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

Post by wlesieutre » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #101

aetherspawn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>The reason is technical, so it's hard to communicate this in a way that all consumers can understand "The battery in your iphone has degraded. Phone performance will be lowered to ensure stability. See an apple store or visit apple.com/battery to have a replacement battery installed" It would have been so easy.

Post by 1123581321 » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

bgorman wrote: post #45

1123581321 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I experienced it as well and this isn’t true either. The throttling was significant (40%, rough ballpark) but the phones were usable. A game that played that poorly would not have run well at full power. Maps and messaging was functional. They should have communicated the change, in case that qualification is needed.

Have you ever considered that multiple generations of phones were effected by this issue and your single anecdote doesn't describe the full spectrum of behavior. I don't appreciate being called a liar, especially about an issue that personally effected me to the point I left the Apple ecosystem for years. (I gave up my iPhone before the revelations, but I am 100% sure in retrospect I was being throttled)

Post by darksaints » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 2:11 AM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #91

darksaints wrote: post #62

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They weren't covered under my warranty.

It was covered under my warranty. Either the warranty expired -- in which case it isn't a "few months", or it was within the warranty period, in which case it is covered.

Post by zodiakzz » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 2:24 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #12

Yet they're still ignoring Flexgate which affects devices made across a number of years. I paid an arm and a let for a Macbook Pro (that's what they cost in my country), only to have it turned into a paperweight by a manufacturing defect that Apple acknowledges but won't remedy except for devices made in 2016. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-sued-over-macbook-pro-f... https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/20/apple-f…

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Nov 19, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #116

Karunamon wrote: post #84

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Again, it's not that Apple didn't violate the laws of physics on their "magical" device, it's that they: 1. Applied the throttling fix silently 2. Denied warranty replacements 3. Wouldn't even replace the battery with cash in hand until after the suit was filed 4. ..leaving people with no good way to have a working device.

The other option Apple had at their disposal was basically to throttle the device literally all the time so that even when the battery was old the phone would never draw enough current to trigger a brown out condition. Instead what they did was make the most power possible available from the battery at all times, and yes that changed over time. This seems like a much better alternative. I really don’t understand the…