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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

#741

Post by howscrewedami »

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 disagree, I think this was a terrible response. They start with the following:

"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"

... and then proceed to explain why that's exactly what they did. Also, I have no reason to believe getting a new battery will fix my iPhone, especially after they lied so blatantly about planned obsolescence.

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

#742

Post by tomxor »

On a related note, they have used underclocking so "solve" hardware flaws on other devices too. If anyone remembers the nVidia unleaded solder microfracture-fest of 2008~. It affected more than just Apple, but the difference is that Apple didn't admit to any issue with their hardware, people who experienced the failure and attempted to go through the Apple care hoops ended up with a logic board with the same issue (another time bomb). Apple pushed a firmware update to underclock all affected GPUs and effectively push the issue outside of their measly 1 year warranty.

I learned my lesson: you should only buy Apple hardware if you are happy with it as is, if you can't be certain it will remain that way and something goes wrong you have to accept that you will be ignored and Apple will admit to nothing, at the most they will remotely modify your device at whatever cost to the user to prevent them owning up and making replacements.

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

#743

Post by frou_dh »

avar wrote: post #166

They've either been grossly overcharging consumers for these battery replacements for years, and are now just listing a "normal" price, or they're taking a loss on it for PR purposes and folding the price decrease into other products. I don't see how either of those builds customer trust.

Apple's prime business trait is making big margins on everything relating to hardware. The fact that battery replacements were not historically being done "at cost" should surprise precisely no one.

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

#744

Post by Etheryte »

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.

You say you haven't experienced the issue the parent comment is discussing, but at the same time, your sample size probably isn't any bigger.

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

#746

Post by rplnt »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #738
rplnt wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Samsung is definitely slower than it was few OS upgrades ago. It's becoming an annoyance. My at-the-time-google-owned-Motorola did't receive any updates. My Google Nexus tablet became completely unusable (like, really, really unusable, not just slow). With older devices, Android 2.x was horrible from the go, so I don't know if it could get worse (and there were only minor updates anyway). A very small sample, I kn…

You're confusing the slowness caused by the updates (which doesn't exist on Android) with the slowness caused by the flash storage degradation (which absolutely does exist). I too have an old Nexus 10, which died from that cause, a common problem. That's exactly why I think microSD support is so important. Your old card got slow? Buy a new one for $20, copy the files over, done.

Ah, I see. Well that might be the cause for the Samsung device. It has an SD card slot, but I don't think that will help much now (good to know for future I guess). As for this

> which doesn't exist on Android

it's simply not true. Google pushed updates[1] to old Nexus devices that extremely hindered the performance. Downgrade made them fine again. I'm fairly certain it isn't a unique case, and Google wasn't the only one forcing shit upgrades on their customers.

1. quick find, but should be enough https://forums.androidcentral.com/google-nexus-7-tablet-2012...

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

#747

Post by latexr »

MBCook wrote: post #109
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I was noticing it. I was really noticeable compared to my wife’s iPhone that’s newer but of the same model. The time it takes for search to return was the biggest thing that was bugging me. A $50 battery replacement for 2.5 years of service is totally reasonable.

Small note, it’s not $50. That’s the price REDUCTION. So now it’s only $30. I made the same mistake, which someone else pointed out to me. There are a lot of companies that make their money fixing iPhone batteries for $30. If this isn’t a limited time offer they’re in deep trouble.

> If this isn’t a limited time offer

It is.

> starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018.

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

#748

Post by [deleted] »

raverbashing wrote: post #713
mmjaa wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the outrage is justified, for one particular reason: none of this would have happened if Apple hadn't devolved the feature: user-replaceable batteries. It is Apples' arrogance that painted them into this corner, and nothing less.

Incorrect I had the same problem with a user-replaceable phone battery It took me a while to realize it was the battery to blame. Yes, replacing it was easier, but you need to identify the problem first

[deleted]

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

#749

Post by dpark »

rrauenza wrote: post #666
dpark wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

I'm not saying anything about sensor size or depth of field. I'm pointing out the misuse of the term "bokeh". Bokeh is not depth of field. It's the quality of out of focus areas. You want good bokeh when you have a shallow depth of field but bokeh is itself a subjective measure of quality, not quantity.

Calling depth of field "bokeh" is like calling focal length "framing".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

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

#750

Post by avar »

frou_dh wrote: post #743
avar wrote: post #166

They've either been grossly overcharging consumers for these battery replacements for years, and are now just listing a "normal" price, or they're taking a loss on it for PR purposes and folding the price decrease into other products. I don't see how either of those builds customer trust.

Apple's prime business trait is making big margins on everything relating to hardware. The fact that battery replacements were not historically being done "at cost" should surprise precisely no one.

I'm not surprised at their behavior, I'm surprised that so many in this thread think this is a good response to these complaints.

Plenty of their customers will have already bought new phones thinking their current ones are just broken, and their response is to stop adding a 100% margin to this one product category temporarily.

If I was a regular customer of a company that overcharged me by that much, I'd expect to have correspondingly awesome customer support that would make me whole when they screwed up. I.e. in this case refund the new phone I bought because mine was slow.

But I suppose I should stop being surprised at the low expectations people have for Apple.

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