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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

#271

Post by pishpash »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #232
jmull wrote: post #115

> Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29... > Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance. There we go. It took too much trouble and too long for it to happen, but Apple is stepping u…

Isn't this a time-limited offer? I understood it was valid for a year only.

Yes, after next year, they still want to make dough from battery replacements that should have been priced into the outrageous premium price of a new phone that is billed as durable and long lasting. Why are you supposed to pay twice for long lasting performance? Either lower the price of the phone, engineer a better battery that lasts at least 5 years, or make its replacement free for 5 years; otherwise shut up about being a long lasting product.

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

#272

Post by austenallred »

megaman22 wrote: post #264
austenallred wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever wonder if there's a reason why that's the case?

I'm sure it's cheaper to solder it in, and you don't have to make the components sturdy enough to stand up to repeated assembly and dissassembly. I still hate it. It was nice to be able to have a stack of charged batteries and not worry about being away from an outlet for three or four days. Especially with a phone that had its USB port melted by a shoddy cable.

I don't think it's just about it being cheap; I think it's about literally making some sizes and configurations of phones work.

If you look at where the battery is currently (https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/2oa2QHEoq4Ke16su.m...) there's no way to make the battery accessible without letting you easily open the entire case.

It's just a trade-off, and a replacable battery isn't worth the trade-offs. I 100% agree with Apple on this.

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

#273

Post by [deleted] »

megaman22 wrote: post #264
austenallred wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever wonder if there's a reason why that's the case?

I'm sure it's cheaper to solder it in, and you don't have to make the components sturdy enough to stand up to repeated assembly and dissassembly. I still hate it. It was nice to be able to have a stack of charged batteries and not worry about being away from an outlet for three or four days. Especially with a phone that had its USB port melted by a shoddy cable.

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by hk__2 »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #227
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.

> It's literally the opposite of planned obsolescence Having a too small battery is the exact definition of planned obsolescence! If they hadn't tried to make the phones as small as possible and used a battery with 20% more capacity the problems would not be as severe.

> Having a too small battery is the exact definition of planned obsolescence!

That’s not true. Having a too-small battery on purpose is planned obsolescence. Having a small battery (what does "too small" means? Compared to what?) has nothing to do with that. That’s the purpose of "planned" in "planned obsolescence".

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

#275

Post by stalf »

Trying to raise awareness to the fact that Apple's battery letter is only available on the american store. We in Brazil already experience absurd prices (a battery replacements costs R$ 449,00, equivalent to US$ 136,41), but I doubt will see equivalent reductions...

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

#276

Post by jsz0 »

on_and_off wrote: post #118
oblio wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I would love HN to force people to explain why they are downvoting something. Batteries fail after a while, it has been a constant for a very long time. What has changed is that in many recent phones it is a pain to replace it yourself.

Not even that much of a pain. Apple makes the batteries fairly easy to replace (with the right tools) to lower their own cost of warranty repairs, staffing, etc.

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

#277

Post by colejohnson66 »

kodablah wrote: post #255
reaperducer wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Be transparent in all of these surreptitious actions henceforth. Give more power to users to make their own decisions about browser, battery, OS, etc. But they won't. So I guess the answer to your question is to change the type of people that they are, which is an unrealistic request of course.

> Give more power to users to make their own decisions about browser, battery, OS, etc. But they won't.

To be fair: what do you expect from Apple? Power to the power users? Because that’s not happening.

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

#278

Post by forrestthewoods »

dilap wrote: post #32
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 gre…

> 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.

If you have a laptop then I have bad news; your CPU throttles itself. Especially if you play games.

It gets too hot and slows itself down to prevent damage. There’s not even a direct way to detect this. Which I do admit is annoying.

Apple deserves this PR egg on their face. But they aren’t doing anything super wrong. Additional battery life info will go a long ways towards doing things right.

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

#279

Post by jsz0 »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #152
jhgg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 wish people would stop inventing this false dichotomy. What people want is a phone that doesn't degrade horribly after only a year, regardless of whether that degradation is that it shuts itself off at 40% (which is fucking ridiculous) or that it gets noticeably slower. When a…

> doesn't degrade horribly after only a year

That doesn't happen unless you have an absurd number of charge cycles. It usually takes 2-3 years of normal use to reach a point where the battery degradation is a major problem.

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

#280

Post by dilap »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #99
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…

No, my mind is not playing tricks on me. My 6 slowed down to a barely usable pace after an iOS upgrade. This happened suddently, and not gradually, right at the time Apple was releasing new devices. It is normal to be suspicious. My battery did not wear out overnight.

the theory is that your battery was already worn out, putting your device at at greater risk for sudden shutdowns.

when you updated your software, it started throttling.

per that theory, a new battery should put you right again. (or wait for a future software update, which will tell you for sure if it was throttling.)

i think there is a little more going on, though, because my old ipad mini is slow a.f. w/ the new software update, and it shouldn't be affected by this throttling. my guess is it's simply lazy software engineering: apple doesn't seem to try to target good performance on old devices.

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