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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

#691

Post by asendra »

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"?

Stating that a battery replacement will fix it instead of letting them suffer and increasingly slow phone or buying a new one unnecessarily.

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

#692

Post by asendra »

mikestew wrote: post #19
buryat wrote: post #2

> First and foremost, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Didn't they degrade the user experience by slowing down the cpu? I definitely wasn't enjoying my slow iPhone

“degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades ” (emphasis mine because you left that important part out) If you bought a new phone strictly because your old one was slow, you might have an anecdotal point to make.

I did. 6s to X one year before planned.

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

#693

Post by jdietrich »

nordsieck wrote: post #173
jdietrich wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If iPhones are really experiencing that rate of degradation, then Apple are solely to blame for using such an aggressive battery management profile. If they had given up a millimetre of thickness, overprovisioned the battery and managed it less aggressively, they could have easily reduced battery degradation to <20% after 1,500 cycles. Adding 50% to the capacity also gives you 50% more current at the same C-rate. I t…

> If iPhones are really experiencing that rate of degradation, then Apple are solely to blame for using such an aggressive battery management profile. Consumers are responsible at least as much as manufacturers for the current state of phones. Manufacturers may create the designs for phones, but consumers vote with their wallets for what they want, and they've consistently voted for thin over longer battery life.

There's a difference between battery life and battery longevity. The Galaxy Note 7 had a fairly beefy 3500mAh battery, but Samsung tried to cram too much capacity into too little volume. The unconventional pack shape created a substantial risk of internal shorts. Poor thermal management or aggressive battery management can vastly increase the rate of battery degradation, but they're non-obvious and most tech journalists don't have the knowledge needed to identify those issues.

Most consumers don't understand battery technology and don't know what's available on the market. They go into their local cellphone store and choose whatever looks nice and is recommended by the salesman. They aren't aware of handsets with bigger or user-replaceable batteries, because the industry hasn't really offered them the choice. I use a Chinaphone with a giant battery, but I have a lot of knowledge that no average consumer has.

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

#694

Post by drukenemo »

RayVR wrote: post #626
enraged_camel wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>My experience has been that upgrading the OS results in degraded performance 100% of the time. Well yeah, since more features mean slower performance. I saw a noticeable performance decrease when I went from Windows 7 to Windows 8. That doesn't mean Microsoft started throttling the CPU.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t expect some slowdown but Apple essentially forces you to upgrade with no path to downgrade the os. After upgrading my iPhone 6 to iOS 11 I could not launch Lyft, uber took minutes to open, and even the built in message app would have multi-second lag on key press. If you are destroying what was a perfectly fine phone with a software release it should simply not be supported. I would have bee…

I fully agree with you that not being able to downgrade is one of the biggest issues at play.

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

#695

Post by turshija »

grav wrote: post #314
tschwimmer wrote: post #111

I think this is a good response, and I think a lot of the outrage over this issue is overblown. At the end of the day there's a fundamental tradeoff that Apple needs to make on behalf of their customers: performance or stability. They chose stability, and I think they have a convincing argument as to why: "It should go without saying that we think sudden, unexpected shutdowns are unacceptable. We don’t want any of ou…

I agree it's a good response, both marketing wise (the compensation in the form of cheaper upgrade) and technically (the improved health visibility). Regarding your concerns: 1) The software update that improved the power management was released for iPhone 6 and later only according to the article. 2) They state "Early in 2018". I think this is a pretty conservative, yet realistic estimate, considering they don't wan…

"Early in 2018" might mean beginning of January, because 2017 seems unrealistic for a feature like that, especially since today is the last working day for this year.

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

#696

Post by SimonPStevens »

astrange wrote: post #393
SimonPStevens wrote: post #380

From the statement... "All rechargeable batteries are consumable components" If they are "consumable", why aren't they user replaceable. As far as I'm concerned any company that seals consumable parts inside a device isn't acting the interest of their users.

They can be replaced for $29.

That kinda misses the point though (and it's only that price because of recent events, it was more expensive)

Apple themselves are describing batteries as consumable, and to me it doesn't work both ways, you can't describe something as consumable and seal it inside the device and still claim to be doing the best thing for the user. Either it's consumable and user replacement should be supported and within warrenty, or it's not consumable.

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

#697

Post by LoSboccacc »

tigershark wrote: post #408
LoSboccacc wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you’re being throttled, duh

Better being throttled than having to endure boot loops, daily crashes and a battery dead at 5 pm honestly..

Better having faulty hardware replaced tbh. Especially expensive hardware.

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

#698

Post by Fej »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #72

The Nexus 6P recently had a big consumer backlash and refund process bc phones would shut off randomly below 20% charge once they got older. I would guess the same thing is happening here. I would have much rather had reduced performance than a phone unusable under 20%. Luckily I got a free upgrade to the Pixel to fix it.

Same issue here. Google won't do anything now. A lot of people took advantage of the Pixel handouts. (I'm not defending them, it's total BS.)

Usually they send you to Huawei who wants a few hundred bucks to fix it. ...no.

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

#699

Post by lostlogin »

arvinsim wrote: post #430
lostlogin wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook - really?

You will be surprised on how Messenger is like iMessage of messenger apps in some countries outside the US.

I hope it doesn’t get that way in this country outside the US.

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

#700

Post by bayindirh »

Sirened wrote: post #487
mtgx wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still sounds like a false dilemma to me. I've never had reboots on my Android phones because of battery problems. Maybe Apple just needs to buy better quality batteries? And perhaps higher capacity that are also capable of more charges before they lose too much of their original capacity?

Do you live somewhere cold? My old devices are perfectly fine indoors but if I step outside in the winter they shut off in a few minutes

Li-Ion batteries lose the ability to provide energy at low temperatures, pretty fast. If the battery is aged, the effect becomes much more pronounced.
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