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Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

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Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#101

Post by shock-value »

IBM wrote: post #71
unreal37 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife's iPhone has been running slow ever since she upgraded to iOS 11. Literally the day she upgraded, she's regretted. I'll run the speed test later to confirm. But there is absolutely NO warning in iOS that I can see that says it's been put into low-speed mode.

That's because there is no low-speed mode. It changes based on a variety of conditions including how degraded the battery is (the OS tells you when it needs to be serviced once it's near the end of its life, 500 cycles), cold or hot temperatures, and the remaining battery life (low power mode decreases performance).

How did you come to this conclusion? My 6S was running in this “low speed mode” (as confirmed by Geekbench 4 results) even when the battery was at 100%, phone plugged in, placed at my desk at room temperature all afternoon. Only relevant variable seemed to be the battery age, and the results improved (along with subjective perceived performance increase) only when I recently had it replaced.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#102

Post by metafunctor »

komali2 wrote: post #96
QuotedForTruth wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is replaceable, just not replaceable without expertise and tools. Would you say that most of your car parts aren't replaceable?

It's a "regular maintenance" type thing - less common than an oil change, sure, but perhaps just as necessary. So why not make it as easy as an oil change?

Having done both, I can tell you that replacing the battery on an iPhone is already easier than an oil change on a typical car. The iPhone parts are expensive, but it's a relatively simple operation for a trained person.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#103

Post by jhiska »

IBM wrote: post #83
jhiska wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't. It would obviously increase the lifespan of it. The spinsters are deliberately confusing "lifespan" with "resale value".

>The spinsters are deliberately confusing "lifespan" with "resale value". I realize I'm responding to someone arguing in bad faith. But lifespan directly influences the resale value.

Replaceable batteries increase lifespan.

The iPhone is a well-made phone which would have greater lifespan if the batteries were replaceable.

As it is, users who bought an older iPhone now have to pay middle-men to replace the battery or face degraded performance.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#104

Post by Bud »

logfromblammo wrote: post #85
IBM wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhones have the longest life of any smartphone and you can verify that yourself by looking at the used market for it (and any Apple product). User replaceable batteries may ironically decrease that and increase waste.

What metrics are you looking at in the used market to support your hypothesis? Could they be explained by a different hypothesis? I'm still enjoying my 3-year-old non-iPhone, and intend to keep using it until it stops working entirely, whereas my spouse with an iPhone was already voicing suspicion before this announcement that Apple was intentionally slowing their old iPhone through updates, just to provoke an upgrad…

Refurbished by the mobile phone company? That doesn't occur.

The used market for iPhones on Craigslist is actual users. The market is very strong, and so is the resale value of iPhones. There is one (1) explanation for this: iPhones hold their value better because they are more useful for a longer time.

As an aside, iPhones also remain able to run the latest version of iOS for roughly TWICE as long as Android phones.

There is no competition, here.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#105

Post by jhiska »

mikestew wrote: post #100
jhiska wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow I am reminded of the lyrics "You spin me right round, right round, baby." The spin, I feel, is that somehow being able to replace one's batteries is bad. Whereas having an iPhone with degraded performance and an expensive-to-replace battery is good. You "bought a spare because you could" and "now it sits, waiting for you to recycle it", thus creating waste, but one can argue that anyone buying stuff they don'…

Alternative ways of looking at things is “spin” in your mind, huh? Well, that’s one way to keep a narrative, I suppose.

I guess I could call them alternative facts, if you prefer.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#106

Post by invisiblea »

lukewrites wrote: post #94
invisiblea wrote: post #49

Had the battery in my iPhone SE replaced about an hour ago to test this out Geekbench 4 benchmark before https://twitter.com/invisiblea/status/943439761066397696 And after https://twitter.com/invisiblea/status/943891561661812736

Did you have it replaced at an Apple Store or by a third party? I'm deciding between the two – my gut is to go with the Apple Store, but the apple website makes it sound like it could take up to 5 days, which is too long.

I'm based in London, so dropped it off with https://www.ismash.com/ in St Pancras. Was done in half an hour and cost £40. Can't vouch for the quality of the battery yet, but they are a pretty big chain now so I'm assuming it won't be awful.

However I've had batteries replaced (different phones) at the Apple Store before and it took about an hour.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#107

Post by invisiblea »

bluetidepro wrote: post #60
invisiblea wrote: post #49

Had the battery in my iPhone SE replaced about an hour ago to test this out Geekbench 4 benchmark before https://twitter.com/invisiblea/status/943439761066397696 And after https://twitter.com/invisiblea/status/943891561661812736

What app or site are you using to test that?

It's Geekbench 4

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#109

Post by the_gastropod »

LeoJiWoo wrote: post #25

Not a good implementation, this feature should be been far more explicitly stated in some sort of alert rather than buried. This is something that is burning the good will towards apple. Something that is in shorter supply since the days of Steve Jobs. You can see the polarization about it on social media. Again whether the feature was good/bad, there is clearly something to be learned from the shitstorm that it is c…

I'm not sure what the right move is here. Apple does have a notification once the battery reaches some threshold of "bad". But maybe it's too conservative? Clearly, notifying an iPhone customer that their battery is going bad when they're throttling CPU by 1% is too aggressive. 75% is too late. Where the right number lies, I don't know.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#110

Post by LusoTycoon »

djrogers wrote: post #3

It's not only to make them run longer - they're reducing the peak demand on the batteries to avoid spontaneous shutdown when the aged battery can't handle the load. This seems like a good idea, and it appears to be well executed (ie it's not apparently based just on age or milage like a crappy car maintenance reminder), but Apple should probably have something in iOS that tells people their phone is running slow beca…

Apple did that and people would start cracking iphones open to replace batteries. Not in line with Apple's philosphy.
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