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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 batter

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 They were doing their best to prolong the life and/or maintain a decent experience for the phones that had become outdated.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
      Which is why they were sued and _lost_? The mental gymnastics you people use is nuts. I guess this is part of Apples PR, is it? Deny history?
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        Hacker News in 2022 is a strange place, it's hard to engage with people who already have their opinion of Apple decided before they've heard how they've messed up this time. The notch was particularly funny, watching everyone's incredulous reaction while people immediately went to damage control with the "but it's still 16:10!!!" addendum. This goes to everyone: Give up. All of these companies suck, the only thing their money buys them is better marketing. It's not worth your time being their PR lackey for them.
        fartcannon 4y ago
        Microsoft's CEO admitted that they have been gaming Hackernews for a while, so it's highly likely the other big brands do the same.
        Klonoar 4y ago
        Citation on that admission?
        robin_reala 4y ago
        I was intrigued by that as well, so I did some digging and turned up the transcript of the “Microsoft Fiscal Year 2019 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call”: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/events/FY-2019/earnings-fy-2019-q1.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/events/FY-2019/earn... . If you search through that for “Hacker News” you’ll find Satya saying: In fact this morning I was reading a news article in Hacker News, which is a community where we have been working hard to make sure that Azure is growing in popularity and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we have made a lot of progress. In some sense that at least basically said that we’re neck to neck with Amazon when it comes to even elite developers as represented in that community.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    No, it was pretty straight forward. Which is why they lost the suit.
    - robin_reala 4y ago
      Sure. They should have been upfront about it, and they should have offered a switch to disable the behaviour. They were rightly punished for it. But if we’re going to be correct about things, it was phone speed that took a hit, not battery life.
      - fartcannon 4y ago
        Sure, still, planned obsolescence.
        robin_reala 4y ago
        I’d probably agree with you were it not for the fact that the “planned obsolescence” happened 18 months after the release of the iPhone 6S, but they then went on to give it a further 5.5 years of software updates. Maybe someone at Apple didn’t get the message?
        fartcannon 4y ago
        Well they got sued for using planned obsolescence and lost. So theres not much to argue about, is there?
        deadlocked 4y ago
        A cursory search would tell you that they didn’t lose anything.

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
    Which is why they were sued and _lost_? The mental gymnastics you people use is nuts. I guess this is part of Apples PR, is it? Deny history?
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      Hacker News in 2022 is a strange place, it's hard to engage with people who already have their opinion of Apple decided before they've heard how they've messed up this time. The notch was particularly funny, watching everyone's incredulous reaction while people immediately went to damage control with the "but it's still 16:10!!!" addendum. This goes to everyone: Give up. All of these companies suck, the only thing their money buys them is better marketing. It's not worth your time being their PR lackey for them.
      - fartcannon 4y ago
        Microsoft's CEO admitted that they have been gaming Hackernews for a while, so it's highly likely the other big brands do the same.
        Klonoar 4y ago
        Citation on that admission?
        robin_reala 4y ago
        I was intrigued by that as well, so I did some digging and turned up the transcript of the “Microsoft Fiscal Year 2019 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call”: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/events/FY-2019/earnings-fy-2019-q1.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/events/FY-2019/earn... . If you search through that for “Hacker News” you’ll find Satya saying: In fact this morning I was reading a news article in Hacker News, which is a community where we have been working hard to make sure that Azure is growing in popularity and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we have made a lot of progress. In some sense that at least basically said that we’re neck to neck with Amazon when it comes to even elite developers as represented in that community.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  No, it was pretty straight forward. Which is why they lost the suit.
  - robin_reala 4y ago
    Sure. They should have been upfront about it, and they should have offered a switch to disable the behaviour. They were rightly punished for it. But if we’re going to be correct about things, it was phone speed that took a hit, not battery life.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      Sure, still, planned obsolescence.
      - robin_reala 4y ago
        I’d probably agree with you were it not for the fact that the “planned obsolescence” happened 18 months after the release of the iPhone 6S, but they then went on to give it a further 5.5 years of software updates. Maybe someone at Apple didn’t get the message?
        fartcannon 4y ago
        Well they got sued for using planned obsolescence and lost. So theres not much to argue about, is there?
        deadlocked 4y ago
        A cursory search would tell you that they didn’t lose anything.