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U.S. To Probe Apple Over Updates That Slow Older iPhones
- pxeboot 9y agoI am happy to see this issue getting so much attention outside of tech circles. Apple has mostly gotten a pass for their anti-consumer behavior recently and I hope the negative publicity from this forces them to improve things.
- oneplane 9y agoI'm not sure how this (badly) communicated feature is 'anti-consumer'. It is practical power management at its finest and all other phone makers can learn from it.
- lostmsu 9y agoIts a hardware bug, not a software "feature"
- oneplane 9y agoIs it? There is no lithium battery out there that doesn't have a discharge slope that just falls off at the edge under high load. The alternatives are: - stop powering the device when the charge gets into the zone where sudden dropouts might happen (i.e. lose about 5% capacity) - accept sudden dropouts and have users experience devices that suddenly fail (i.e. lose about 5% of their useful charge since you can no longer depend on the device being on)
- nielsbot 9y agoWhat anti-consumer behavior have they gotten a pass on?
- slivanes 9y agoLack of common ports on MacBook Pro requiring extra (paid) dongle hardware to make it similar in function to previous generation. Apple led the way on lack of repairability and expandability on their devices. Sadly other manufacturers slowly followed suit. You likely need to turn off iMessage if you migrate to a non-Apple phone to get SMS or text messages someone sends you from an iPhone. Locking certain iOS functionality away from 3rd parties - preventing browsers such as Chrome from using said functionality that Safari enjoys. Want more?
- unethical_ban 9y agoRegulators shouldn't give a damn about 1 and 3. 2 and 4 are suspect.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoThey shouldn't, but they have to. Noone else will.
- icebraining 9y agoIf no one gives a damn, why have they?
- TeMPOraL 9y agoSorry: no one else with power to make it right gives a damn. Why they? Because that's their job - to help individuals coordinate at scale.
- unethical_ban 9y agoTo be clear: 1 and 3 are not a risk to consumers; they are merely an inconvenience.
- pc86 9y ago> You likely need to turn off iMessage if you migrate to a non-Apple phone to get SMS or text messages someone sends you from an iPhone. This is the most damning one. I recently (6 months ago?) switched to Android and I still have friends who cannot send me text messages. They're non-technical and unless I'm sitting in a room with them will not be able to walk them through the process. They have to do something, I can't do it on my end. So now I have a handful of friends with whom my only method of contact is FB messenger.
- signal11 9y agoIt's ironic that Apple, which provides regular software updates, is being scrutinized while it appears Google and other Android vendors -- whose track record on updates is very spotty -- get a free pass. To avoid a case of 'no good deed goes unpunished', I do hope Samsung, Google and co get some attention over lack of updates for older phones/OSes too. Their approach of not updating perfectly good phones just leads to greater e-waste, not to mention wasting consumer dollars.
- MBCook 9y agoWell, Apple is the company that had to settle a case with the DOJ because they dared to be a party to people breaking Amazon’s ebook monopoly. A downright scummy company. /s
- pc86 9y agoWhat is "e-waste" and how is it different than regular waste? Has Samsung, Google et al provided any clarification on why particular phones do not receive updates?
- Retric 9y agoUnlike most things, electronics are fairly toxic and should not be disposed of by throwing them in the regular trash.
- saagarjha 9y ago> Has Samsung, Google et al provided any clarification on why particular phones do not receive updates? Probably because they don't want to spend time supporting these devices?
- scintill76 9y agoNo updates might actually be better than forced (practically? I don't use iOS) updates that make your device less desirable to you, and can't be undone. It's more fair and conceivable that Apple should be forced to meet certain standards for updates they choose to release, than for any manufacturer to be forced to make updates for some arbitrary/indefinite period of time.
- MBCook 9y agoStopping people’s phones from randomly shutting off is anti-consumer? Of all the things Apple has been accused of over the years this seems like one of the most clear-cut examples where they didn’t do anything wrong. You want to make political points? Go after them for iTunes, the App Store, something else. Somewhere where you have a leg to stand on. “Your honor, they tried to cause the phones of the American people to be more reliable! I demand justice!”
- craftyguy 9y ago> Stopping people’s phones from randomly shutting off is anti-consumer? Funny thing is, I've owned non-Apple phones for years and I've never had any "randomly shut off." If you pay half attention to the battery capacity icon and/or warnings the devices gives you, any 'shutting off' due to no more battery charge will not be random.
- basch 9y agoit's not about "no more battery" its about peak cpu usage drawing too much power instantaneously. all apple did was cap peak power draw in the power drivers. this prevents data loss. it's a good feature if designed correctly.
- lostmsu 9y agoHow about a recall?
- snowwrestler 9y agoWhy? Because Li-Po batteries don't maintain their peak performance forever? Maybe Ford should recall their cars because the tires eventually wear out?
- lostmsu 9y agoIt would have to if they would wear out during manufacturer's warranty.
- samsonradu 9y agoI think this wasn’t really news for most people, it’s been taken as granted among my friends that you DON’T update an older iPhone in order to keep it in good shape. If this news had been released an year ago I’d have thought it is just capitalism 101, maximize profits. But there are software failures among all latest Apple platforms, OSX High Sierra is terrible on my 2yo MacBook Pro, I can’t think that is also intended for profit maximization. Looking forward to the conclusion.
- winter_blue 9y agoI had an iPhone 6 Plus (from 2014) that dramatically slowed down after an iOS update that was released around 2 years ago (some point after the iPhone 7 was out). This is a phone that costs with sales taxes, over $1000. At one point, it was so slow that I felt like throwing it on the wall, and breaking it into a thousand small pieces. (There even was a lag between me typing on the on-screen keyboard and those characters appearing.) I replaced the battery (about a year ago), and the speed improved a bit, but not completely. I had to get a new phone because it was (still was) simply just too slow. Honestly, there needs to be some sort of class-action lawsuit and compensation for iPhone owners who have literally been swindled by this.
- lightbyte 9y ago>I had to get a new phone because it was slow to the point of being unusable. What new phone did you end up getting? I hope it wasn't another iPhone.
- winter_blue 9y agoI got a used Nexus 6 (in excellent condition) from Glyde for $185 which worked decently well. It was faster, but not super-snappy; and the battery life wasn't great. But I purchased the iPhone X with AppleCare+ about a month ago. It was a huge purchase. The phone was $1,149, AppleCare+ was $199, and NYC sales tax was close to $120. In total, I spent $1,468.
- eastWestMath 9y agoYou just needed to replace the battery...
- jonny_eh 9y agoThat info only came about recently. Until someone on reddit figured it out, we all just assumed it was OS bloat, or some other magic. That's why everyone's so upset.
- 9y ago
- lotu 9y agoIt bothers me a little the way people are assuming active malice where passive indifference and normal progressions of technology and features is sufficient to cause what we are seeing. Apple could be inserting code to slow down phones in a very controlled and deliberate effort: if (version <= iPhone7) { wait_ms(100); } This is what I think of when someone says Apple is deliberately slowing down phones but I don't find this credible. For this specific case Apple's explanation, they started throttling down CPUs based on battery age to prevent unexpected phone shutdowns make sense. I do have issue with how this was initially messaged (a.k.a. it wasn't) but I understand why, consumer tech news tends to be very low information. It doesn't make sense for Apple to try to explain to users the details of every tweak to power management settings, and if they did it would either be lost on most consumers or be transformed in to negative headlines about how updating your phone makes it slower, in large part because the headline "Will the New iOS Update Slow Down your iPhone?" gets more clicks than "Apple makes Incremental Improvements to Power Management of iPhones as Part of Long-Term Strategy". So I understand the strategy of saying nothing. Furthermore I expect most of the actual (not perceived) slow down is from dozens of conversations like happening: Eng: New feature FooBar is awesome we should include it in the next iOS release. QA: FooBar isn't passing latency tests on our latest iPhone so you can't include it. Eng: Darn :( <2 years later> Eng: I still think Foobar is awesome, and look it very snappy on my current phone. QA: It works on our latests phones too, and users like it. Okay it is in! Eng: Yay. This is fundamental to how software has been developed forever. We make faster hardware to be able to run more complex taxing software and than means older hardware will be slower in comparison.
- slededit 9y agoThrottling happens in well under 2 years which is the normal use period for most people. If they were doing this in much older phones then maybe you could chalk it up to altruism, but with it happening to phones still in their normal service life its clearly an under spec'd battery if this is what they are forced to resort to.
- MagnumOpus 9y agoIf it were due to battery lifetime, Apple wouldn't slow down the devices when they are plugged in. (Of course then the slowdown when running on battery would have been obvious.)
- macintux 9y agoAs with every Apple "scandal" it seems the company is a Rorschach test writ large. If you're inclined to think the worst of them, well, obviously this reinforces the idea that they're greedy, anti-consumer schmucks who deserve to be taken down a notch.
- garyrob 9y agoApple is delaying some key iPhone and Mac software features planned for release this year to focus on quality improvements, Bloomberg News reported earlier Tuesday. In my book, that's the best news to come out of Apple in years.