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

Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

text.npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 302 posts

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

#181

Post by esmi »

jlmorton wrote: post #88
jtbayly wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. The peak demand from the phone can exceed the available voltage even if you're at 30%, causing an immediate shutdown. That's what we saw a year ago. Now they no longer shut down unexpectedly, but the performance of the phone sucks, even with a battery that holds 87% of its original capacity.

I don't dispute that, but that does not explain the observations that a fully-charged, reduced-capacity battery performs poorly on a standard benchmark test versus a new battery. It's not just smoothing out a peak demand. It's reducing the peak performance all of the time, and that is unique to iPhone.

You're assuming the issue is only changing capacity vs age. Internal impedance increases with age as well. A full battery that can't source its energy in a timely manner might as well be empty.

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

#182

Post by valuearb »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #143
jelder wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars, you may have noticed, are big. Apple has made a tradeoff between replaceable batteries and small phones, and the market has more or less agreed with this decision.

Did the market know that their phone will be slowed down after a year? I don't think it was an informed decision. An informed decision might yield the same outcome though.

One of the reasons I upgraded to an iPhone X was that my 6 Plus was getting slow. I'm just now finding out that I could have replaced the battery for $85. Am I mad!?

No, I'm not. 3 years is long enough for a smart phone, I probably would have replaced it anyways. And I like the X way more.

My guess is most people plan to replace their phones after 2 years, and few have this problem before that. So disclosing probably doesn't change more than a minute number of purchase decisions. Though I don't doubt that some marketing person at Apple influenced limiting disclosure of this fix because they thought it helped upgrade rates. If that person exists, they should be fired, because it damaged Apple's credibility.

Instead of a hard to find value in settings that tells you your battery needs replacement, they should have a one time warning when it's first detected that explains this behavior.

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

#183

Post by esmi »

CaptSpify wrote: post #168
nicky0 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can replace it an an Apple Store for $79.

Why should anyone have to pay to do trivial service to their own phone?

One has the choice to pay $79. But you don't have to: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+6+Battery+Replacement/29...

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

#184

Post by valuearb »

ISL wrote: post #145
robotresearcher wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such battery.

The performance requirements could be met, but the battery (and phone) would be larger and more massive.

Even a bigger battery is going to degrade at the same rate. It might limit the need for CPU throttling, but probably not by much.

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

#185

Post by labster »

Tloewald wrote: post #167
labster wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feature list: * 4.7-inch retina display * 12MP camera * Phone will get slower over time No, not seeing that advertisement working.

Well it's not like Android phones advertise "comes with malware direct from Google Play store" and "malware can run your phone so hard it will deform, catch fire, or explode"

Actually the second one sounds like a selling point to me, in a Mythbusters sort of way.

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

#186

Post by falcolas »

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…

> avoid spontaneous shutdown when the aged battery can't handle the load

This doesn't make sense to me. I've been playing with LiPo batteries on quadcopters for a few years now, and I've found that battery capacity is directly related to its voltage, and the voltage decreases in a deterministic fashion according to use. High quality and well maintained LiPo batteries just don't behave randomly - that's why we feel safe attaching them to our houses in the form of Tesla Powercells.

Or, in other words, if a phone is showing 40% charge when it shuts down, that's not the battery "spontaneously" being unable to cope with load; that's a bad charge indicator.

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

#187

Post by xster »

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…

It's fine rationalizing it but how is that conceptually different from say Comcast saying: "Well actually your 100Mbps connection was just a first year promotional speed and now dropped to 20Mbps unless you sign another limited period contract. Oh, and actually, it's all for good reasons because the crappy modem that you rented at 10$ a month just kinda starts melting if it keeps transmitting at 100Mbps so we just saved your house from burning down. No need to thank us. Sorry we didn't disclose any of this to new customers but don't worry, just give us more money and everything will be ok."

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

#188

Post by valuearb »

esmi wrote: post #134
mempko wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange, I have an old HP veer That is 6 years old and it doesn't spontaneously shut down. I have a 3 year old android phone that doesn't spontaneously shut down. What is so special about iPhones and why do they crap out in 2 years?

This post gives us an estimate for what percentage of the iPhones are getting throttled by this issue. I think it's reasonable to use this as a proxy to estimate how many units were at risk of shutting down and it is the minority of units. Happily it appears both of your devices are in the majority of units which don't exhibit this issue. https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-an...

If I read that correctly, is it 25% of two year old devices (6s) that are getting throttled?

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

#189

Post by IBM »

CaptSpify wrote: post #166
IBM wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that iPhones are updated for the longest time and are built well is directly related to why you can get as much as you can when you sell a used iPhone. Apple actually has an incentive to create the longest lasting iPhone because the economics of the iPhone Upgrade Plan and every carrier upgrade plan depends on it. That iPhones retain their value over time is a testament to the fact that Apple has not been sl…

> That iPhones retain their value over time is a testament to the fact that Apple has not been slowing down old iPhones Not at all. It's a testament that there is a market for old iPhones, that is all. People are possibly buying used iPhones despite them being slowed down. > Apple actually has an incentive to create the longest lasting iPhone because the economics of the iPhone Upgrade Plan and every carrier upgrade…

The lower depreciation of an iPhone compared to any comparable smartphone is directly correlated to the quality of the iPhone. This isn't new, anyone who buys used cars understands this. More importantly, it's an independent (of Apple) market that is constantly repricing this. And the results have been clear: iPhones retain their value much better than anything else.

Just as we can use the price of iOS zero-day exploits in the black market as a proxy for how secure iOS has become over the years, we can also look at the resale market for iPhones.

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

#190

Post by valuearb »

em500 wrote: post #138
mempko wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange, I have an old HP veer That is 6 years old and it doesn't spontaneously shut down. I have a 3 year old android phone that doesn't spontaneously shut down. What is so special about iPhones and why do they crap out in 2 years?

what's so special is that modern iPhone CPUs are as fast as laptop CPUs (when untrottled).

This. iPhone has been the industry leader in CPU performance and integrated processor functionality for a while now, I have no doubt that plays a role.
Post reply on HN