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Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

abc.net.au

71–80 of 133 posts

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

#71
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Why should apple replace batteries for free? Do you expect a car company to replace car-batteries or tires for free? Some components just wear and need to be replaced. Apple just provided a workaround that ensures your device doesn't crash due to the worn out component.

The fault is Apple decided on our behalf that we spend $1000 to replace the phone instead of spending $100 to replace the battery.

Completely impartial decision. I call that a FRAUD. Apple can call it "caring for me". Either way, Apple made the choice that costs me $900 more than it could/should.

I'll keep using my (jailbroken) devices, and I am looking for the day that this "tweak" will be revered in Cydia, and Apple will never see another $1k from me.

I, for one, am definitely not asking for Apple to give me a free battery. I just do not trust them at this point :)

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

#72
post #56

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…

This is just sensationalist poorly sourced crap. > "they are making these devices that it's difficult to replace the battery for..." No. It's free under AppleCare and a whopping $79 out of warranty, and you can do it via mail. > "they are running them so close to the redline that they can only handle it for a year" No source cited for this. There is no indication that iPhones are regularly degrading beyond 80% within…

Many throttled 6S phones show up as "green" on Apple diagnostic which means that Apple stores will generaly refuse to do the battery swap.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is Apple’s marketing driven by benchmarks? I don’t think it is. They rarely talk about concrete performance or specs and focus more on the user experiences the device enables. Might have missed some campaigns though!

They used to show charts comparing new iPhone vs. old iPhone speeds in the launch presentations. Kind of necessary when the S versions were just speed bumps. The iPhone 6 presentation had a chart crowing about "sustained performance". It was about thermal throttling but kind of ironic thinking about it now.

I don't recall any charts from the recent launch - they just seemed to lean on putting the word "bionic" in the chip name.

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

#74

My wife and I both just upgraded our iPhone 6's because they became unusably slow after iOS 11. Prior to the upgrade they had been running fine with no issues. We tried many things including disabling all background app usage, full wipe and restore, etc. My wife eventually took hers into the Apple store and they said they didn't know why it was slowing down but that she shouldn't have upgraded and that there was noth…

What other choice is there? Other than buying a 1000$ phone from a vendor you are not satisfied with? You could do a 2-3 year upgrade cycles with mid-range android devices. They are shiny and fun when new but of course also (subjectively) slow down over time...

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

#75
post #31

My wife and I both just upgraded our iPhone 6's because they became unusably slow after iOS 11. Prior to the upgrade they had been running fine with no issues. We tried many things including disabling all background app usage, full wipe and restore, etc. My wife eventually took hers into the Apple store and they said they didn't know why it was slowing down but that she shouldn't have upgraded and that there was noth…

Well but you DID buy another iPhone right? Apple got exactly what they wanted - you spending another 700$+ to replace a perfectly functional device after just a few years. The iPhone now goes to the garbage bin adding to pollution even though it can run the OS just fine without being crippled via update.

You seem to be aggressively agreeing with me that being forced to upgrade for effectively no real reason is ridiculous?

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

#76

My wife and I both just upgraded our iPhone 6's because they became unusably slow after iOS 11. Prior to the upgrade they had been running fine with no issues. We tried many things including disabling all background app usage, full wipe and restore, etc. My wife eventually took hers into the Apple store and they said they didn't know why it was slowing down but that she shouldn't have upgraded and that there was noth…

What other choice is there? Other than buying a 1000$ phone from a vendor you are not satisfied with? You could do a 2-3 year upgrade cycles with mid-range android devices. They are shiny and fun when new but of course also (subjectively) slow down over time...

Agreed, there is no decent choice :(

I would have happily kept using the iPhone 6 indefinitely. And given the option I would have bought another battery.

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

#77
post #56

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…

This is just sensationalist poorly sourced crap. > "they are making these devices that it's difficult to replace the battery for..." No. It's free under AppleCare and a whopping $79 out of warranty, and you can do it via mail. > "they are running them so close to the redline that they can only handle it for a year" No source cited for this. There is no indication that iPhones are regularly degrading beyond 80% within…

I'm one of the people defending Apple's charge for battery replacement as reasonable, but his point is it's actually a physically difficult thing to do, to replace the battery. It takes real skill to replace a modern iphone battery without ruining it.

> "they are running them so close to the redline that they can only handle it for a year"

As for this, he's citing the fact the iPhone 7 is affected - a phone that came out just over a year ago.

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

#78
Now the cat is out of the bag I hope Apple adds a "your phone performance is being reduced because of a degraded battery" message to the settings app or something.

Sad that they had to be sprung on this one and not more forthcoming though.

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

#79

Before iOS 11 my 3 year old iPhone 6 behaved perfectly fine. After the upgrade it's so painfully slow it's basically unusable. For example, the Messages app maintains a lag of a few characters when typing, the Camera app freezes for ~5 seconds every time you open it, each tap on the screen has a perceivable delay, etc. My battery life hasn't been a problem over the last 3 years and I have not experienced my phone ove…

The throttling code change happened in 10.2.1, not 11.

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

#80
post #28
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars also wear over time and the onboard computers might retard the timing and your performance or fuel mileage might suffer but I don't see people complaining about that.

Because cars don't lose 1/3rd of horsepower after 2-3 years due to manufacturer ECU being programmed to slow them down. A maintained car will lose less then 10% of its horsepower due to wear and tear over 150.000miles / 10 years. Note that I said "well maintained" - meaning there's a way to maintain the car to keep the advertised performance. There is no way to "maintain" iPhones to keep their performance over three…

> There is no way to "maintain" iPhones to keep their performance over three years

Replace the battery? Free under AppleCare and $79 otherwise.

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