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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

#471

Post by dingo_bat »

cooper12 wrote: post #344
Jedd wrote: post #93

Lots of people saying that Apple only had two options - make old handsets slower, or have them randomly shutdown. Might be a reflection of the culture those commenters are from, but it's disingenuous to assert. Other options existed -- notably to advise the user, as part of the update, via mail-out, etc, that this choice had been made from them, and (optionally) what they could do about it.

What are they gonna do about it, "Yes I do want my phone to shut down immediately instead of continuing to be able use it"?

This is not realistic. The actual options are

a) slow the phone down

b) make the battery percentage accurate so that people will know when the battery is empty

I have used Samsung phones for a long time (since Galaxy S4), and I've never had a phone turn off on me when the battery percentage was anything other than 0%. Are we supposed to believe that the maker of the "world's most advanced smartphone" (their words) cannot figure out how to prevent random shutdowns without slowing down the whole phone?

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

#472

Post by Washuu »

legulere wrote: post #125
jsnk wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this a "completely manufactured scandal"? Tens of millions of old iPhone users were left in the dark why all of a sudden the phone was slowing down to the point where it was becoming unusable. Millions of people probably spent hundreds of dollars otherwise they wouldn't need to spend if they know this was something they can fix with a new battery. I personally have been using iPhone 6 for 3 years until this CP…

>the phone was slowing down to the point where it was becoming unusable. Were the phones really slowed down by that much?

Typing a letter, seeing the keyboard respond to show that letter was recognized... Then putting the phone down, making a sandwich, coming back, and finally seeing it actually make the key click noise and enter the letter in the input field.(That is not an exaggeration. That happened.) A day after that it turned into a brick and I had to give it that DFU middle finger to get my iPhone 6 back into a workable state. That was all because of the iOS 11 upgrade.(I skipped past 10.2.) While the full reformat of the phone has more of less resolved the issues it still experiences slow downs while rapidly draining the battery due to iOS 11 idiocy.

My phone's remaining battery life is above 80%.

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

#473

Post by heartles »

mark-r wrote: post #409
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It’s also a waste of human labor to throw away devices when they could still be made useful with some simple repairs. To go further, it is wasteful to design hardware to be disposable rather than repairable and reusable. People with jobs I wouldn’t want to do work very hard to bring us these devices, and the earth gives up resources to mine, transport, and shape the materials. Throwing things away when they c…

I was surprised to find out my son's robotics team used old phones as robot controllers. No idea what software they used.

If it's FTC robotics, they typically use an app framework that manages the wireless connection and enforces some game rules (ex: autonomous vs driver controlled period), and they just program in Robot behavior around that.

Or at least that's how it was when I left a couple years ago.

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

#474

Post by raquo »

qaq wrote: post #464
raquo wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because everything is so cheap nowadays, because all the externalities that we worry about (pollution, resources running out, etc.) are left for the public and future generations to bear, with those who actually cause those externalities not paying their dues. Unfortunately, I don't see this changing within our culture of mindless consumerism and a governance system based on what is essentially legalized bribery…

Who are these magical "they" we own Apple we vote in people in congress and on and on.

What's your point? Neither you nor me personally can tell Apple what to do, and certainly not congress.

That's the point of my pessimism – modifying your own behaviour does not make any difference. Even if millions of people boycotted iPhones that would still be a smaller loss for Apple than changing how they're doing things, because doing things right is suicidally expensive when most of your customers don't care. An even smaller loss would be doing some marketing to make most of boycotters ambivalent enough to forget the whole thing.

Using Apple just as an example, could be any company or government.

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

#475

Post by dingo_bat »

MBCook wrote: post #167
chowyuncat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the consumer doesn't have enough information in this case. They are more than likely going to buy a new phone rather than a new battery.

Under the old software, where the phone would randomly turn off on you, what do you think they would’ve done? Probably the same thing. Buy a new phone.

The random shutdowns sound like a technical problem with the phone. The correct solution is for Apple to fix it. It doesn't happen on any other flagship phone. So you are being disingenuous in listing that as a choice. The real choice is between slowing down the whole phone or the battery lasting a day instead of a day and a half. Or another choice is for Apple to include bigger batteries so that the degraded battery still provides a day and a half of usage.

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

#476

Post by manigandham »

qaq wrote: post #464
raquo wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because everything is so cheap nowadays, because all the externalities that we worry about (pollution, resources running out, etc.) are left for the public and future generations to bear, with those who actually cause those externalities not paying their dues. Unfortunately, I don't see this changing within our culture of mindless consumerism and a governance system based on what is essentially legalized bribery…

Who are these magical "they" we own Apple we vote in people in congress and on and on.

Politicians in the US do not do what their constituency wants. This is before getting into the numerous issues like gerrymandering, lobbying, lack of education and informed public, propaganda and social media, etc.

As far as owning Apple, unless you are a major (read: majority) holder, good luck trying to make any difference because the actual majority holders want the profits, and they are not (as much) concerned about the externalities involved.

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

#477

Post by propogandist »

madez wrote: post #458
carterehsmith wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> you are locked-in into a proprietary ecosystem Ok, so what do we do? Sell iphone ((or android phone)) and then.. get what?

With Android you are not necessarily forced into a locked-in ecosystem. I use a Google-free Android phone. I can watch movies and listen to music, talk to people and chat. And I'm free to take my data and move to another device. So, yes, extracting all of your data Apple is not withholding from you, getting another device, and then selling the Apple devices is what I would start with. Also, I would keep an open eye f…

most popular android phones have large development communities[0] behind them. Removing the default [Android] OS that's ridden with spyware, including always-on Google Services, is critical to getting control over your phone.

Flashing something like LineageOS (formerly CyanogenMod) is the best way to get started with a lean android os

[0]- forum.xda-developers.com

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

#478

Post by dingo_bat »

tzs wrote: post #237

I'm curious about how much slimness people would be willing to give up for easy, cheap battery replacements for phones. One could design a phone the thickness of the original iPhone that would be able to take AAA batteries. 8 AAA Eneloops have about the same energy as the batteries in iPhone 6s or iPhone 8, and just shy of an iPhone 7. If one would accept a phone about 40% thicker than the original iPhone, 3 or 4 AA…

Just want to note that Samsung has made their phones thicker for the last 2 generations. It has directly resulted in much better battery life compared to their older phones and I don't think it has hurt sales at all. So maybe people don't really want the thinnest as much as apple likes to believe.

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

#479

Post by pixelbill »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #295
djsumdog wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the first time this has happened to Apple. They use to not sell replacement batteries for the original iPods, and when people called in to complain, they were often told to buy an entire new iPod. This was settled in a lawsuit: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/apples-ip... Another important note is this battery replacement cost only cover the iPhone6 and up. That's only the 2015 release.…

Agreed. It’s also a waste of human labor to throw away devices when they could still be made useful with some simple repairs. To go further, it is wasteful to design hardware to be disposable rather than repairable and reusable. People with jobs I wouldn’t want to do work very hard to bring us these devices, and the earth gives up resources to mine, transport, and shape the materials. Throwing things away when they c…

Ill echo this statement, don't throw away your devices!

I never throw away a cell phone as long as it is still functioning. You can set them up to be a sensor suite or any other application you might need a compact computer. I use an old cell phone for a GPS on my bicycle (offline maps downloaded, phone has GPS built in, so I don't actually need service).

Even after they break it can be fun to take them apart and attempt a repair. Worst case it's just an old phone you weren't using anyway

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

#480

Post by exikyut »

> Of course, when a chemically aged battery is replaced with a new one, iPhone performance returns to normal when operated in standard conditions.

Has Apple ever acknowledged battery replacement that explicitly? It's almost like the iPhone just grew a removable battery door with those words.

(Also, for those curious, I'm impressed to see that this has 466 comments only 3 hours after being posted.)

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