A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance • Hacker News Board

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#31

Post by gnicholas » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:58 PM UTC

bobbles wrote: post #3

What theyre doing to fix it: "Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com. Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibi…

This is great, and it's going to really hurt some independent shops that offer battery replacements.

Also, I wonder what percent of people will walk into an Apple Store intending to get their battery replaced and will end up walking out with a shiny new iPhone. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple offered incentives to folks who want to just trade in and be done with the old device. At the very least, they've got you hanging out in their store for 15 mins.

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#32

Post by dilap » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:58 PM UTC

leadingthenet wrote: post #11

Reducing the battery replacement by $50 is a great move. While I think this is a completely manufactured scandal, this will definitely take away the last argument people have against them. I'm sure some people will still hate them for something, though.

I don't think it's a completely manufactured scandal, although most of the reporting was deceptive (as is, I'm starting to suspect, most reporting, full stop).

I think the non-manufactured part of the scandal is having your phone throttle itself w/o telling you it's doing that is pretty annoying.

You're left wondering, is my phone running slower or is my mind playing tricks on me?

I think Apple's response here is great.

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#33

Post by ropiku » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:58 PM UTC

nixgeek wrote: post #7

buryat wrote: post #2

> First and foremost, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Didn't they degrade the user experience by slowing down the cpu? I definitely wasn't enjoying my slow iPhone

Rock and a hard place for Apple, after 600 cycles or 2 years 'average usage' (based on reports I've seen in the past) the battery might only have 50-60% of the design capacity, so their choice is between reducing battery consumption (via throttling) or having users whose phones are totally drained in significantly less than an 'average working day'.

It's not just battery life, some people might live with 50% battery but due to chemistry they can't put out the designed voltage leading to the iPhone suddenly turning off.

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#34

Post by caio1982 » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

At least now they are finally making it very clear what they were caught doing behind the curtains (from the new support page on battery performance, linked in the press release):

In cases that require more extreme forms of this power management, the user may notice effects such as:

Longer app launch times

Lower frame rates while scrolling

Backlight dimming (which can be overridden in Control Center)

Lower speaker volume by up to -3dB

Gradual frame rate reductions in some apps

During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UI

Apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch

Many key areas are not impacted by this power management feature. Some of these include:

Cellular call quality and networking throughput performance

Captured photo and video quality

GPS performance

Location accuracy

Sensors like gyroscope, accelerometer, barometer

Apple Pay

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#35

Post by gallerdude » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

This was a Half-Life 3 kind of issue. They kind of got backed into a corner where they could never really talk about what the truth was. Would it have been better to go out and announce: "we're not working on Half Life 3"? Tough to say.

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#36

Post by oblio » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

nixgeek wrote: post #18

bobbles wrote: post #3

What theyre doing to fix it: "Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com. Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibi…

This basically means they're giving you the battery for free. Takes 30-45 minutes of semi-skilled labor to replace it, loaded cost of the employee for even 30 minutes has got to be pretty close to the $29 they're charging. Wonder if this means we'll see 12-24 month phones popping up on eBay with battery health reports, or receipts showing the owner(s) had them changed out just prior to sale.

They wouldn't have to give anything for free if, like for many other phones, the owner could replace the battery in 1 minute flat with no special tools...

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#37

Post by jasonlotito » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

l4yao wrote: post #5

buryat wrote: post #2

> First and foremost, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Didn't they degrade the user experience by slowing down the cpu? I definitely wasn't enjoying my slow iPhone

It's choosing the lesser of two evils. The two options are to have the phone run slower, or have the phone shut down unexpectedly with shorter battery life. Personally, I agree with Apple's call on this one.

The other option would have been to alert the user this was going on. This didn't always happen. They were degrading users phones while showing the battery as fine. That's the problem, you can't just start degrading performance without telling people why.

When you have people running 3rd party apps to determine whether their phones are still running fine, and then going to get battery replacements and finding performance returning, and nothing the OS told them indicated anything was wrong, that's a problem.

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#38

Post by simpsond » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

lddemi wrote: post #9

Coincidence that they waited till after Christmas to release this?

Hopefully they chose to wait, so employees could spend time with family.

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#39

Post by l4yao » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #15

l4yao wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's choosing the lesser of two evils. The two options are to have the phone run slower, or have the phone shut down unexpectedly with shorter battery life. Personally, I agree with Apple's call on this one.

Make it an option? Plus, having the phone shutdown would force users to upgrade out of necessity without feeling swindled.

>Make it an option?

Hmm, that could work, but I feel like that might go against Apple's ethos. Not malicious, they just seem to like telling the user what's best and surfacing fewer options. I feel like the average user doesn't want to have to make this decision

>Plus, having the phone shutdown would force users to upgrade out of necessity without feeling swindled.

I'd disagree, but may be in the minority. I would hate having to upgrade because my battery life is shot. A large reason I chose iPhone was the battery life

Re: A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

#40

Post by rconti » Thu, Dec 28, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

BoorishBears wrote: post #17

l4yao wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's choosing the lesser of two evils. The two options are to have the phone run slower, or have the phone shut down unexpectedly with shorter battery life. Personally, I agree with Apple's call on this one.

As the owner of an iPhone 6 that was degraded enough that even with the mitigation I had the issue, I agree. Any time my phone was under ~15% battery, it would randomly crash during demanding tasks. I'd think the battery had died, but turning it back on would work immediately and my battery wouldn't be at 1%/0%. At that point the battery capacity might as well be 85% of the already degraded value since the phone stop…

My 6 would die at 30% with some regularity, even though supposedly only the 6S was impacted and hence only the 6S got free repairs.