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Apple got sued for throttling iPhones with overly aged batteries. My understanding is that for all battery-dependent devices, you either sometimes throttle the

by riscy 6y ago

Apple got sued for throttling iPhones with overly aged batteries. My understanding is that for all battery-dependent devices, you either sometimes throttle the CPU so it doesn’t demand more voltage than the battery can reliably deliver, or else you risk sudden power loss at what appears to be 20% life. After the lawsuit I assume now all manufacturers leaving it up to the consumer to decide which behavior they want.

Reason077 6y ago
There's nothing wrong with throttling in itself. Pretty much anyone will prefer a performance hit to a spontaneous shutdown. Where Apple got in trouble was that they were doing it secretly. Now days they still do the throttling, but you can go into battery status and it tells you if the battery is delivering peak performance or not.
- Karunamon 6y ago
  It actually gets worse in Apple's case. They were doing it secretly, which is bad enough, but they were also denying warranty repairs to throttled phones (since policy was to only conduct the repairs once an arbitrary "health" metric fell below a certain point, and the throttling kicked in first). This meant your options were to either deal with the crap performance, or void your warranty by installing a third party battery.
  - Reason077 6y ago
    > "your options were to either deal with the crap performance, or void your warranty by installing a third party battery." Or pay Apple a not-entirely-unreasonable fee to get them to replace the battery ($49 IIRC?), a bit more than the third party price but perhaps worth it for peace of mind.
    - plorkyeran 6y ago
      When they first rolled out the throttling they were still charging $79 for a battery replacement. They cut the price significantly specifically as a response to the backlash.
    - Karunamon 6y ago
      That price only went into effect after the outrage broke. Additionally, people were turned away at Apple stores since according to the diagnostics, there was nothing wrong with their battery. You couldn't just walk in and demand a battery replacement or a replacement of any other part that passes diagnostics.

by riscy 6y ago

Reason077 6y ago

There's nothing wrong with throttling in itself. Pretty much anyone will prefer a performance hit to a spontaneous shutdown. Where Apple got in trouble was that they were doing it secretly. Now days they still do the throttling, but you can go into battery status and it tells you if the battery is delivering peak performance or not.

Karunamon 6y ago
It actually gets worse in Apple's case. They were doing it secretly, which is bad enough, but they were also denying warranty repairs to throttled phones (since policy was to only conduct the repairs once an arbitrary "health" metric fell below a certain point, and the throttling kicked in first). This meant your options were to either deal with the crap performance, or void your warranty by installing a third party battery.
- Reason077 6y ago
  > "your options were to either deal with the crap performance, or void your warranty by installing a third party battery." Or pay Apple a not-entirely-unreasonable fee to get them to replace the battery ($49 IIRC?), a bit more than the third party price but perhaps worth it for peace of mind.
  - plorkyeran 6y ago
    When they first rolled out the throttling they were still charging $79 for a battery replacement. They cut the price significantly specifically as a response to the backlash.
  - Karunamon 6y ago
    That price only went into effect after the outrage broke. Additionally, people were turned away at Apple stores since according to the diagnostics, there was nothing wrong with their battery. You couldn't just walk in and demand a battery replacement or a replacement of any other part that passes diagnostics.