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The interesting thing about this story is that "batterygate"[1] represents a period from January 2017 (when Apple added the throttling behavior in iOS 10.2.1, i
by kemayo 5y ago
The interesting thing about this story is that "batterygate"[1] represents a period from January 2017 (when Apple added the throttling behavior in iOS 10.2.1, in response to bad press about old batteries causing shutdowns) to March 2018 (when Apple added the messaging explaining the throttling in iOS 11.3, and letting you opt-out of it). I'd speculate that the HN crowd skews towards being the type who'd buy new phones pseudo-regularly, so we're probably less likely than the average person to have actually experienced the throttling on an old battery.
Despite the status quo having been the "fixed" state for 3.5 years now, that one year period has left an indelible mark on some people's perceptions of Apple, such that stories claiming performance-shenanigans will always have an audience.
And, to be fair, the messaging about an old battery is probably confusing[2]. You get a popup explaining it after your phone restarts from poor battery performance for the first time, and then it's buried in the battery-health segment of preferences. Disabling the performance-throttling is even done just as a text-link, rather than a toggle or button. There's also no call-to-action suggesting that you might be able to get the battery replaced. (That's reserved for when the overall battery capacity drops.)
[1]: https://www.ifixit.com/News/11208/batterygate-timeline https://www.ifixit.com/News/11208/batterygate-timeline
[2]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387
- IIAOPSW 5y agoI suspect HN tends towards less likely to be enticed by shinny things and marketing hype cycles. My phone is pushing 4 years at this point. I always buy with the expectation that I will get 3-5 years out of any phone/laptop. Really want to see data on this one.
- haimez 5y agoIt would certainly be interesting to see the data, but I’m not sure if I’d expect the results to point towards any particular monolithic user trends. I think a lot of users (perhaps the majority?) are using flagship devices released within the last year.
- kemayo 5y agoMy logic is mostly that we're on a site which is targeted at people who're in a fairly high-earning profession, with the added bonus of it being a fairly change-friendly profession. If you're making Silicon Valley engineer money, whether you buy a new flagship phone every year is pretty much a matter of whether you want to, without money being a strong factor.
- IIAOPSW 5y agoIts true we could buy new phones yearly if we wanted to, but in my experience Engineering types are far less interested in social signaling / conspicuous consumption and far more likely to buy something based purely on the spec sheet. You have to do more than color your phone pink to convince us to upgrade. We know how that sausage is made. Both of our narratives are plausible. The only way to settle this is with data.
- dehrmann 5y agoMy iPhone 6s had the issue where a random CPU burst would crash it. Experiencing that, knowing how batteries age, and knowing how CPU throttling works, I actually believe Apple's explanation. I don't have a great explanation for why it's not a problem for my laptop other than bigger battery, though.
- kaba0 5y agoA blind guess is that what actually matters is the number of charge/discharge cycles. Greater batteries will go through less, but also you probably use your laptop on a charger from time-to-time which won’t count towards the cycle-count.