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

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

#141

Post by Malcx »

arcticbull wrote: post #128
stale2002 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can avoid this by reducing performance for the entire time you owned the device so nobody noticed, I guess, but that's all. Or you could notify people of the situation, and sell replacement batteries. That would have been the best solution.

Again, the battery is not defective, it is a certain number of years old. That is how batteries perform at a certain age. Batteries are consumable parts like tires and ink cartridges. It's like returning an ink cartridge at 50% capacity because it's only got half the ink left. Yes, that's the point, that's what cartridges do. This feature is designed to always get the most out of a battery. Is that really something t…

> Batteries are consumable parts like tires and ink cartridges

Then let users replace them like other consumables.

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

#142

Post by deviantfero »

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…

> If there's any supporting evidence, or anything that's come up in discovery that Apple acted in bad faith

I know it's not apple's way of doing things, but can you think of a legit good reason why they couldn't service your phone with a new battery for a price instead?

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

#143

Post by arcticbull »

Malcx wrote: post #141
arcticbull wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the battery is not defective, it is a certain number of years old. That is how batteries perform at a certain age. Batteries are consumable parts like tires and ink cartridges. It's like returning an ink cartridge at 50% capacity because it's only got half the ink left. Yes, that's the point, that's what cartridges do. This feature is designed to always get the most out of a battery. Is that really something t…

> Batteries are consumable parts like tires and ink cartridges Then let users replace them like other consumables.

I don't disagree with you at all. I'm a hardcore right to repair advocate, and frequently criticize Apple's lack of reparability.

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

#144

Post by arcticbull »

webmobdev wrote: post #134
arcticbull wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I really don’t understand the criticism. Then you are being deliberately obtuse as many here have already explained that this case was never about the throttling. Quoting another user (Karunamon): > 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…

Ok that's fine but...

> 1. Applied the throttling fix silently

I would maintain that the device that didn't throttle, taking into account the real capabilities of the battery, and instead shut down unexpectedly at 20% was broken. It was fixed by this patch.

> 2. Denied warranty replacements.

There's as much reason to replace a battery under warranty that has maintained 80% charge capacity after 1000 cycles or 2 years, as there is an ink cartridge starting to run low. Batteries start getting worse after each charge cycle, and my understanding is that they followed the prescribed policy.

> 3. Wouldn't even replace the battery with cash in hand until after the suit was filed.

I'm very much against this policy, as a right-to-repair advocate I believe battery replacements should be simple and end-user achievable. Short of that I agree that the replacement should have been carried out on a cost-plus basis on request.

> 4. ..leaving people with no good way to have a working device.

This is where we disagree except as I replied in (3).

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

#145

Post by arcticbull »

greggman3 wrote: post #139
arcticbull wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not bad though, it's normal, and functioning as expected at that part of the age curve. You can avoid this by reducing performance for the entire time you owned the device so nobody noticed, I guess, but that's all.

Let's imagine it's a electric car. The car goes 70mph when you buy it. Suddenly it only runs at 45mph. You want to buy a new battery to fix it but the car company refuses even though you're willing to pay. Why should you have to put up with a car that only goes 45mph when it went 70mph when you bought it? What part of this is hard to understand. I don't want a phone that runs slow.

It's different in that the electric car is marketed as capable of achieving 70mph, Apple does not market iOS devices in terms of performance. No promises were made in that regard - at all, IIRC.

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

#146

Post by Dylan16807 »

Retric wrote: post #131
stale2002 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is how batteries perform at a certain age. Ok, and customers should still be informed of whatever it is that you think the situation is, and they should be allowed to purchase a replacement. > This feature is designed to always get the most out of a battery. Is that really something to complain about? They should have still told the customer and allowed people to buy a replacement. > I guess this is where it's…

This issue impacts literally every phone ever sold. Manufactures can hide it any number of ways, but a new battery is always better even if your phone is exactly 1 day old. That’s what continuous degradation means.

Most phones aren't redlining the battery when brand new. There's degradation but it only affects battery life. By the time you have performance impacts you're typically in "replace the battery" territory.

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

#147

Post by dlubarov »

arcticbull wrote: post #133
AlisdairO wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The battery may not be defective, but the device is. It previously performed acceptably, then started performing poorly, with no indication to the user that there was an action needed to restore acceptable performance. Nobody expects a magic battery fix, but they do expect to be told that their device has been slowed down.

The device is fine, and so's the battery. What I'm suggesting is that you consider the 100% performance mark to be far side of the performance curve at the end of the expected life of the device, so 80% capacity after 1000 charge cycles or 2 years, give or take. With that as your baseline ("100%"), if you can make the phone perform better than the that in the first few years you're offering an early-life performance…

For the sake of argument, let's go with your framing: the device starts out at "120%" performance, then degrades to "100%".

The argument others have raised still applies. If Apple had informed users about the transition from 120% to 100%, some portion of users would have enjoyed the 120% experience so much that they would have replaced their batteries in order to get back to 120%. Apple concealed that option by not informing users about the change.

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

#148

Post by arcticbull »

stale2002 wrote: post #132
Retric wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This issue impacts literally every phone ever sold. Manufactures can hide it any number of ways, but a new battery is always better even if your phone is exactly 1 day old. That’s what continuous degradation means.

> This issue impacts literally every phone ever sold. No, actually, most phones did not release an update like this, deny the situation, and then also refused to let people purchase replacement batteries. The issue is that Apple did this update, did not tell people about the whole thing, however you want to describe it, and then also did not allow people to buy replacement batteries.

All that tells me is that other phones aren't getting the most out of new batteries, and are instead limiting themselves to the performance of an old battery. But yes, I agree, they should have permitted replacements - in fact replacements should have been permitted at home. Batteries deserve to be user serviceable.

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

#149

Post by triceratops »

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…

> The main problem is this "feature" wasn't out in the open, but again, it just doesn't seem that bad to me.

It seems pretty bad to me. If they had told customers "Hey, we're slowing down your phone because your battery needs replacement", most would pay $100 for a battery replacement and happily continue using their phone for another 2-3 years. Apple phones last a long time. By hiding it, a non-zero number of customers chose to upgrade their phone which netted Apple > $100/ customer. It's obvious why Apple chose to hide it.

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

#150

Post by triceratops »

jolux wrote: post #39
invisible wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's possible they weren't being malicious. The part that gets me is that they didn't decide to instead allow folks to set a max battery charge to extend their battery life. It's pretty widely accepted that charging a battery to 100% over-and-over will cause battery degradation. It seems fair to me that decisions that are hidden from consumers and obviously degrade the consumer's experience should negati…

The alternative is that the phone shuts off spontaneously and reboots if power draw gets too high, which also degrades the consumer’s experience and looks a lot scarier and more obviously broken to most people.

Or slow the phone down and inform the customer their phone is running in "Reduced mode" or whatever due to their battery being old. It's honestly not that hard.
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