Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by randac » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 10:22 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #275

mfoy_ wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or make the battery replaceable... It pains me that I effectively have to choose between replaceable batteries and IPXX ratings.... T_T

The Samsung S5 is IP67 rated and has a user replaceable battery.

It also has a headphone jack while being IP67 and is still reasonably thin, which is an insurmountable design feat according to some opinions I've seen here.

"User replaceable" barely does it justice either. I just had the battery in my hands in under 5 seconds easily. People earlier in the thread stating iPhone batteries are easily user replaceable are ridiculous, when the process can take upward of 20 minutes, and can leave the phone temporarily inoperable if any of the multiple connectors aren't quite seated correctly. I'm also intrigued as to where all this imaginary extra weight and bulk is coming from when implementing specifically the S5 battery enclosure design, because having stripped down hundreds of iPhones and dozens of Galaxy variants I just don't see it.

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

#282

Post by randac » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 10:38 AM UTC

cjensen wrote: post #244

Mizza wrote: post #116

Much more importantly to me: Does this happen in MBP/OSX?

My 2008 MacBook Pro has a removable battery. Apple documents that without the battery (i.e. on AC Power) the CPU is underclocked because there is not enough power available. So it wouldn't be unprecedented. And I wouldn't be surprised if other manufacturers do the same.

> Apple documents that without the battery (i.e. on AC Power) the CPU is underclocked

This is an utterly absurd apology on behalf of Apple, something very common in this thread it seems.

Alternatively, perhaps Apple should sell their high-end model with an appropriately powerful AC adapter, regardless of the absence of the battery?

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

#283

Post by ric2b » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 10:45 AM UTC

Multicomp wrote: post #13

WOW. Conspiracy was real the whole time! Devil's Advocate to spark discussion (I'm not an iPhone owner so no dog in fight): Apple did the right thing by not putting a switch in to toggle this slowdown[1]. For many iPhone users, the phone is a magic box that gives them videos and apps and (unlike our HN audience) don't have a clue about how it works, nor do they care. If such a switch existed, these same people would…

> If such a switch existed, these same people would see a twitter comment saying "speed up yuor (sic) IPhone by turning off this setting~~~!!!!1" and would just do it.

If only we had such a technology as a scary warning message with a 5 second wait time before you can toggle the switch... Maybe in 10 years, meanwhile we'll just have to keep crippling old phones and tripling revenue!

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

#284

Post by ric2b » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 10:49 AM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #75

jlmorton wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't pass the sniff test. The available voltage from a lithium ion battery will decrease as it is discharged. When your phone turns off, that does not mean there is no more energy in the battery. It means there is no longer enough voltage to power the phone. Over the course of many discharge cycles, the battery will lose capacity, and the point when the voltage is no longer sufficient to power the phone will…

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.

> The peak demand from the phone can exceed the available voltage even if you're at 30%

So throw in a fat capacitor. This was a solved problem 50 years ago, the only problem is this constant rush to make phones 1% thinner.

I've never met anyone that used phone thinness as a metric when choosing a new phone and yet here we are.

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

#285

Post by bastijn » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 11:52 AM UTC

bastijn wrote: post #238

abakker wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI - https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6s-unexpectedshutdown/ that was effected by a recall. You should check your serial number.

Put in my number for fun, found out it is eligible for a replacement. Good things after 2 years a free new battery :).

So got my battery replaced today because of this thread. Feels very smooth again but may be between my ears. Only now realize I forgot to do a benchmark test with the old battery still in.

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

#286

Post by lloeki » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 12:20 PM UTC

ksk wrote: post #261

valuearb wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your rebuttal attempt to undercut my description of laptop market technology 8 years ago is linking to a couple present day laptops? OK, I’ll play. How thick are those laptops? How heavy are those laptops? How does their battery life compare? And review this so you have some basic technical knowledge and understanding of history. https://www.anandtech.com/show/2783/apple-s-2009-macbook-pro... https://www.anandtech…

>So your rebuttal attempt to undercut my description of laptop market technology 8 years ago is linking to a couple present day laptops? No, your claim was that making batteries non serviceable means you have more room for a larger battery. It doesn't seem to be the case now. You are welcome to point to an example from the year that you purchased your laptop.

A cursory search hints me that the XPS 13 battery is not removable, and, according to some reviews, downright soldered, while the Alienware one is a literal brick. To me that makes the case, even today.

I don't care about popping a lid off every three years; swappable batteries, to me, is nonsense. What makes me irate though is a) the fact that they're downright glued when they could be held in place by other, readily serviceable means†, and b) in 2013-2015 I could code/compile stuff and still have a sizable portion of the best-case battery life, while today the battery size is dwindling, compensated by enhanced power management to maintain the "10 hour" figure, but it falls apart under any load that does not involve browsing or watching some hardware-decoded video. We should be shooting for 20, 30, 40 hours of use on battery, not the current "good enough" status quo.

† Clips, double sided tape, whatever. If it's a problem to not use glue then it's a worthy engineering challenge to use some goo that comes off easily. The current glue situation is a lazy copout, it's Steve Jobs's "plywood on the back".

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

#287

Post by verytrivial » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 1:52 PM UTC

verytrivial wrote: post #139

Is it ALL old phones based upon aggregate statistics and a heuristic, or are they monitoring supply voltage. Apple have not, to my knowledge, provided any data to support their claim. And even if they did, batteries vary in quality, even from the same batch. Why not a setting you can override? It is a MASSIVE performance hit. This feels a lot like Epson or whoever blocking old or third party supplies to "assure peak…

Not that it look deep insight, but I am vindicated. Here come the yadda yadda lawyers. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/22/apple_sued_iphone_c...

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

#288

Post by verytrivial » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 1:54 PM UTC

verytrivial wrote: post #230

compiler-guy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two issues with older phones running more slowly, and you are probably encountering both of them 1. Newer versions of iOS demand more processing power because they do more (or perhaps do it less efficiently). 2. Old batteries can't deliver as much power. So an old phone will new version of the OS mores slowly than a new one, regardless of the battery situation. But, if the battery was marginal but hadn't hi…

> 2. Old batteries can't deliver as much power. Does anyone have a citation for this? I know capacity falls, but what fraction of peak current is lost with age? And what fraction with throttling just the CPU to 50% save in total load?

I guess we'll find out during Discovery!

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

#289

Post by ksk » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

systoll wrote: post #268

ksk wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were able to fit more battery using a custom form factor that would have been super expensive to make removable. No one had done this as well before, because Apple was the first to implement good embedded battery conditioning software so they would last a couple years without needing replacement. Why speculate on a tech forum, when these things are easy to find out? Just look at the battery specs for both mach…

Neither of those laptops have easily swappable batteries. [the XPSs is easier than MBP & Alienware, but you’re still disassembling things] 7 years later, Dell seems to have captured the same gains. At present, Apple’s main battery life win is macOS.

>Neither of those laptops have easily swappable batteries.

But any repair shop could do that for you. You're not forced to go to a single vendor who can set arbitrary prices.

>At present, Apple’s main battery life win is macOS.

Yes, I would agree with that.

I was speaking more to the anti-repair/replace design from Apple (also others).

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

#290

Post by ksk » Fri, Dec 22, 2017, 5:00 PM UTC

lloeki wrote: post #286

ksk wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So your rebuttal attempt to undercut my description of laptop market technology 8 years ago is linking to a couple present day laptops? No, your claim was that making batteries non serviceable means you have more room for a larger battery. It doesn't seem to be the case now. You are welcome to point to an example from the year that you purchased your laptop.

A cursory search hints me that the XPS 13 battery is not removable, and, according to some reviews, downright soldered , while the Alienware one is a literal brick. To me that makes the case, even today. I don't care about popping a lid off every three years; swappable batteries, to me, is nonsense. What makes me irate though is a) the fact that they're downright glued when they could be held in place by other, readi…

I suppose it depends on the year too. Here's a video I found for the XPS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kreTaNMswRA

Agree with the rest of your comment.