor antenna issue, replaces TouchID with FaceID, the notch on the iPhone X, USB-C MBP, etc.). The next quarter, they announce record sales and continue their absolute domination in terms of both customer satisfaction and profit share in the overall market. The simple reality is that these things are never as big of an issue as people out for blood make them appear (antenna issue, headphone jack, the Notch), or most consumers actually generally agree with the stance taken by Apple (throttle phones with dying batteries rather than unexpected shutoffs, FaceID).
    - blensor 9y ago
      Don't you think the response from Apple (lowering battery replacement costs, modifying the OS to show the user what is happening) is a clear indicator that they really fid feel a backlash rather than the usual Apple bashing by non Apple customers?

JoeAltmaier 9y ago

Or maybe "How long do you want your battery to last?" Choose 6 hours, or 8, or 12.

mikeash 9y ago
“How often do you want your phone to suddenly shut off without warning?” [Never] [Sometimes] [Often]
- oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
  Do we actually know the numbers (e.g. battery life and expected number of shutdowns) required to make any of these points more than moot? Because there are definitely values that would win hands-down for either side.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I don’t think we have any numbers, but the sudden shutdown problem was pretty frequent, enough that Apple issued a recall for one model and a lot of people saw it happen.

mikeash 9y ago

It’s not about battery life. It’s about not pulling so much current that it suddenly shuts down the entire device. Why do so many people think this is just about making a charge last longer?

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
The hardware/software behavior could be 100% justified and it still wouldn't excuse the fact that they've hidden it all this time, driving millions of people to buy new phones when they really just needed a new battery.
- mikeash 9y ago
  I completely agree, I just want criticism to rest on the facts. There’s far too much useless noise because of this misunderstanding.
j_coder 9y ago
It is about battery life. This is how the battery should be measured: 100% -> Doesn't charge more 0% -> Do no provide enough voltage/current for safe operation at current power mode. At 5% the phone could switch (configurable) to extended battery mode (low power mode) and alert the user. As the battery ages the user will notice better a faster battery discharge (from 100% to 0%) and not the performance slowdown.
- garmaine 9y ago
  Your demonstrating the same ignorance the post you’re replying to is complaining about. It is not physically possible for the phone to draw sufficient power off a degraded battery to power it in high performance modes. The battery just doesn’t provide enough electrical current. Apple isn’t stepping back performance on degraded batteries to keep battery life. They are doing it to keep peak current draws at a level the battery can support so that the phone doesn’t hard shutoff when it is receiving insufficient power.
  - ezioamf 9y ago
    I think you don’t read the comment. If the battery do not have enough power the level would be 0%. The time from 100%(plugged in) to 0% will depend on how degraded is the battery. It is not difficult to understand. You are repeating Apple excuses. Mobile phones had been dealing with degrading batteries for a long time.
    - garmaine 9y ago
      That’s not how batteries work. Degration over time causes a battery to not just store less total capacity on a “full” charge, but also to output less current at the required voltage. The latter is what is preventing the phone from operating under a full load at peak performance without a hard shut off. The issue is the device shutting off while there is still charge on the battery, not the battery reaching 0% faster.
    - ezioamf 9y ago
      To be clear: 0% would be when current voltage or current mAh level is bellow what the phone needs to operate at maximum capacity. “Voltage and mAh are two different, but interrelated, things. voltage is a measure of the electrical power a battery can deliver, while mAH (milli-Amp hours) is a measure of how long the battery will maintain usable voltage at a given output current.” https://www.quora.com/How-much-mAh-will-equal-to-1-v https://www.quora.com/How-much-mAh-will-equal-to-1-v
colejohnson66 9y ago
Because it fits their biases better. Simple as that.
- blensor 9y ago
  No. Because it is still about battery life. If it were only about the spurious shutdown then the throttling would happen once in a while, but the reports are about long lasting performance reductions, sometimes down to 50%. If the battery is in a state where the only solution to prevent sudden shutdowns is to continuosly throttle the system to 50% then my hardware is seriously degraded and someome REALLY needs to tell me that.

eh78ssxv2f 9y ago

I think the question is: "Hey you're battery is going bad. Do you want to [keep the performance] or [shutdown the phone]?"

astrange 9y ago
You'd never want an instantaneous shutoff of your phone, which is what you'd get from a brownout. That's just asking for data corruption.

stouset 9y ago

Multiply this idea times the six thousand other locations people think this should be done and you suddenly get an frustratingly unusable device. Everyone gets upset that their pet setting isn't available, but nobody stops to think about the consequences of having everyone else's pet setting available.

blensor 9y ago
And with that comment we are back at the root of the problem. Apple is the one to evaluate what is and what is not important to the user. And many people who are currently upset think they had their priorities wrong. We can argue all day long what is and what really isn't important. The fact is they decided it isn't and the backlash showed quite strongly that it was wrong.
- stouset 9y ago
  > The backlash showed quite strongly that it was wrong. What backlash? This same scenario seems to play out practically every month: Apple does something that generates tons of negative comments from — as far as I can tell — people who don't actually use Apple products (removes the headphone jack, throttles performance for phones with aging batteries, releases phone with minor antenna issue, replaces TouchID with FaceID, the notch on the iPhone X, USB-C MBP, etc.). The next quarter, they announce record sales and continue their absolute domination in terms of both customer satisfaction and profit share in the overall market. The simple reality is that these things are never as big of an issue as people out for blood make them appear (antenna issue, headphone jack, the Notch), or most consumers actually generally agree with the stance taken by Apple (throttle phones with dying batteries rather than unexpected shutoffs, FaceID).
  - blensor 9y ago
    Don't you think the response from Apple (lowering battery replacement costs, modifying the OS to show the user what is happening) is a clear indicator that they really fid feel a backlash rather than the usual Apple bashing by non Apple customers?