Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

geekbench.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 270 posts

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#11

Post by colordrops »

Devagamster wrote: post #9
leeoniya wrote: post #4

> This will likely feed into the “planned obsolescence” narrative. well, non-replaceable battery and all...

I imagine most users would prefer their iphone to stay on for a reasonable period over being super zippy. And like the other commenters said, replacing the battery will fix the problem.

Except that it gets unbearably un-zippy. If battery life really gets so bad that Apple believes it will reflect poorly on their brand, then they could do in-store same day battery replacements. But that would cut into their profits wouldn't it.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#12

Post by oceanghost »

Retric wrote: post #5
leeoniya wrote: post #4

> This will likely feed into the “planned obsolescence” narrative. well, non-replaceable battery and all...

You can replace the batteries at both Apple stores and independent retailers. https://www.cnet.com/how-to/iphone-battery-replacement-diy-o... The issue IMO, is it's not obvious that the battery needs to be replaced and when. It's not holding charge > new battery is far more obvious than it's slow > new battery. Most people probably prefer a slow phone than one without charge however Apple should have some indication…

You really can't though. I had a phone with an awful battery-- it would shut off around 25% randomly. I brought it into Apple 3 times, it even had apple care-- and because the f*ing diagnostic suite identified the battery as good, they wouldn't replace it.

They wouldn't even LET ME PAY FOR THE REPAIR.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#13

Post by [deleted] »

Devagamster wrote: post #9
leeoniya wrote: post #4

> This will likely feed into the “planned obsolescence” narrative. well, non-replaceable battery and all...

I imagine most users would prefer their iphone to stay on for a reasonable period over being super zippy. And like the other commenters said, replacing the battery will fix the problem.

[deleted]

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#14

Post by izacus »

mikerg87 wrote: post #3

How do non-apple devices cope as they age ? Any word on what Nexus, Galaxy or Pixel devices of a similar vintage do? does the performance stay the same but the battery life becomes shorter?

Most Android devices have rather severe issues with flash degradation (due to use of cheaper chips, controllers and connection... cheap MMC controllers are still very standard) which makes them practically unusable after a few years.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#15

Post by EGreg »

Someone1234 wrote: post #6

I feel like more transparency would have been welcomed, but aside from that this is a "no win" situation, since you have to pick a winner: - Do you degrade performance but leave screen-on time relatively unchanged? - Do you degrade screen-on time but leave performance relatively unchanged? Most Android devices seem to do the opposite (lose screen-on time, but keep performance relatively unchanged). Different people w…

With Apple being Apple, I think they can do it in an Apple way and degrade screen-on time for performance, switching it to favor battery whenever you turn on the "Low Power Mode" setting. Simple binary decision in the user's hands. I would also put "Conserve Battery" in the control center.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#16

Post by synicalx »

Retric wrote: post #5
leeoniya wrote: post #4

> This will likely feed into the “planned obsolescence” narrative. well, non-replaceable battery and all...

You can replace the batteries at both Apple stores and independent retailers. https://www.cnet.com/how-to/iphone-battery-replacement-diy-o... The issue IMO, is it's not obvious that the battery needs to be replaced and when. It's not holding charge > new battery is far more obvious than it's slow > new battery. Most people probably prefer a slow phone than one without charge however Apple should have some indication…

But it's not as cheap or easy as just popping the back of your phone and slipping in a new battery. Mind you, most flagship phones these days can't be refurbished in that way.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#17

Post by pen2l »

Xorlev wrote: post #10
Devagamster wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine most users would prefer their iphone to stay on for a reasonable period over being super zippy. And like the other commenters said, replacing the battery will fix the problem.

This was the final straw for me to move to Android. My 6S was unusably slow with iOS11. I'd rather this be something _I_ can control. At the very least, the performance should improve if you plug in the phone, and it doesn't. Edit: other thing I remember is that when I upgraded iOS10 at one point my battery _stopped_ being reliable. I was getting the unexpected shutdowns at Another weird thing I had experienced: afte…

Another anecdata:

Last night, I finally succumbed to iOS11 (the only reason I did was that I wanted to enroll in Heart Study, for which your iphone device has to be iOS11).

Indeed I had been pushing it away because I usually associate the word "upgrade" to device death when it comes to mobile devices.

But wow... it did not screw my 6S up. In fact, I think it's faster and 'zippier' with this iOS11 upgrade.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#18

Post by copperx »

izacus wrote: post #14
mikerg87 wrote: post #3

How do non-apple devices cope as they age ? Any word on what Nexus, Galaxy or Pixel devices of a similar vintage do? does the performance stay the same but the battery life becomes shorter?

Most Android devices have rather severe issues with flash degradation (due to use of cheaper chips, controllers and connection... cheap MMC controllers are still very standard) which makes them practically unusable after a few years.

Is this true for flagship Android devices too?

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#19

Post by maltalex »

This screams "planned obsolescence".

If battery scaling is a feature, then why isn't it mentioned by Apple? Why do we need a Reddit thread and a third party benchmarking tool to figure it out?

Also, why does the google search for "iphone slow" peak every time a new iPhone is released (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=iphone%2...)? Is it purely psychological? I can't find there are no similar spikes for "android slow" or "samsung slow" or similar searches.

Post reply on HN