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

251–260 of 270 posts

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#251

Post by MRSallee »

jdking wrote: post #199

Why does this correlate so well with iOS version increments? My iPhone 6 was faultless prior to the upgrade to iOS 11, and immediately after it battery life was greatly reduced and it now shuts down automatically when the battery hits 10%. Apparently I am now supposed to accept that the battery has degraded not gradually but all at once and on the same day as I upgraded iOS, and this is now being managed for my benef…

Also have an iPhone 6. I didn't plan to replace it this year until iOS 11 made it frustrating to use. My primary issue was constant Bluetooth disconnections.

Now I have an Android phone. (Not especially happy about it.)

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#252

Post by kn0where »

TheYcMaster wrote: post #223
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…

The interesting fact is that Android 7+ scales down the UI effects in case of bad battery life and I suspect even on bad battery status. iOS could do the same, scaling down those useless effects and transparencies, boosting performance and guaranteeing a more qualitative experience.

iOS has had low-power mode for some time, which disables some of the most power-hungry UI effects and background processes.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#253

Post by evilduck »

Fnoord wrote: post #202
rileymat2 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the user toggle between 1 and 2? Which could be useful for new phones where, even though currently full, you know you won’t be able to charge next.

> Let the user toggle between 1 and 2? Wrong company, pal. Apple historically decides for the user. Heck, they still do it with their App Store. Often that may go right, but not always.

Apple already includes a low power mode toggle. It could be updated or altered to account for this.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#254

Post by raz32dust »

raz32dust wrote: post #118
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…

I am sure they could make an iPhone with replaceable batteries. I actually wouldn't mind paying $100 every 18-24 months for a genuine iPhone battery replacement if the perf and battery life is restored with that. But of course they won't. If iPhone X lasted 5 years with the same perf and battery life with two $100 battery replacements, I would happily shell out $1200 for it. But I know it won't last more than 2 years…

I was wrong and Apple does replace battery for a very reasonable fee of $79 (https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power). Hmph. TIL! Can't edit the original post any more so I'll leave this here.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#255

Post by habosa »

spamizbad wrote: post #131
habosa wrote: post #126

Can someone explain to me why (outside of this one issue) phones get so slow over time? As a professional programmer I though I understood computers but I clearly don't. What's going on my phone that it grinds to a halt? Why does a factory reset sometimes help, but sometimes not? It can't just be that the workloads are more resource intensive. If I go get an old tablet it will take 5x as long to load google.com as th…

This article does a good job of explaining the main reason: To retain runtime on a degraded battery, they underclock/undervolt the hardware.. drawing less power and producing less performance. This honestly accounts for mobile device performance loss in the majority of cases and it isn't iPhone or Apple-specific. A resets might improve performance of the flash device if it frees up additional space or does something…

This implies I could fix all my old phones with a new battery ... Could that possibly be true?

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#256

Post by rusk »

azurelogic wrote: post #246
rusk wrote: post #221

I smell an antitrust ...

This has nothing to do with a monopoly, so antitrust law is totally not applicable here. You might be thinking "class action lawsuit", which someone might attempt. However, if Apple can show that this is actually a mechanism to provide maximum screen time for the life of the battery (as opposed to malicious planned obsolescence), the suit would likely fail.

I mean in Europe. Class action does not apply but EU has a strong record of defending consumer rights.

The clandestine nature of how apple has provided this feature would not work in their favour.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#257

Post by tkxxx7 »

manmal wrote: post #180
jakobegger wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The battery settings do say "battery needs service" once the battery is degraded, and most people are aware that their battery is bad. Most people don't understand that the degraded battery is the cause of the performance issues (its not very intuitive), so they should explicitely say that.

I‘ve never seen this notification once, having had multiple iPhones that browned-out at 40%.

It's not a notification; you have to poke around in Settings.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#258

Post by Whitestrake »

evilduck wrote: post #253
Fnoord wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let the user toggle between 1 and 2? Wrong company, pal. Apple historically decides for the user. Heck, they still do it with their App Store. Often that may go right, but not always.

Apple already includes a low power mode toggle. It could be updated or altered to account for this.

For comparison, my Samsung phones have had CPU underclocking in the low power modes. I'm not sure if that's true of all Androids or not.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#259

Post by CamperBob2 »

dash2 wrote: post #220
CamperBob2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Know how I can tell you haven't designed any consumer products with a battery, replaceable or otherwise? This is the engineering equivalent of saying, "Why doesn't someone just go to the Middle East, sit down at a round table with with the Israelis and Palestinians and Sunnis and Shiites and rebels and Baathists and Saudis and ISIS members and refugees and all those other guys, and help them work out their difference…

Wow, Nintendo in the 1980s must have had Godlike powers, then: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=donkey+kong+battery+cover&...

Yeah, I'm sure you can build a half-trillion dollar company by selling phones in the same form factor as a Donkey Kong game.

If the market wanted such a thing, then guess what... the market would get it.

Re: iPhone Performance Degrades as Battery Ages

#260

Post by pishpash »

Bud wrote: post #33
maltalex wrote: post #19

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 spik…

No, it screams "planned and careful shepherding of user experience".

Shepherding literally meaning "sheep herding"?
Post reply on HN