Apple Agrees to Pay $113M to Settle 'Batterygate' Case over iPhone Slowdowns

Post by SulfurHexaFluri » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 1:29 AM UTC

aetherspawn wrote: post #43

Karunamon wrote: post #6

Worth mentioning here is that this wasn't just about the "sneaky" fix for battery degradation, it was about doing this without notice , and having internal tooling that would deny a replacement (even at full retail price) if the battery was above an arbitrary health threshold (but still low enough to cause throttling). Before Apple changed their tune, if you read about this, and went into an Apple store for a replace…

Hi, Battery engineer here at an electric vehicle company. The crux of it is this: when you draw high current from a small battery, the voltage will sag (1). The manufacturer has an on-board battery management system that MUST turn off the battery if it goes below a certain voltage threshold. As the battery ages, the sag effect increases significantly, up to 2-3x. Thus, when your phone clearly indicates say 20% batter…

Post by rasz » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

aetherspawn wrote: post #43

Karunamon wrote: post #6

Worth mentioning here is that this wasn't just about the "sneaky" fix for battery degradation, it was about doing this without notice , and having internal tooling that would deny a replacement (even at full retail price) if the battery was above an arbitrary health threshold (but still low enough to cause throttling). Before Apple changed their tune, if you read about this, and went into an Apple store for a replace…

Hi, Battery engineer here at an electric vehicle company. The crux of it is this: when you draw high current from a small battery, the voltage will sag (1). The manufacturer has an on-board battery management system that MUST turn off the battery if it goes below a certain voltage threshold. As the battery ages, the sag effect increases significantly, up to 2-3x. Thus, when your phone clearly indicates say 20% batter…

Post by SulfurHexaFluri » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 1:35 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #71

darksaints wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was exactly what happened to me. My phone slowed down drastically after an update, and so I took it in. They confirmed to me that it was this update that throttled everything if the battery health was degraded "in order to prevent further battery degradation". But when I pointed out to them that my phone was less than a year old and still under warranty, they tested it again and told me my battery didn't meet th…

This is an absolutely terrible customer service story, and IMHO there should definitely be compensation for that. But it also undercuts the "they are trying to make people upgrade" story, because I think nearly any sane person would abandon shop rather than put up with this sort of big-Corp idiocy.

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 1:39 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #92

djmobley wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have a source for that? This would change my opinion on this story. I can vouch for this. My iPhone 6 was under 2 years old and had 82% battery health according to the Apple diagnostics when I experienced the unexpected shutdowns. The shutdowns were frequent (at least once per day) and, because the phone had to be plugged in before it could be restarted, were incredibly frustrating. I took it to an Apple Sto…

That's very strange, I had an opposite experience twice with my original SE (Apple store in NYC). It similarly showed 80+% battery health, but I showed them the battery charge history in Settings (dropped from 40% to 0% instantly) and they replaced it under warranty. Happened a year and a half later, exact same scenario, and paid the ~$30 to get it replaced. I suspect they didn't have any monitoring to detect or log…

Post by jackvalentine » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 1:41 AM UTC

AOsborn wrote: post #54

CapriciousCptl wrote: post #10

So, I'm somehow developing a pro-Apple bias these days. This whole batterygate to me is kind of based on conjecture-- that Apple slowed old phones with the intention to sell more new ones. If there's any supporting evidence, or anything that's come up in discovery that Apple acted in bad faith, I'd possibly change my (admittedly biased) mind. But really, slowing the phones down to extend battery life is a reasonable…

There is definitely business aspect in terms of warranty and customer support. In New Zealand for example, legislation guarantees a warranty window on new devices that the manufacturer cannot opt-out (Consumer Guarantees Act). Highlighting either option for consumers would bring attention to the fact this is a hardware issue, which would void acceptable use warranties if the battery was degrading to be insufficiently…