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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

#591

Post by garmaine »

j_coder wrote: post #341
mikeash wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about battery life. It’s about not pulling so much current that it suddenly shuts down the entire device. Why do so many people think this is just about making a charge last longer?

It is about battery life. This is how the battery should be measured: 100% -> Doesn't charge more 0% -> Do no provide enough voltage/current for safe operation at current power mode. At 5% the phone could switch (configurable) to extended battery mode (low power mode) and alert the user. As the battery ages the user will notice better a faster battery discharge (from 100% to 0%) and not the performance slowdown.

Your demonstrating the same ignorance the post you’re replying to is complaining about. It is not physically possible for the phone to draw sufficient power off a degraded battery to power it in high performance modes. The battery just doesn’t provide enough electrical current. Apple isn’t stepping back performance on degraded batteries to keep battery life. They are doing it to keep peak current draws at a level the battery can support so that the phone doesn’t hard shutoff when it is receiving insufficient power.

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

#592

Post by hota_mazi »

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

You simply behaved exactly the way that Apple predicted you would (preferring to spend money over the inconvenience of migrating your data to Android).

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

#593

Post by stouset »

blensor wrote: post #199
askafriend wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think they're doing the right thing here. Most users shouldn't need to manage their battery performance actively at all. What's next? Users should manage their own RAM usage? Absolutely not. They're giving away batteries for free, and giving users more visibility into the health of their battery in an upcoming update. That's the right thing.

So you think a Popup "Hey you're battery is going bad. Do you want to [keep the performance] or [save the battery life]?" Would be too much??

Multiply this idea times the six thousand other locations people think this should be done and you suddenly get an frustratingly unusable device.

Everyone gets upset that their pet setting isn't available, but nobody stops to think about the consequences of having everyone else's pet setting available.

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

#594

Post by wwweston »

austenallred wrote: post #533
wwweston wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't care about a headphone jack, at all Does "works for me" work for you as a reason for closing a software ticket? Built-in speakers and bluetooth are probably the most common audio output cases for me , and I suspect it's that way for most people. It's totally fine and probably a good idea to recognize that and improve the experience on that front. But complicating corner cases are a definite reality. If you'…

It’s really simple: 1. It’s impossible for Apple to make a device that perfectly pleases everyone 2. Not all feature sets are possible 3. Apple constantly makes decisions about which trade-offs to make Sometimes you’re just not the target market for a device a company makes. That’s ok, and it isn’t necessarily the fault of the company that such is the case, they just opted for a different feature set than the one you…

It's kindof interesting that everything in your comment is true, and yet it's not clear that most of it is relevant in this case.

No one has introduced the standard of perfect pleasure here. The standard that has been introduced is one of both ability and ease in regards to what I'd think anyone would agree is a fundamental feature for a personal mobile device: getting audio to route from that device to common output devices or even arbitrary output devices.

If anyone thinks that standard is unreasonable or even not relevant to Apple's market, I'd be interested to hear about that.

As far as feature sets and tradeoffs go -- yeah, that's an argument that I find compelling in a lot of product discussions. But it really loses its power when we're talking about a feature that's been present in every. smartphone. ever. up until the iPhone 7 and non-Apple smartphones since. It's hard to take seriously the argument that keeping it just wasn't possible. Tradeoffs? Maybe. But good tradeoffs mean you gained something worth as much or more as what you traded away. I haven't come across any credible explanation of compelling features (let alone market-distinguishing features) the iPhone gained that required shedding the 1/8" audio jack. If you're in the know on this one, by all means, explain.

Overall, it seems more credible that maybe, just maybe, Apple underestimated the broad "just works" utility of the feature they removed here and actually got this one wrong. Or, possibly, "just works" wasn't a functioning value when it came to this decision.

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

#595

Post by amlib »

girvo wrote: post #554
seba_dos1 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least it's very easy to run 7.1.2 and soon 8.1 even on S3 (I do), while with iPhone you're completely at Apple's mercy.

Unofficial software downloaded as a binary blob from dodgy websites? I don’t miss that at all, though it’d be nice to be able to hack at my iPhone more.

What's so fishy about https://lineageos.org ?

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

#596

Post by anaganisk »

computerex wrote: post #575
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.

And yeah my iPhone 6 lasts a day still, c'mon everything doesn't happen for everyone it depends on how you use, charge, and many more factors

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

#597

Post by stouset »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #354
wodenokoto wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the right thing is to have phones crash as the battery age? This is not a question about battery life in terms of how many hours the phone can run. This is a question about the phones ability to draw high amounts of power for short intervals.

The right thing is to be honest with users about the state of their equipment. Many, many people shelled out to replace their "dying" phone when all they really needed was a new battery. I don't believe that Apple didn't intend that.

Have you never worked at a large organization? Things that appear like a good idea locally within an organization can easily be bad decisions at the scale of the company as a whole. It's not like Tim Cook or higher-ups personally had any idea that this was being done, much less asked for it to happen — this was likely just one of a million mini-features that team within Apple ship every release. One that was even likely well-intentioned, if poorly thought-out.

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

#598

Post by garmaine »

Washuu wrote: post #472
legulere wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Tha…

Same experience on an iPhone 7. I wish I’d never upgraded to iOS 11 :(

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

#599

Post by chrisballinger »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #481
chrisballinger wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 5S was released in Sept 2013 and still runs the latest version of iOS. If they were still selling it in 2016 it will likely be supported with software updates until 2019. For comparison the Galaxy S4 was released in April 2013 and received its last update to Android 5.0.1 in April 2015.

At least it's very easy to run 7.1.2 and soon 8.1 even on S3 (I do), while with iPhone you're completely at Apple's mercy.

I run LineageOS on an old Moto G and think it's a great way for us technical people to keep our devices relevant beyond their intended lifetimes. For people less technically inclined I will always recommend Apple devices, however if Apple keeps rushing out buggy software releases this may change.

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

#600

Post by ekianjo »

girvo wrote: post #552
frostburg wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be glib here, but I think that the fact that you refer to your camera as a mirrorless DSLR (dslRs by definition have mirrors) is part of the reason why you can replace it with a somewhat better phone sensor. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but it's possible because you have limited needs.

So because of communication error, you can dismiss your parent commenter as having “limited” needs? Seems a bit needlessly smug, don’t you think? I also shoot with a EVIL system, specifically Fujifilm’s X system, and while my friends iPhone X I borrowed for a week won’t replace it entirely, it’s on a completely new level for smartphone photography and for the bulk of my photos it really can replace my camera! Glibly…

You wont get anything close to the bokeh provided by larger sensors. It is fine as long as you know what your tradeoffs are.
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