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iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

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Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#61
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AppleCare itself lasts two years, but that’s in addition to the year you get by default. The two don’t run concurrently. Edit: no, they do run concurrently. See child post. GP’s edited the reference to 3 years anyway.

Curious if you have a source on that? I see otherwise here: https://www.apple.com/support/products/iphone.html I bought a new iPhone about 48 hours ago and was told the same thing as shown above.

@tolien: Yeah I remember when AppleCare for Mac did that too. Not sure at what point it changed to "within 60 days of purchase."

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#62
post #42

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…

If anything his seems like a reaction to the yearly ‘planned obselescense’ stuff where people claim Apple killed their battery life to make them upgrade. People don’t want to lose battery life? Ok, we can adjust so it doesn’t change much over the life of the phone. Of course that just lead to ‘Apple slows your phone down’. You’re right, it’s a tough spot.

Another idea: Apple could pop up a dialog at a certain point saying your battery is sub-optimal (but not doomed) and you should replace it for the best experience.

I’m sure that would go over GREAT.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#63
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?

I have a Nexus 6P and its battery is going bad. It just shuts down when it reaches 20-30%. Kind of annoying because I never know quite how much battery life I actually have remaining.

Same here. I have to carry around an extra battery booster. :-/

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has decided that people want to buy razorthin phones and there is just not way to fit a large battery in there. I wish there were phones built like the old IBM thinkpads. Bulky, square, ugly but also indestructible and fully user servicable with replaceable batteries.

Sounds a bit like Fairphone (well, not the ugly part) https://www.fairphone.com/en/

It's cool that they have two SIM slots and an SD slot. I wish more phones had that. But the removable battery doesn't seem to be particularly large.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#65
post #31
post #4

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

It's replaceable, just not as a DIY. Apple encourages people to take their phones into Apple stores/authorized dealers to get the battery replaced. (Also, the repair is free if the battery's capacity has declined to <80% while under warranty. If you pay for two-year AppleCare+ [$99], you've basically pre-paid for a free battery replacement [normally also $99] at the two-year mark, as long as you've used—abused?—your…

The <80% is such a junky metric though, as it's by whatever they calculate. Mine was determined to be 83% but the thing lasted till like Noon at the latest with minimal use.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#66

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…

This post is written as if it wasn't Apple that introduced the hard-glued battery. They made a consumable hard to replace and backed themselves fully willing into this "no win" situation. And now they are not being forthright about the tradeoffs they made and certainly aren't making an effort to fix any of it. That is planned obsolescence. These batteries can be replaced but Apples absolute refusal to enable customer…

> This post is written as if it wasn't Apple that introduced the hard-glued battery. They made a consumable hard to replace

As others have pointed out in this thread the batteries aren’t hard to replace; this is just not something you can do directly as a user. That probably makes sense; it’d be difficult to make a super-thin smartphone while at the same time provide an easy way to replace each part.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#67
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a bigger battery? My primary criterion with each iPhone purchase is which has longest battery life.

Apple has decided that people want to buy razorthin phones and there is just not way to fit a large battery in there. I wish there were phones built like the old IBM thinkpads. Bulky, square, ugly but also indestructible and fully user servicable with replaceable batteries.

> there is just not way to fit a large battery in there

And if they do find a way, they'll just make the phone even thinner instead.

It's not about Apple not being able to do it. It's about their priorities. And in this case their priorities seem to coincide (as if by magic) with getting people to upgrade the phones faster.

It's especially silly when you consider that Apple, a design-focused company, is making phones thinner despite using very obvious camera bumps on their phones -- a clear sign that maybe their phones shouldn't be that thin.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#68
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AppleCare itself lasts two years, but that’s in addition to the year you get by default. The two don’t run concurrently. Edit: no, they do run concurrently. See child post. GP’s edited the reference to 3 years anyway.

Curious if you have a source on that? I see otherwise here: https://www.apple.com/support/products/iphone.html I bought a new iPhone about 48 hours ago and was told the same thing as shown above.

In fact, both are true. It just depends on where you live.

What he said is the case within the European Union due to some EU law regarding warranties. I believe in the EU an extended warranty like AppleCare only goes into effect after the original warranty has expired. There are also statutory warranty periods of a year (I think) for devices like the iPhone.

In the United States, on the other hand, AppleCare replaces the original warranty rather than adds onto it.

Here's a page describing AppleCare within the UK: https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/, which lasts for three years instead of the two within the United States.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#69
post #62
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything his seems like a reaction to the yearly ‘planned obselescense’ stuff where people claim Apple killed their battery life to make them upgrade. People don’t want to lose battery life? Ok, we can adjust so it doesn’t change much over the life of the phone. Of course that just lead to ‘Apple slows your phone down’. You’re right, it’s a tough spot.

Another idea: Apple could pop up a dialog at a certain point saying your battery is sub-optimal (but not doomed) and you should replace it for the best experience. I’m sure that would go over GREAT.

My 2011 MacBook Air has been saying this for YEARS

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#70
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars have fundamentally the same problem and Tesla decided to attack it by hiding some of the battery's capacity when the car is new. While the car might report to the user it is 100% full, it might only be actually 90% full. The battery can therefore lose a decent percent of its capacity before the user will ever notice the difference. This decision was made because cars obviously have a longer ownership cy…

There is absolutely no evidence that Tesla is doing what you say. In fact, if they were, this curve https://images.hgmsites.net/med/tesla-model-s-mileage-vs-rem... would stay at 100% for a while instead of immediately dropping.

Yep, it looks like you are right. I was passing along second hand information that I never bothered to verify. After some Googling I learned apparently Tesla only hides capacity at the low end to prevent a user from being stranded. The default settings also prevent charging to 100%, but that is fully transparent to the user.
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