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The updates that downgrade the battery life without having user replaceable batteries is planned obsolescence.

sgjohnson 4y ago
Batteries are consumable, and there's not a shred of evidence that Apple is purposefully downgrading battery life with updates.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  - refracture 4y ago
    To be clear it's not that they 'downgraded' battery life, it's that it throttled power draw (and by extension performance) if the phone determined that the battery could no longer reliably power the device at peak draw. Apple's failure to communicate this and give users the option to set power draw back to full (with an explanation of consequences) is exactly why they got sued and deserved to lose. It's up front and made clear in the battery settings menu, but it really should not have required a law suit to make that happen, they've nobody but themselves to blame for the perception that they were just being greedy and trying to coerce people into new phones by hobbling existing ones. I will say on the user experience side I did appreciate that in the aftermath of this we were able to get a new battery in an affected iPhone 6S for free straight from the Apple store. Got some serious mileage out of that phone.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      They were sued and _lost_.
      - refracture 4y ago
        Yes, that has been established. I wasn't suggesting otherwise; to the contrary I think they deserved it. They made major changes to the performance characteristics of these devices without disclosing what they were doing or why. Honestly if you want a bigger bone to pick with Apple regarding performance slaughter you should look at EOL iOS devices that capped out at iOS 9. The iPhone 4S was a great little handset until Apple destroyed it with iOS 9.
        fartcannon 4y ago
        Yes, more evidence of planned obsolescence is good.
  - jasonlotito 4y ago
    This is only half true. There were sued for this, but you can sue anyone for anything so that hardly matters. The assertion you are making has not been proven, and the link in your article backs this up. Quite the opposite. Your claim is false.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      They were sued and lost. Thus: guilty.
      - sgjohnson 4y ago
        There’s no guilt involved in civil cases.
neilalexander 4y ago
It's hardly like updates are being released deliberately to worsen battery life. The more features that get added, the more CPU cycles are used therefore battery power is consumed more quickly. This should be a surprise to no one, little less a technical audience like HN. Even the battery throttling saga a couple years ago was largely with good intentions (in that it's better to run the phone a bit slower than it is for it to power off at random due to voltage drops). Apple can be accused of an awful lot but their support story for older devices is better than any other phone or tablet manufacturer out there bar none.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  They were sued and lost for exactly this reason. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay-113-million-to-settle-batterygate-case-over-iphone-slowdowns https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay...
  - robin_reala 4y ago
    The technical explanation was that CPU speed scaling spikes would exceed the old battery’s ability to supply power, causing the phone to reset. Apple’s decision was that a slower phone was a better user experience than a phone that randomly reset when you tried to do something that required a high CPU frequency. The upshot of that is that, yes, your phone got slower as it aged due to a software update. The battery life certainly didn’t suffer (if anything it would have improved it slightly). But it’s a little bit more nuanced than “planned obselescence”.
    - ben174 4y ago
      And any way you look at it, it's clear that Apple wasn't just trying to cripple old phones in an attempt to sell the newer models. They were doing their best to prolong the life and/or maintain a decent experience for the phones that had become outdated.
      - fartcannon 4y ago

Batteries are consumable, and there's not a shred of evidence that Apple is purposefully downgrading battery life with updates.

fartcannon 4y ago
- refracture 4y ago
  To be clear it's not that they 'downgraded' battery life, it's that it throttled power draw (and by extension performance) if the phone determined that the battery could no longer reliably power the device at peak draw. Apple's failure to communicate this and give users the option to set power draw back to full (with an explanation of consequences) is exactly why they got sued and deserved to lose. It's up front and made clear in the battery settings menu, but it really should not have required a law suit to make that happen, they've nobody but themselves to blame for the perception that they were just being greedy and trying to coerce people into new phones by hobbling existing ones. I will say on the user experience side I did appreciate that in the aftermath of this we were able to get a new battery in an affected iPhone 6S for free straight from the Apple store. Got some serious mileage out of that phone.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    They were sued and _lost_.
    - refracture 4y ago
      Yes, that has been established. I wasn't suggesting otherwise; to the contrary I think they deserved it. They made major changes to the performance characteristics of these devices without disclosing what they were doing or why. Honestly if you want a bigger bone to pick with Apple regarding performance slaughter you should look at EOL iOS devices that capped out at iOS 9. The iPhone 4S was a great little handset until Apple destroyed it with iOS 9.
      - fartcannon 4y ago
        Yes, more evidence of planned obsolescence is good.
- jasonlotito 4y ago
  This is only half true. There were sued for this, but you can sue anyone for anything so that hardly matters. The assertion you are making has not been proven, and the link in your article backs this up. Quite the opposite. Your claim is false.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    They were sued and lost. Thus: guilty.
    - sgjohnson 4y ago
      There’s no guilt involved in civil cases.

neilalexander 4y ago

It's hardly like updates are being released deliberately to worsen battery life. The more features that get added, the more CPU cycles are used therefore battery power is consumed more quickly. This should be a surprise to no one, little less a technical audience like HN. Even the battery throttling saga a couple years ago was largely with good intentions (in that it's better to run the phone a bit slower than it is for it to power off at random due to voltage drops). Apple can be accused of an awful lot but their support story for older devices is better than any other phone or tablet manufacturer out there bar none.

fartcannon 4y ago
They were sued and lost for exactly this reason. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay-113-million-to-settle-batterygate-case-over-iphone-slowdowns https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay...
- robin_reala 4y ago
  The technical explanation was that CPU speed scaling spikes would exceed the old battery’s ability to supply power, causing the phone to reset. Apple’s decision was that a slower phone was a better user experience than a phone that randomly reset when you tried to do something that required a high CPU frequency. The upshot of that is that, yes, your phone got slower as it aged due to a software update. The battery life certainly didn’t suffer (if anything it would have improved it slightly). But it’s a little bit more nuanced than “planned obselescence”.
  - ben174 4y ago
    And any way you look at it, it's clear that Apple wasn't just trying to cripple old phones in an attempt to sell the newer models. They were doing their best to prolong the life and/or maintain a decent experience for the phones that had become outdated.
    - fartcannon 4y ago