4 ms·

they already got caught artificially slowing older iphones on ios updates, remember that? this is a way to slow older models and get away with it.

theshrike79 1y ago
It was a choice between two options in phones with bad batteries: - Slow down the phone so that it still works - Crash phone immediately Seems like the majority of people would've wanted option 2 for some strange reason? They did fix it by giving people the option, but I wonder how many still opted for "yes, I want my phone to suddenly just die instead of slowing down". And the fix for all this was a 50€ battery replacement.
- phoronixrly 1y ago
  Remind me, was the slowdown communicated in any meaningful way, and were the affected users directed to service their phones at the nearest apple store? 'Hey, there's an issue with your battery so we've slowed down your phone to prevent it going off. Please visit your local apple store to address this.' As opposed to misleading them that their phones are old and slow/crashing and they need to buy new ones?
- ACCount37 1y ago
  The issue was always that of communication and trust. Communication: at no point has Apple tried to communicate "your phone's battery has gone bad, the device now suffers for it" to the user. Even though they obviously knew that this was what was happening. Trust: with how openly anti-repair Apple was at the time, how can you trust that this was a honest oversight, and not another malicious action designed to prevent people from repairing their devices? Apple has improved upon both since. But they're still not anywhere near perfect - and it took a lot of getting their shit kicked in by the media, the public and the regulators for Apple to get even this far.
  - Zambyte 1y ago
    How has Apple improved on repairability?
    - ACCount37 1y ago
      They now actually sell some parts online, and offer official repair manuals and tools. That only covers a few basic repair types, the tooling is clunky (for a reason - those tools are designed to allow cheap-and-replaceable official employees to perform basic repairs to an Apple-acceptable quality) and the parts are hilariously overpriced. But it's considerably better than nothing. They also enabled a few repairs that were previously hard blocked by software, and required some incredibly complex hardware workarounds because of it - like FaceID replacement. Make no mistake - I have zero faith in this being Apple actually trying to be better. It's much more likely that this was them walking back their "no third party repairs never ever" stance under pressure from consumer rights activists and regulators in places like EU. But it's a change for the better either way - and it would be good to see more of that in the future.
  - foldr 1y ago
    The issue has always been that people who don’t trust Apple interpret everything that Apple does in the worst possible light. I make no comment here on whether such suspicion is justified. But let’s imagine that the current behavior (showing the battery warning) had been the original behavior. Then people would no doubt have complained that Apple was trying to pressure people into unnecessary battery replacements.
    - theshrike79 1y ago
      Ahh, the Misunderstanding Olympics and Apple's local CSAM scan implementation <3
- nani8ot 1y ago
  > Seems like the majority of people would've wanted option 2 for some strange reason? People want to know this is what happens. If a slow down is not communicated, the average person doesn't go "Oh, I need a new battery.". They are going to buy a new phone because their old one is slow.
- thefz 1y ago
  > It was a choice between two options in phones with bad batteries: > - Slow down the phone so that it still works > - Crash phone immediately Three, actually: - Inform the user and provide decent repair and parts.
- 1oooqooq 1y ago
  do you work with technology and you swallowed that crazy excuse? "oh we're protecting you. it's not like we have a dozen voltage and temperature sensors, and not like we already throttle when those sensors detect any of the things we're claiming in the excuse" ... and everyone fall for it. geez.
can16358p 1y ago
Great. Let's not slow down CPUs coupled with aging batteries and instead have a full system crash suddenly at the most demanding moment. Sure that would be much better.
- hu3 1y ago
  None of that was communicated previously which made many customers buy a new iPhone instead of replacing the battery. I wonder why... /s
  - ErneX 1y ago
    True, but it’s no longer the case.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  On top of that, hard crashes and partial brownouts due to undervolting can and do lead to data corruption on all sorts of storage, no matter if eMMC, straight NAND or microSD cards. Most phone PCB designs do not account properly for the scenario "battery gone bad leads to undervolting of components" at all, the best you're gonna get is the BMC cutting off everything when the voltage at the battery drops way too much - but that is a failsafe mechanism, the flash, memory and processor chips will have undergone brownout events before the BMC emergency shutdown hits.
  - hulitu 1y ago
    > Most phone PCB designs do not account properly for the scenario "battery gone bad leads to undervolting of components" We were talking about Apple here. If they don't know that a battery can get discharged, maybe they shall do something else. For a SWE might be ok. For a HWE no.
bslaq 1y ago
[flagged]

theshrike79 1y ago

It was a choice between two options in phones with bad batteries: - Slow down the phone so that it still works - Crash phone immediately Seems like the majority of people would've wanted option 2 for some strange reason? They did fix it by giving people the option, but I wonder how many still opted for "yes, I want my phone to suddenly just die instead of slowing down". And the fix for all this was a 50€ battery replacement.

phoronixrly 1y ago
Remind me, was the slowdown communicated in any meaningful way, and were the affected users directed to service their phones at the nearest apple store? 'Hey, there's an issue with your battery so we've slowed down your phone to prevent it going off. Please visit your local apple store to address this.' As opposed to misleading them that their phones are old and slow/crashing and they need to buy new ones?
ACCount37 1y ago
The issue was always that of communication and trust. Communication: at no point has Apple tried to communicate "your phone's battery has gone bad, the device now suffers for it" to the user. Even though they obviously knew that this was what was happening. Trust: with how openly anti-repair Apple was at the time, how can you trust that this was a honest oversight, and not another malicious action designed to prevent people from repairing their devices? Apple has improved upon both since. But they're still not anywhere near perfect - and it took a lot of getting their shit kicked in by the media, the public and the regulators for Apple to get even this far.
- Zambyte 1y ago
  How has Apple improved on repairability?
  - ACCount37 1y ago
    They now actually sell some parts online, and offer official repair manuals and tools. That only covers a few basic repair types, the tooling is clunky (for a reason - those tools are designed to allow cheap-and-replaceable official employees to perform basic repairs to an Apple-acceptable quality) and the parts are hilariously overpriced. But it's considerably better than nothing. They also enabled a few repairs that were previously hard blocked by software, and required some incredibly complex hardware workarounds because of it - like FaceID replacement. Make no mistake - I have zero faith in this being Apple actually trying to be better. It's much more likely that this was them walking back their "no third party repairs never ever" stance under pressure from consumer rights activists and regulators in places like EU. But it's a change for the better either way - and it would be good to see more of that in the future.
- foldr 1y ago
  The issue has always been that people who don’t trust Apple interpret everything that Apple does in the worst possible light. I make no comment here on whether such suspicion is justified. But let’s imagine that the current behavior (showing the battery warning) had been the original behavior. Then people would no doubt have complained that Apple was trying to pressure people into unnecessary battery replacements.
  - theshrike79 1y ago
    Ahh, the Misunderstanding Olympics and Apple's local CSAM scan implementation <3
nani8ot 1y ago
> Seems like the majority of people would've wanted option 2 for some strange reason? People want to know this is what happens. If a slow down is not communicated, the average person doesn't go "Oh, I need a new battery.". They are going to buy a new phone because their old one is slow.
thefz 1y ago
> It was a choice between two options in phones with bad batteries: > - Slow down the phone so that it still works > - Crash phone immediately Three, actually: - Inform the user and provide decent repair and parts.
1oooqooq 1y ago
do you work with technology and you swallowed that crazy excuse? "oh we're protecting you. it's not like we have a dozen voltage and temperature sensors, and not like we already throttle when those sensors detect any of the things we're claiming in the excuse" ... and everyone fall for it. geez.

can16358p 1y ago

Great. Let's not slow down CPUs coupled with aging batteries and instead have a full system crash suddenly at the most demanding moment. Sure that would be much better.

hu3 1y ago
None of that was communicated previously which made many customers buy a new iPhone instead of replacing the battery. I wonder why... /s
- ErneX 1y ago
  True, but it’s no longer the case.
mschuster91 1y ago
On top of that, hard crashes and partial brownouts due to undervolting can and do lead to data corruption on all sorts of storage, no matter if eMMC, straight NAND or microSD cards. Most phone PCB designs do not account properly for the scenario "battery gone bad leads to undervolting of components" at all, the best you're gonna get is the BMC cutting off everything when the voltage at the battery drops way too much - but that is a failsafe mechanism, the flash, memory and processor chips will have undergone brownout events before the BMC emergency shutdown hits.
- hulitu 1y ago
  > Most phone PCB designs do not account properly for the scenario "battery gone bad leads to undervolting of components" We were talking about Apple here. If they don't know that a battery can get discharged, maybe they shall do something else. For a SWE might be ok. For a HWE no.

bslaq 1y ago

[flagged]