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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

#571

Post by inferiorhuman »

pweissbrod wrote: post #553
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…

Apple makes great long-lasting Hardware. That being said the unreplaceable battery design is obviously driven by a clear Market Force to sway you into buying a new phone

> Apple makes great long-lasting Hardware.

Six months ago I would've agreed with you. After getting a touch bar MacBook Pro for a work computer? Not so much. I don't like the ergonomics at all, but I'm more concerned about out-of-warranty costs.

Thunderbolt glitches aside (it used to kernel panic fairly regularly upon resuming from sleep, more so if I had plugged/unplugged it into the TB3 hub), it took about two weeks before the keyboard started acting up. About 50-75% of the space bar actually works. The left command key isn't centered in its bore properly and sticks with some regularity. There's something rattling inside now too.

I'm in the market for a replacement personal laptop and, for the first time, I've doubts about the longevity of the Apple product.

Also recently I finally dumped my old black MacBook off at a electronics recycling place. Apple keyboards have really gone to crap. Yes, the non-touchbar MacBook Pros had really mushy, nasty keyboards... but the touch bar slim keyboard pales even in comparison to the keyboards the polycarbonate MacBooks got.

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

#572

Post by MBCook »

dandersh wrote: post #457
MBCook wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of maximum CPU should all phones be restricted to to prevent causing these kind of issues? That doesn’t seem like a reasonable solution.

It's more than reasonable to expect a manufacturer to not stress their (recently released) hardware to the point of it being damaged without significant throttling or flat out shutting it down. But if it is that reasonable than surely there is a long list of electronic devices that do such a thing...

I agree, I simply don’t believe that the iPhone is not designed to be able to run at full speed a reasonable fraction of the time.

The implication that I keep getting from people seems to be that Apple is running their phones at 140% and when the battery can’t keep up they then slow it down to make up for the CPU being underprovisioned on battery.

I think it’s far more likely that Apple is running the phone at 100% of what it was designed for. When the battery ages they were running into problems with the phones having to shut themselves down (perhaps the newer chips were more sensitive to power fluctuations?) so they’ve started throttling to under 100%.

In a desktop analogy: I don’t think this is the equivalent of some company selling overclocked CPUs and lying about how fast they were. I think this is closer to a case of the computers just ended a clogged with lots of dust and had to throttle to prevent serious damage after a few years.

Obviously they should’ve told the user but I don’t think they set out from a malicious standpoint.

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

#573

Post by DrScump »

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…

  So I take the drop to $29 as a tangible apology
I take it as public relations and crisis management wrapped in a minor loss-leader. Plus, it automatically boosts store traffic to capture sales/upgrades that wouldn't have happened yet otherwise.

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

#574

Post by icelancer »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #568
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…

>So I take the drop to $29 as a tangible apology It's more like a middle finger to all the independent smartphone repair shops that have been replacing screens, batteries, speakers, LCDs, and cameras for years. Apple has the resources to subsidize the cost of shipping and labor for battery replacements thus undercutting the Mom & Pop repair shop by a wide margin.

.... so what should they do? If they subsidize prices and help out the people who would never go to a local repair shop and only know the great white Apple logo in the sky, they're jerks for driving mom/pop shops out of business.

If they don't do it then they're non-responsive.

Them stepping up and going to $29 plus software updates is the way to go. It just took too long, like everything else Apple does post-Jobs.

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

#575

Post by computerex »

aetherspawn wrote: post #183

Just going to throw this one out there. I swapped from an Nexus 5 to an iPhone 6+. I bought the iPhone 1.5yrs second hand to get a significant amount off its price. It is dented significantly on the back, but still serves me like a new phone apart from a noticed slow-down. On the other hand, the Nexus randomly started shutting off and the battery only lasted half a day after charging every day for the following 2 yea…

Your sample size is too small. You may have gotten a lemon phone. I don't know what point you are trying to make based on your personal experience with 1 nexus phone. I have personally never experienced what you are talking about.

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

#576

Post by computerex »

greedo wrote: post #512
krutzger wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If Apple hadn’t made this change those phones would have randomly turned off instead. Why is apple the only company with this problem?

The Nexus has the same throttling: https://plus.google.com/+YgorCortes/posts/CZ2GhoxgHk3

Can you stop spamming this? This isn't reddit.

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

#577

Post by kryptiskt »

compiler-guy wrote: post #423
kryptiskt wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the ultimate cause is a bad design where they have underprovisioned the battery with little margin for degradation, presumably in order to fit it into a thinner phone, it becomes Apple to handle the issue in a transparent way. The right action for Apple then is not to degrade the performance to hide the problem under the rug, but to make it clear to the customer how they can have the phone serviced in order to mak…

The battery is not underprovisioned. Every single battery starts to go bad eventually. The question is what to do when it does.

Of course it is, if it can't deliver the current the phone requires after some usage it's not fit for purpose. It's BECAUSE every single battery starts to go bad that they should have put in a battery that will work after a couple of years of degradation.

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

#578

Post by hesarenu »

tigershark wrote: post #405
misio wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the second time I've seen that timeframe mentioned in this thread. What was your experience? I don't like upgrading so I tend to keep my Android phones for years and just keep the OS updated. I was getting a good day from my S4 after years of ownership.

I bought a new Nexus 5 about ~6 months after reveal to supersede my aging iphone 4 that was 4 years old at that point. At the beginning I was super excited about the very good performance, just after less than 6 months the performance started to become sluggish, battery life was noticeably worse and while with my iphone 4 I had probably 4 reboots or freezes in 4 years, in 6 months with the nexus 5 I had many more suc…

So you had a bad device. I am using a one plus device for last 2 years with none of your issues. I have friends relatives using even older devices. Not all devices are same.

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

#579

Post by xbkingx »

austenallred wrote: post #272
megaman22 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%…

Except that's exactly how Android phones solved that problem - removable backs. Want a bigger battery? Get one that comes with a bigger back plate, like the Galaxy S5 had. Also, before anyone mentions it, you can do this and still have an IP67 rating.

Apple has teams of engineers working on marginally different hues of silver/gray. They can spare a few to figure out a case lock mechanism that doesn't detract from aesthetics. For example, you still need a SIM tray, so hide the latch to release the edge in there. They could be crazy and follow the Android phones that use a combo sim and SD card tray to allow Apple users to add more storage, but then they couldn't charge a 500% mark up on 128GB of flash memory.

I don't understand people that give Apple a pass on clearly bad decisions that could be remedied by a simple 'Advanced' section in the settings or an almost imperceptible compromise on aesthetics (at least way less perceptible than a monster screen notch or the iTumor case).

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

#580

Post by abawany »

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…

Not all laptops are thus compromised. My HP Elite X2 G1 1012 matches the Surface physical attributes and yet has a user-replaceable battery (and screen, and m.2 SSD.)
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