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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

#661

Post by nameisu »

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…

anyone who is going to replace the battery will not get a iphone so thats a 700-1000$ opportunity loss to apple

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

#662

Post by inferiorhuman »

mrgordon wrote: post #650
inferiorhuman wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 week…

The new keyboards are totally defective (especially v1)

This is a known issue? Great... And, yes, the work machine is a 2016 model.

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

#663

Post by inferiorhuman »

eltoozero wrote: post #649
inferiorhuman wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 week…

At least the aging MacBook Air, while not retina, is still available and is evidently the last machine with the "old" style (good) keyboard. I've used the new keyboard, and the reduced travel doesn't bother me, but the numerous reports of failed keys to the degree of "I just wanted to clean the fan"[0] level[1] is keeping me away. My 2013 Air is still an excellent machine though...so is the Mac Mini, if only a cheape…

Nah, the chicklet keyboards were all crap. Even the polycarbonate MacBook ones. That old MacBook chassis was at least serviceable so that when the keyboard died on mine (after about five years) I bought a stack of top cases and replaced it.

The early MacBook Pros and the aluminum and titanium PowerBooks had excellent keyboards. I put up with the subpar keyboards because the rest of the machine was generally pretty nice and OSX is/was leaps and bounds above the alternatives.

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

#664

Post by arstin »

dalyons wrote: post #507
arstin wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, only 3.3 years ago. :) I still use a beat-up 6 with a wonderful patina and have no interest in upgrading. For me the 6 seemed to be the point where everything was "good enough". Until there's a big advance in what phones are and can do (a bit more than the iPhone X ha), I'd rather just repair what's there.

Counterpoint; I upgraded from a 6 to an X - the screen and the camera are really truly so much better. The X has mostly replaced my mirrorless DLSR in a way the 6 couldn’t come close to.

Oh yeah no denying the X improves on the 6, especially screen and camera. And if I took pics regularly I’d upgrade. One of these days...

What would make me personally enthusiastically pay a lot to upgrade would be a blazing fast e-ink display. Or a flexible, paper-like body that goes rigid when you’re holding it in your hand. Or a gizmo you can just keep in your wallet (maybe resting on your finger when you want to project a touch screen on your palm or on a bracelet for your arm).

More imaginatively, I suspect there’s a lot of potential for a new lo-fi platform that makes a different set of trade offs than the iPhone and its imitators. But every aspect of the design and production would need to be nailed though for it to be pulled off. And it would require a bit of a reshuffling of what we expect from our “body computer”.

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

#665

Post by aetherspawn »

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.

My point was both phones experience similar degradation after similar periods of time, but the iPhone 6 is more usable as a result of the performance scaling, so (IMO) I don’t think their original motif was malicious [ftn 1]. I’m actually very happy they’re bothering to do it even though they surely realised the potential to become a PR nightmare.

[1] I could probably at this point even sell my phone again for like 200 bucks and someone would buy it, which could even be hurting them.

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

#666

Post by rrauenza »

dpark wrote: post #654
ekianjo wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Bokeh is the quality of blur, not the quantity, and it’s determined mostly by the lens, not the sensor.

I was about to join this debate and then ran the numbers and realized I still don't get this right. I was going to say it's about sensor size and bigger sensors have shallower DOF.

Here's where I go when I need a refresher - Tony Northrup's explanations:

https://petapixel.com/2014/05/27/tony-northrup-makes-correct...

There's a lot of criticisms of his series, but they're often shallow (they don't seem to watch his whole video) and actually end up agreeing with him.

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

#667

Post by quicklyfrozen »

reaperducer wrote: post #87
netsharc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this comment referring to someone else's (Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips) opinion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16013565 How is it "completely manufactured"? Apple programmed (and hid) the slowdown because it knows the batteries it is shipping with its phones won't last more than a year. Linus compared it to a car performing worse after 1 year of usage..

> Linus compared it to a car performing worse after 1 year of usage I hate to break it to him, but a one-year-old car will perform worse than a brand new car. A car is a hugely more robust piece of machinery than a telephone, so the degradation is less noticeable, but it's there. Why do you think the car depreciates the second you drive it off the lot?

It's actually not unusual for a car to perform better after a year. Check out some of the C&D long term tests (e.g. https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2016-honda-civic-sedan-... -- both acceleration and braking improved at 40k miles).

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

#668

Post by unclebucknasty »

Spivak wrote: post #636
lostmsu wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF do you care what their end game should be for their best benefit? Maybe it'd be better for then to simply steal customer's money if they could get away with it. But that would be straight up illegal. And so is forcing users to upgrade by intentionally introducing performance degradation and telling users nothing about it whatsoever.

There is an action: Apple developers programmed phones to slow down at peak when battery capacity is less than some threshold. Then there is their motivation or 'end game' for doing so: the claim being thrown around being that it's to push users to buy more phones. But it seems like doing nothing and just letting the batteries degrade would sell more phones becuase not holding a full day's charge and shutting off abr…

>doing nothing and just letting the batteries degrade would sell more phones

Or have people decide that they don't want to buy another expensive Apple phone that "expires" so quickly.

We can theorize about elements of their execution, but the question remains open as to why they opted not to simply tell customers that they were doing this wonderfully benevolent thing for them to extend the life of their phones? And, the idea that they were concerned customers wouldn't believe them doesn't wash. It's just not a sound-basis for a corporate decision like this. And, if that were the case, then why would they expect customers to believe them now?

They created the "problem" in the first place, and chose to clandestinely solve it in a way that happens to benefit them.

I'm going with Occam on this one.

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

#669

Post by carterehsmith »

madez wrote: post #658
carterehsmith wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I use a Google-free Android phone. I can watch movies and listen to music, talk to people and chat. Is that somehow impressive? Every smartphone since 1980 can do that. >> And I'm free to take my data and move to another device. So what. People with Androids and Iphones can, and do, move to another device, data included. So what is your point.

It's not impressive. However, it shows that I don't need to abstain from modern uses of my device. The first ancestor of this comment chain is saying, that they were locked-in partly because they couldn't move media out. This contradicts you.

>> The first ancestor of this comment chain is saying, that they were locked-in partly because they couldn't move media out. This contradicts you.

Sorry, you are just making things up. The first ancestor did not complain about moving media out. That is something that you invented.

Btw I do not know what your purpose here is... lying... to get what? Upvotes? Are these really worth... this? Just asking.

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

#670

Post by asendra »

cik2e wrote: post #494
arstin wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, only 3.3 years ago. :) I still use a beat-up 6 with a wonderful patina and have no interest in upgrading. For me the 6 seemed to be the point where everything was "good enough". Until there's a big advance in what phones are and can do (a bit more than the iPhone X ha), I'd rather just repair what's there.

5s here and still running iOS 8 to avoid the planned obsolescence. The phone is still blazing fast, but in the last year or so I've been out of luck with installing a majority of the apps that I've wanted.

That sounds like a good experience.. /s
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