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A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance

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

#101

Post by JustSomeNobody »

1. You're still trying to fix a design flaw with software.

2. Good move on lowering cost of a replacement, because it sure seemed like you were trying to extend the battery to a point where Apple care ran out. However,some people are reporting throttling at 89% battery capacity as reported by coconut battery. This is absurd! Why? Because you won't replace batteries until at least the 80% mark!

Thanks for the clarity, but you need to stop using tiny batteries.

Edit: Let's be clear. We are here because Apple chose to use small batteries. An 1810maH battery will degrade to a point where the iPhone shuts down faster than a 2200maH battery would have. They didn't design the iPhone for longer than 1 or 2 years with those tiny batteries. Period.

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

#102

Post by MBCook »

baddox wrote: post #76
dilap wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gre…

I’m curious whether anyone who was organically affected by this power management feature actually could notice the peak CPU throttling, and especially if the throttling would be anywhere near as noticeable as the gradual increase in random shutdowns. Of course it will show up in synthetic benchmarks, but I haven’t heard any analysis of whether people’s perception that their old phones are getting slow had anything to…

Yes.

It may depend on various factors, but I know someone with an iPhone 6+ that is ridiculously slow. At times it can’t keep up with typing terribly well. Or you’ll go to open a simple app and it will take a couple of seconds.

And iPhone 6 that one of their relatives purchased on the same exact day does not exhibit this behavior. At least not to a noticeable degree.

The phone is three years old and has had a hard life. It gets discharged down to 10% pretty often.

As soon as the articles about this started to come out it fit perfectly. We’ll find out when they try and replace the battery, but I suspect this is the issue.

However this is also probably one of the worst cases. I mean if my phone was throttled 10 or 15% I’m not sure I would really notice. If things get bad and it starts being 40%+ I can see how it would be noticeable.

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

#103

Post by jlian »

One thing that Apple hasn't addressed is if the Geekbench results [1] over-represents or exaggerates the the throttling effect. Since Geekbench pushes the iPhone to its limits for the duration of the benchmark, iOS needs to throttle performance to prevent shutdown while being tested. This results in lower-than-expected test scores every time. But how much does this map to real-life, visible performance drop?

Edit: Another question I have is how do other devices handle battery degradation? Do Android phones just let devices shutdown unexpectedly or is there also performance throttling? Or is the problem non-existent on non-Apple devices somehow?

[1] https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-an...

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

#104

Post by Game_Ender »

nikisweeting wrote: post #45

This whole battery scandal is ridiculous. It's literally the opposite of planned obsolescence, they're prolonging the usable life of these phones by underclocking them enough to stay functional for a full day, when otherwise they'd be shutting off randomly. I wish I could underclock even with a fresh battery in order to have solid 2-day battery life.

Apple knows what typical usage patterns will do to the battery. If most customers hit an issue that degrades their phone performance before 1 year, then Apple made that conscious decision when doing system design (multiple phones have this issue). It’s fully within their power to spec a battery that lasts a bit longer.

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

#105

Post by tjtrapp »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #59
satysin wrote: post #41

To be fair that is a pretty decent response. The reality is batteries do degrade over time and they have to manage that. They should have been transparent about what they were doing and I'm not sure giving the user control over it is all that sensible. Are there any battery experts who can chime in with their opinion on this?

I'm not a battery expert, but it needs to be pointed out that other smartphone manufacturers do not have this problem. It was Apple specific - it's not as if every device with a lithium battery shuts off at 40%. So it still feels like they're doing it to mitigate a fault with the device, and should've been more transparent about that in the first place.

> It was Apple specific

Maybe these symptoms are Apple specific but Samsung had fire and explosions:

http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-note-7-battery-...

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

#106

Post by Y-bar »

jhgg wrote: post #14
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

Would you rather have a slightly slower phone, or one that shuts off at random due to the battery not being able to provide peak current. I think the only major mistake Apple made here was not being originally transparent about this. I don't think that Apple is being 100% noble in its intents either. In addition to driving users to buy new devices, there's the much less obvious side-effect which is a lot of people at…

I am affected by this issue. I would rather have a risk of my phone shutting down at If my phone shut down when it shouldn't then I know to search out diagnostics about my battery. But if my phone slows down I have actually done these things:

* complained to developers that their apps are slower, wasting their time and resources when my battery should have been changed.

* reinstalled my OS. Which did not help when I should have changed my battery.

* searched and searched and searched resources online. When I should have researched a new battery.

* I also have to mea culpa all friends to whom I have ensured through the years that Apple never intentionally slows down their hardware. I have lied to my friends and need to apologise to them.

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

#107

Post by reaperducer »

marklyon wrote: post #73

My wife’s 6+ was incredibly slow after the iOS upgrade. My 6+ drained the battery incredibly quickly. I was told that upgrading the iOS would fix that problem [0]; it didn’t. Instead it slowed my phone to the point of being unusable. If I’d have known replacing the battery would have fixed both of them, I’d have done that. Instead, I stupidly bought two new, very expensive phones. Since we were already locked into th…

> This does nothing to compensate or win back the trust of customers like me.

What is it that you want Apple to do to make you personally feel better?

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

#108

Post by on_and_off »

chx wrote: post #67

The elephant in the room is, of course, Apple's obsession with thinness which makes it near impossible these days to get a usable laptop because PC makers totally copied Apple alas. It also gave us nonreplaceable batteries and any successful lawsuit that comes out of it is totally justified. No one asked for this. Lighter, somewhat, yes but thin to the point where batteries are barely functional? Samsung's colossal N…

Is it also why we have these awful keyboards on the new mbp ?

I feel them absolutely awful to type on (I have never complained about a keyboard before but I just can't stand this one), although it is subjective, some people are fine with it.

What is unquestionably bad though is that you need to replace the whole keyboard if one key has an issue (and apparently it happens a lot). I know several people for which Apple had to reset the whole laptop after a keyboard issue, but I can't make sense of it.

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

#109

Post by MBCook »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #97
baddox wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious whether anyone who was organically affected by this power management feature actually could notice the peak CPU throttling, and especially if the throttling would be anywhere near as noticeable as the gradual increase in random shutdowns. Of course it will show up in synthetic benchmarks, but I haven’t heard any analysis of whether people’s perception that their old phones are getting slow had anything to…

Yes I was noticing it. I was really noticeable compared to my wife’s iPhone that’s newer but of the same model. The time it takes for search to return was the biggest thing that was bugging me. A $50 battery replacement for 2.5 years of service is totally reasonable.

Small note, it’s not $50. That’s the price REDUCTION. So now it’s only $30.

I made the same mistake, which someone else pointed out to me.

There are a lot of companies that make their money fixing iPhone batteries for $30. If this isn’t a limited time offer they’re in deep trouble.

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

#110

Post by jwineinger »

bluedino wrote: post #27
greggarious wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I think this is great news. I like my 6s. I like my headphone port. I don't do anything CPU intensive on the phone. As long as security updates continue to be issued, I don't see a need to upgrade. I got lucky and wasn't affected by the battery shutdown issue even though my serial # was eligible for a free battery replacement, so I was able to put off the free battery replacement for a couple years and get…

Same here. I already had my battery replaced under that replacement plan, and for $25 why not get it replaced at some point this coming year and hopefully get another year out it.

> for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced

I'm guessing they'll have some criteria on that

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