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Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

abc.net.au

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Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#11

Post by garretraziel »

dsharlet wrote: post #8
arcticbull wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a fair representation of what's happening though. The reality is that running it at 110% (for whatever that means) is using a new battery at its maximum discharge rate. As the battery ages, its maximum discharge rate decreases, and would have whether run at 110% or 90%. You need to go way out of spec to prematurely age batteries by discharging too fast. They age mostly by being exposed to high te…

> That hundreds of millions of users took years to notice should be an indication this whole thing worked pretty well IMO. People absolutely have been noticing, this has been a very popular and long running issue. It took years for Apple to admit it , not for people to notice. I think this could have been better handled by throttling according to the actual condition of the battery, rather than controlling it via sof…

They are throttling it according to battery's condition (but actual throttling apparatus was added via an update). If you replace old battery with a new one, phone starts running at full speed again.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#13

Post by simion314 »

williamscales wrote: post #12

Can someone explain to me how this can reasonably be considered fraud? I don't think Apple makes any guarantees about the performance an iPhone will sustain over time.

Usually in the user manual of product you get informed about the battery life decreasing with time, maybe Apple did not mention that also CPU performance will drop with time. From the article it seems that customers wanted to get a new battery from Apple if the current one degraded while in the warranty so phone shutdown but Apple decided to hide the problem with an update that slowdown the CPU.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#14

Post by kodablah »

williamscales wrote: post #12

Can someone explain to me how this can reasonably be considered fraud? I don't think Apple makes any guarantees about the performance an iPhone will sustain over time.

IANAL, but I would guess it's the implicit assumption that this is not done to your device without your knowledge/consent. Misdeeds can't be handwaved away with "we made no guarantees we wouldn't do that". It's the explicit choice to not be clear about intentionally hobbling devices and what consumers could have done to de-hobble them that has many up in arms (and spending lots more on a new phone as opposed to a new battery).

I really look forward to discovery and evidence in these cases if they move forward. Surely engineers raised opacity concerns.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#15

Post by mehrdada »

dsharlet wrote: post #8
arcticbull wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a fair representation of what's happening though. The reality is that running it at 110% (for whatever that means) is using a new battery at its maximum discharge rate. As the battery ages, its maximum discharge rate decreases, and would have whether run at 110% or 90%. You need to go way out of spec to prematurely age batteries by discharging too fast. They age mostly by being exposed to high te…

> That hundreds of millions of users took years to notice should be an indication this whole thing worked pretty well IMO. People absolutely have been noticing, this has been a very popular and long running issue. It took years for Apple to admit it , not for people to notice. I think this could have been better handled by throttling according to the actual condition of the battery, rather than controlling it via sof…

> People absolutely have been noticing, this has been a very popular and long running issue. It took years for Apple to admit it, not for people to notice.

The behavior in question was introduced in 10.2.1 which was first released in Feb 2017.

So no, it was not a conspiracy going on for years. The annual slowdown was just poor unoptimized software. Occam's razor.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#16

Post by duncanawoods »

williamscales wrote: post #12

Can someone explain to me how this can reasonably be considered fraud? I don't think Apple makes any guarantees about the performance an iPhone will sustain over time.

Apple's strategy has been to sell devices in an unstable overclocked state with marketing based on benchmarks and then secretly downgrade to a stable configuration later in life.

Its ultimately a bait and switch deception driven by fraudulent marketing.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#17

Post by chrisper »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #6
chipperyman573 wrote: post #2

I really like Linus' (Sebastian, not Torvalds) thoughts about this: https://youtu.be/TJUeHmdzSx4?t=11m22s Basically, Apple chose to tune the phones to run at a dangerously high configuration to increase benchmarks, knowing that the battery will degrade like this (and that when the iphone X2 comes out, nobody will be talking about this, instead they'll be talking about how much faster the X2 is than the X). His exact…

If Apple slowed the phone down upfront then people would complain that Apple were throttling as the user is “too dumb to look after their battery properly” so instead they are doing when they can point to a proven need to throttle the device. This feels like a no win situation for Apple unless they had/will put in “throttle my phone so it doesn’t go weird” switch in settings. Side note: we’ve known for years that ham…

LiOn is all about loading cycles. In the same amount of time (let's say 5 days) she has used up way more cycles than you did. You probably charged 5 * 20% while she maybe charged 5 * 90%. Obviously she is using up her load cycles much faster than you are. So no surprise her battery isn't very good anymore.

I don't think you two are using the phone equally much (meaning using up the same loading cycles in the 5 days). Like for example, she charging 2 * 90% and you charging 4 * 20% and 1 * 10%.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#18

Post by chrisper »

sa1f wrote: post #3
chipperyman573 wrote: post #2

I really like Linus' (Sebastian, not Torvalds) thoughts about this: https://youtu.be/TJUeHmdzSx4?t=11m22s Basically, Apple chose to tune the phones to run at a dangerously high configuration to increase benchmarks, knowing that the battery will degrade like this (and that when the iphone X2 comes out, nobody will be talking about this, instead they'll be talking about how much faster the X2 is than the X). His exact…

What does "running them close to the red line" mean? Do iPhone batteries degrade faster than other phones?

It's like overclocking your CPU very close to the limits of your cooling ability. You will get great benchmark scores, but your CPU will also last a lot less as well (though with CPUs it doesn't matter if they now run for 20 years or 32 years, but if you push it a lot more you might damage it. But hey, at least you got great benchmark points).

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#19

Post by canuckintime »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #6
chipperyman573 wrote: post #2

I really like Linus' (Sebastian, not Torvalds) thoughts about this: https://youtu.be/TJUeHmdzSx4?t=11m22s Basically, Apple chose to tune the phones to run at a dangerously high configuration to increase benchmarks, knowing that the battery will degrade like this (and that when the iphone X2 comes out, nobody will be talking about this, instead they'll be talking about how much faster the X2 is than the X). His exact…

If Apple slowed the phone down upfront then people would complain that Apple were throttling as the user is “too dumb to look after their battery properly” so instead they are doing when they can point to a proven need to throttle the device. This feels like a no win situation for Apple unless they had/will put in “throttle my phone so it doesn’t go weird” switch in settings. Side note: we’ve known for years that ham…

> This feels like a no win situation for Apple...

If Apple fucked up, why should there be a 'win' situation for them?

The obvious solution would be Apple replacing the batteries for free. Instead Apple won't even let you pay them to replace the battery if it's not in EOL mode — despite throttling starting well before then.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#20

Post by izacus »

williamscales wrote: post #12

Can someone explain to me how this can reasonably be considered fraud? I don't think Apple makes any guarantees about the performance an iPhone will sustain over time.

Every year you see Tim Cook happily quote performance numbers on the keynote about how superior iPhones are compared to other manufacturers.

When you buy the iPhone, they go and slow it down to make it run slower after a two or three yearsa. Like VW would lock your 300HP Passat to 200HP after three years with excuse of keeping the mileage up... without telling you in any way.

How is that NOT considered false advertising or fraud? Our iPhones are slower than what Tim Cook smugly sells on the keynote. Deliberately, not due to tehnical limitations - the CPU can run at stated performance but Apple chose to slow them down with an update.

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