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Your "summary" curiously omits one of the most important details — That the battery could be replaced and the phone would perform like new. If not, the ever det

by mthoms 7y ago

Your "summary" curiously omits one of the most important details — That the battery could be replaced and the phone would perform like new. If not, the ever deteriorating battery would result in a never ending arms race of throttling. Inevitably, that phone and battery would be in the landfill instead of just the latter. Whether or not the whole thing was intentionally nefarious I'm not convinced. But the episode looks way worse than your comment suggests.

thoraway1010 7y ago
Man - almost every other phone brand ends in the the trash MUCH MUCH sooner than Apple, so this is funny to read. Seriously - can you tell me how long you received updates on your android phone? Apple is the absolute leader in getting longer life out of their phones, they have much higher resale as a result as well. Apple not only allows older devices to installer newer software (with bug fixes / security fixes / and supportable features) but they have been backporting stuff to a one step earlier iOS as well in terms of basic fixes. It's actually crazy especially in comparison to their competitors (that get no flak on HN) who literally ship with an old version of android AND DO NOT UPDATE IT!
- mthoms 7y ago
  The statement wasn't about how Apple's phones compare with other phones. It was (pretty clearly I thought) about how long Apple phones with new batteries last against those without new batteries (and throttling applied). >Seriously - can you tell me how long you received updates on your android phone? I've used Apple computers exclusively since about 2005 and phones since around 2009. So no, I've never owned an Android phone. In fact, my small apartment has no less than 8 Apple devices in use between my partner and I. Why do you assume I'm not an Apple user? Because I said something mildly critical of them?
thebruce87m 7y ago
I didn’t leave it out on purpose. In my eyes it was a “limp home” mode so you would expect it to return to full performance. If it didn’t then that definitely would be a scandal. Yes, they definitely should have communicated better. 100%. It was non obvious to any users that the phone had been throttled and that it needed a new battery. I think the fine they got will remind them to be more explicit in the future. The feature still exists today, just explained better.
- schadara 7y ago
  It's curious that this problem was introduced in the iPhone 6, but not in their earlier phones, wouldn't you say?
  - 29083011397778 7y ago
    I'd assume the solution was introduced with the iPhone 6. The problem was there much earlier, due to the way Li-Po batteries work. As such, it could even be counted as one of the touches Apple is known for that other OEMs don't bother with. It just needed better communication.
    - schadara 7y ago
      Yes, this was a feature. This feature was so great that they kept it a secret and were subject to lawsuits and forced to pay millions in fines.
      - thebruce87m 7y ago
        They were fined for not telling people about the feature. The feature still exists.
    - mthoms 7y ago
      Can confirm. My 5s suffered the random shutdown issue and wasn't part of the throttling fix.
  - snowwrestler 7y ago
    They introduced in direct response to people keeping their phones for longer--an more recent industry trend that has been well documented.
    - schadara 7y ago
      You seem pretty certain about their intent. The truth is Apple added battery throttling in iPhone 6 and up not in their older phones even though their older devices were capable of CPU throttling as well. For example, the iPhone 5S would throttle if it got hot enough to protect itself, yet it didn't receive the same throttling feature for the battery. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/ipad-airs-a7-chip-is-identical-to-the-iphones-just-faster/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/ipad-airs-a7-chip-is...
jki275 7y ago
Are you suggesting it wasn’t known that battery replacements were available for iPhones? I know I personally replaced several batteries over the years in iPhones, I don’t think that was a big secret. There were shops you could drop your phone off at and have anew battery put in for fifty bucks in an hour overseas at least.
- schadara 7y ago
  Apple didn't inform users that battery replacements would make their sluggish phones fast again.
  - addison-lee 7y ago
    It's almost as if you get ideas to improve products as time goes on. No, that can't be it.
    - schadara 7y ago
      Not sure how neglecting to inform users of throttling is some kind of improvement. They have an article about hardware microphone disconnects, prolonging battery life, etc. yet they neglected to write an article about hardware throttling. It's almost as if they had a hardware problem and instead of issuing a recall, they quietly pushed a software fix. No, that can't be it.
    - mthoms 7y ago
      So they wrote code to deal with degrading battery health while at the same time didn't know about degrading battery health?
  - acdha 7y ago
    More accurately, Apple didn’t have a UI notification. This was not a secret and support people recommended it if you actually contacted them.
    - mthoms 7y ago
chipotle_coyote 7y ago
My understanding of the change they made was that it was expressly to deal with a condition with failing batteries where, as they were nearing the end of their life, they would just shut off abruptly when they still claimed to have 40% or more charge left -- the problem was that they could no longer deliver peak power, and if the phone tried to draw what was now too much power for something, it'd fail. The solution to that was to limit how much power the phone could draw. I don't think it was intentionally nefarious -- this is a real problem with this kind of battery and I've experienced it, and it's not unique to Apple devices. In theory, their solution is actually pretty good! The problem was the way they communicated this to end users, namely, that they didn't. They just did it. And didn't even have iOS tell you it had enabled this "battery management" mode when it was turned on. This wasn't an engineering fiasco, it was a PR fiasco. Apple has always been guilty of what we could diplomatically call "under-communicating," but this is the sort of change someone -- many someones, arguably -- internally should have flagged and said, "No, look, this isn't something we should just do silently, in part because it's going to create a suboptimal user experience and in part because if we don't communicate what we're doing and why we're doing it, it's going to come across as us just slowing old phones down to make you buy new ones."
- erik_seaberg 7y ago
  A short-lived consumable that can't be field-replaced is always an engineering fiasco. I used to keep a spare battery in my backpack; an external USB battery is not a reliable substitute when (not if) the internal battery gets bad enough.
movedx 7y ago
> Your "summary" curiously omits one of the most important details — That the battery could be replaced and the phone would perform like new. I considered this omitted because it's obvious given the technical details surrounding the throttling to begin with.

by mthoms 7y ago

thoraway1010 7y ago

Man - almost every other phone brand ends in the the trash MUCH MUCH sooner than Apple, so this is funny to read. Seriously - can you tell me how long you received updates on your android phone? Apple is the absolute leader in getting longer life out of their phones, they have much higher resale as a result as well. Apple not only allows older devices to installer newer software (with bug fixes / security fixes / and supportable features) but they have been backporting stuff to a one step earlier iOS as well in terms of basic fixes. It's actually crazy especially in comparison to their competitors (that get no flak on HN) who literally ship with an old version of android AND DO NOT UPDATE IT!

mthoms 7y ago
The statement wasn't about how Apple's phones compare with other phones. It was (pretty clearly I thought) about how long Apple phones with new batteries last against those without new batteries (and throttling applied). >Seriously - can you tell me how long you received updates on your android phone? I've used Apple computers exclusively since about 2005 and phones since around 2009. So no, I've never owned an Android phone. In fact, my small apartment has no less than 8 Apple devices in use between my partner and I. Why do you assume I'm not an Apple user? Because I said something mildly critical of them?

thebruce87m 7y ago

I didn’t leave it out on purpose. In my eyes it was a “limp home” mode so you would expect it to return to full performance. If it didn’t then that definitely would be a scandal. Yes, they definitely should have communicated better. 100%. It was non obvious to any users that the phone had been throttled and that it needed a new battery. I think the fine they got will remind them to be more explicit in the future. The feature still exists today, just explained better.

schadara 7y ago
It's curious that this problem was introduced in the iPhone 6, but not in their earlier phones, wouldn't you say?
- 29083011397778 7y ago
  I'd assume the solution was introduced with the iPhone 6. The problem was there much earlier, due to the way Li-Po batteries work. As such, it could even be counted as one of the touches Apple is known for that other OEMs don't bother with. It just needed better communication.
  - schadara 7y ago
    Yes, this was a feature. This feature was so great that they kept it a secret and were subject to lawsuits and forced to pay millions in fines.
    - thebruce87m 7y ago
      They were fined for not telling people about the feature. The feature still exists.
  - mthoms 7y ago
    Can confirm. My 5s suffered the random shutdown issue and wasn't part of the throttling fix.
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  They introduced in direct response to people keeping their phones for longer--an more recent industry trend that has been well documented.
  - schadara 7y ago
    You seem pretty certain about their intent. The truth is Apple added battery throttling in iPhone 6 and up not in their older phones even though their older devices were capable of CPU throttling as well. For example, the iPhone 5S would throttle if it got hot enough to protect itself, yet it didn't receive the same throttling feature for the battery. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/ipad-airs-a7-chip-is-identical-to-the-iphones-just-faster/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/ipad-airs-a7-chip-is...

jki275 7y ago

Are you suggesting it wasn’t known that battery replacements were available for iPhones? I know I personally replaced several batteries over the years in iPhones, I don’t think that was a big secret. There were shops you could drop your phone off at and have anew battery put in for fifty bucks in an hour overseas at least.

schadara 7y ago
Apple didn't inform users that battery replacements would make their sluggish phones fast again.
- addison-lee 7y ago
  It's almost as if you get ideas to improve products as time goes on. No, that can't be it.
  - schadara 7y ago
    Not sure how neglecting to inform users of throttling is some kind of improvement. They have an article about hardware microphone disconnects, prolonging battery life, etc. yet they neglected to write an article about hardware throttling. It's almost as if they had a hardware problem and instead of issuing a recall, they quietly pushed a software fix. No, that can't be it.
  - mthoms 7y ago
    So they wrote code to deal with degrading battery health while at the same time didn't know about degrading battery health?
- acdha 7y ago
  More accurately, Apple didn’t have a UI notification. This was not a secret and support people recommended it if you actually contacted them.
  - mthoms 7y ago

chipotle_coyote 7y ago

My understanding of the change they made was that it was expressly to deal with a condition with failing batteries where, as they were nearing the end of their life, they would just shut off abruptly when they still claimed to have 40% or more charge left -- the problem was that they could no longer deliver peak power, and if the phone tried to draw what was now too much power for something, it'd fail. The solution to that was to limit how much power the phone could draw. I don't think it was intentionally nefarious -- this is a real problem with this kind of battery and I've experienced it, and it's not unique to Apple devices. In theory, their solution is actually pretty good! The problem was the way they communicated this to end users, namely, that they didn't. They just did it. And didn't even have iOS tell you it had enabled this "battery management" mode when it was turned on. This wasn't an engineering fiasco, it was a PR fiasco. Apple has always been guilty of what we could diplomatically call "under-communicating," but this is the sort of change someone -- many someones, arguably -- internally should have flagged and said, "No, look, this isn't something we should just do silently, in part because it's going to create a suboptimal user experience and in part because if we don't communicate what we're doing and why we're doing it, it's going to come across as us just slowing old phones down to make you buy new ones."

erik_seaberg 7y ago
A short-lived consumable that can't be field-replaced is always an engineering fiasco. I used to keep a spare battery in my backpack; an external USB battery is not a reliable substitute when (not if) the internal battery gets bad enough.

movedx 7y ago

> Your "summary" curiously omits one of the most important details — That the battery could be replaced and the phone would perform like new. I considered this omitted because it's obvious given the technical details surrounding the throttling to begin with.