Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

dw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 287 posts

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#211

Post by moretti »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #207
wmeredith wrote: post #124

This is so dumb. Apple has a lot of flaws but old hardware support certainly isn’t one of them. Firstly, they only slowed down older phones to prevent them from crashing as they had less and less reliable battery draw. Secondly, Apple’s support for legacy phone hardware is the best in the market. It’s absurd that they’re being punished for this.

Is there any evidence that phones would crash due to less reliable battery draw? It sounds like an explanation that could have been posthumously invented after the performance degradation became public knowledge. Coupled with the fact that nobody was ever told about this functionality, one can wonder the true intent. For all we know, they A/B tested it, and found it got people to upgrade more frequently.

They slow down the phone after an unexpected shutdown, when the battery is unable to deliver the necessary peak power.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#212

Post by endorphone »

kneel wrote: post #141
wmeredith wrote: post #124

This is so dumb. Apple has a lot of flaws but old hardware support certainly isn’t one of them. Firstly, they only slowed down older phones to prevent them from crashing as they had less and less reliable battery draw. Secondly, Apple’s support for legacy phone hardware is the best in the market. It’s absurd that they’re being punished for this.

Funny they always released software to slow down your phone the week before the new iphone released. They also denied they were slowing down old phones for several years.

New iOS releases usually come out with new phone launches. The SoC had only recently gotten powerful enough that it could spike past the instantaneous capacity of the battery.

We know that throttling is real, and it has been well documented and was undoubtedly a communications failure of Apple, however it's remarkable how frequently throughout this discussion people are giving vague anecdotes about performance that should be easily verified and proven.

Sometimes, though, our old phones feel slow only in a relative sense. When you experience a newer device it does often suddenly make your old device that once seemed silky smooth and magically performant now look like a piece of crap. That's just the march of technology.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#213

Post by overgard »

Bud wrote: post #171
jonplackett wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is they didn't tell anyone they were doing it. So people thought their phone was just old and slow and bought a new one, when they could have just replaced the battery and made it fast again.

This is total bullshit. I would bet real money that a grand total of ZERO users "thought their phone was just old and slow and bought a new one" as a result of this issue. Zero.

I have an iphone 7, and knowing this now I'll definitely replace the battery before I replace the phone. It probably added another year or two to its life for me.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#214

Post by rootusrootus »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #207
wmeredith wrote: post #124

This is so dumb. Apple has a lot of flaws but old hardware support certainly isn’t one of them. Firstly, they only slowed down older phones to prevent them from crashing as they had less and less reliable battery draw. Secondly, Apple’s support for legacy phone hardware is the best in the market. It’s absurd that they’re being punished for this.

Is there any evidence that phones would crash due to less reliable battery draw? It sounds like an explanation that could have been posthumously invented after the performance degradation became public knowledge. Coupled with the fact that nobody was ever told about this functionality, one can wonder the true intent. For all we know, they A/B tested it, and found it got people to upgrade more frequently.

Mine did. It would get down around 30% or so, and then just randomly shut off with no warning.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#215

Post by anewguy9000 »

wmeredith wrote: post #124

This is so dumb. Apple has a lot of flaws but old hardware support certainly isn’t one of them. Firstly, they only slowed down older phones to prevent them from crashing as they had less and less reliable battery draw. Secondly, Apple’s support for legacy phone hardware is the best in the market. It’s absurd that they’re being punished for this.

right. apple does everything it can to "prolong the life of old devices" lol

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#216

Post by krtong »

jonplackett wrote: post #170
punnerud wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the solution was to replace the battery to get your old iPhone fast again, not to buy a new one. Not intuitive for most people.

Exactly. I'd always considered a battery replacement a waste of money up til that point. Now I replace batteries in everything! Good lesson to learn. My 6S has had 2 replacements so far and is still powering on!

It isn't intuitive to anyone, given that it's not the battery at all. It's a software update slowing down the phones. People replace a battery when the battery doesn't last. But Apple realizes if people replaced their battery then they would likely wait another iteration to replace their phones because they've sunk more cost into their existing phone, so they've extended the life of the battery by sacrificing performance. This way, people don't replace their batteries, and their phone is so much slower than the new phone that they're even more likely to buy a new one.

Not only that but this is the second time Apple's being sued since they did the same thing to the 4 and 5. And the thing is, they pushed the update when they released the 6. I'm surprised (but not really) that they're still pulling this crap.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#217

Post by takeda »

iDemonix wrote: post #156
asimovfan wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes :) apple did not swindle people, they just did not INFORM them how they were swindling them.

I'm not sure swindling involves negating a battery peak performance issue for users on old hardware. I still use an iPhone 6 and had noticed less crashes with upgrades (loading big apps would often crash it), less now with iOS upgrades. I can disable it if I want, but I prefer not to. On the flip side, I have friends with Android phones that are 4 years old, and barely usable.

Why don't they do what every other industry is doing? Have you wondered why in your phone battery degrades significantly after a year, in the mean time the battery in a hybrid such as Prius lasts about 10 years?

They are overvolting them and don't implement mechanisms to keep battery change using optimal levels.

Apple also pioneered the move to make batteries non-removeable (and other companies followed) most people are then forced to get new phone when battery gets bad.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#218

Post by judge2020 »

takeda wrote: post #217
iDemonix wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure swindling involves negating a battery peak performance issue for users on old hardware. I still use an iPhone 6 and had noticed less crashes with upgrades (loading big apps would often crash it), less now with iOS upgrades. I can disable it if I want, but I prefer not to. On the flip side, I have friends with Android phones that are 4 years old, and barely usable.

Why don't they do what every other industry is doing? Have you wondered why in your phone battery degrades significantly after a year, in the mean time the battery in a hybrid such as Prius lasts about 10 years? They are overvolting them and don't implement mechanisms to keep battery change using optimal levels. Apple also pioneered the move to make batteries non-removeable (and other companies followed) most people…

They're constantly working on making their processors better in this regard, every processor has more efficient cores compared to the high-performance cores. Most Androids have comparable battery degregation and performance rates because competitive performance requires pulling more power.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#219

Post by overgard »

Here's a thing to consider: your current phone, in your pocket, would it not be perfectly sufficient for the next 10 years if software wasn't making it obsolete? Is there any new app that really needs twice the processing power. Is the bajillion DPI screen hard on your eyes? Like, other than wear and tear, do you really have any reason to buy a new phone? I have an iphone 7, but to be honest I'd still be using my 5c if the battery hadn't kicked the bucket. This is no doubt a real problem for apple/samsung/etc.

Re: France fines Apple €25M for iOS software that slowed down older iPhones

#220

Post by sumedh »

ogre_codes wrote: post #200
jonplackett wrote: post #126

Fined $27 million. Made $64 billion in the last 3 months. So that's about 1 hour of profit. I'm sure they've been taught a lesson they'll never forget. EDIT: as pointed out below, that was revenue not profit. But apple make so much damn profit it's not as crazy different as it would be for most companies. So it's more like 2.5 hours.

$27m plus... ... the massive amount of bad PR this issue has garnered them over the past 3 years. ... the other fines in other geographies. ... the cost of the massive battery replacement program they put in place. ... the cost of software updates, legal, marketing, and managing this mess over the past few years ...etc etc. This issue has dragged out for 3+ years and affected big parts of the company. Painting it lik…

How did it affect big parts of the company?
Post reply on HN