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Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

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Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#191

Post by xster »

blensor wrote: post #142
djrogers wrote: post #3

It's not only to make them run longer - they're reducing the peak demand on the batteries to avoid spontaneous shutdown when the aged battery can't handle the load. This seems like a good idea, and it appears to be well executed (ie it's not apparently based just on age or milage like a crappy car maintenance reminder), but Apple should probably have something in iOS that tells people their phone is running slow beca…

I can't tell how well it's executed but the major issue I have with this is that this is not properly communicated to the user. I guess most people already get the feeling that their devices slow down after time, or the new apps/OS's just require more potent hardware and replacement of the devices is necessary as time goes by. But for many of those it seems that a "simple" battery replacement would have done the tric…

> not properly communicated to the user

s/user/buyer

Selling a car that markets 300,000 miles but can't drive over 3,000 rpm anymore after the first year is not a car, and marketing it as such is fraud.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#192

Post by valuearb »

nielsbot wrote: post #155
frogpelt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't have to be an event notification. It could be a once-a-month reminder that performance may be degraded.

Or even a one time notification on OS upgrade. Perhaps with a note next to the "you should replace your battery" text in Settings.app. E.g. "this may affect phone performance, tap here for more info..."

A one time notification would be all they need. I'm an iOS developer and didn't even know that settings tells me when I need a new battery. Once told, I'd never forget.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#193

Post by abakker »

metafunctor wrote: post #102
komali2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a "regular maintenance" type thing - less common than an oil change, sure, but perhaps just as necessary. So why not make it as easy as an oil change?

Having done both, I can tell you that replacing the battery on an iPhone is already easier than an oil change on a typical car. The iPhone parts are expensive, but it's a relatively simple operation for a trained person.

Not to mention that an Apple battery replacement is about the same cost as having someone change the oil in your car if you use full synthetic. I just don't get the complaints. If the battery is dying, get a new one. If you don't want to spend the money, then Apple has provided a feature that lets your phone keep running.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#194

Post by abakker »

sambe wrote: post #144
basseq wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment deserves more attention. And, in fact, means the headline is wrong. Apple is not slowing down devices to extend battery life. Apple is slowing down devices to prevent the thing from crapping out entirely ("unexpectedly shutting down"). Arguably, this does more to prevent obsolescence than plan it. Agreed with @djrogers suggestion to alert the user to the situation. It should not be a user choice. "Last y…

That quote really hurts. My iPhone 6S has had spontaneous shutdowns since the first winter it was out (and is supposedly not in the replacement program). No previous Apple phones did. This winter it's the same. To me it suggests a more widespread defect that they do not wish to admit.

FYI - https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6s-unexpectedshutdown/ that was effected by a recall. You should check your serial number.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#195

Post by martian »

macns wrote: post #90

I don't get it. An old iPad 2 was running fine card games until we upgraded to IOS 9 a few weeks ago. Now it's almost unusable. Pretty sure we had the same battery before we upgrade, so why wasn't cpu throttled before we upgrade? This looks more like Apple needed to slow down devices to sell new ones and found a really good excuse for it.

+1 I don’t use any new features in the new iOS releases just want the same speed and efficiency I’ve come to enjoy, and that I literally had minutes before the upgrade.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#196

Post by ProfessorLayton »

valuearb wrote: post #184
ISL wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The performance requirements could be met, but the battery (and phone) would be larger and more massive.

Even a bigger battery is going to degrade at the same rate. It might limit the need for CPU throttling, but probably not by much.

Seeing as iPads are basically iPhones with much larger batteries, and don't suffer from the same issues, I disagree.

This could have been avoided if they weren't so obsessed with thinness. I reckon that if it was thick enough to not have a camera protrusion, it would be the perfect balance of form and battery life.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#197

Post by valuearb »

jhiska wrote: post #42
mikestew wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, folks buy batteries they don’t need just because they can. I did that with my Galaxy Note, bought a spare because they were $30 and because I could. Never used it, the Note had great battery life. Now it sits on a shelf, waiting for me to recycle it.

Somehow I am reminded of the lyrics "You spin me right round, right round, baby." The spin, I feel, is that somehow being able to replace one's batteries is bad. Whereas having an iPhone with degraded performance and an expensive-to-replace battery is good. You "bought a spare because you could" and "now it sits, waiting for you to recycle it", thus creating waste, but one can argue that anyone buying stuff they don'…

First, you can replace an iPhone battery, just take it to your Apple Store. It's reasonably affordable ($79) or free if still under warranty/Applecare. User-replaceable batteries don't change anything for the environment.

Second, user-replaceable batteries don't come for free. They come with a series of trade-offs. Small increases in cost, space, even weight. If you plan to keep your phone for more than 2 years, user-replaceable will be more important to you than if you intend to replace every 2 years.

I remember when I switched to MacBook Pros from my Dell laptops. I had two flights a week that were about 5 hours each. I had to buy an extra laptop battery and charger so my Dell would last the entire flight. And sometimes I'd forget to charge both batteries and I'd be back to a dead laptop halfway through the flight.

Then I read the reviews of these new MBPs that lasted 7-8 hours instead of 5 hours, that used sealed batteries. I switched and my new MBP worked like a charm, easily lasting the entire flight every time. One big reason Apple made that advance was entirely because they abandoned removable batteries. They were able to fit more battery using a custom form factor that would have been super expensive to make removable. No one had done this as well before, because Apple was the first to implement good embedded battery conditioning software so they would last a couple years without needing replacement.

Sealed batteries aren't always better, but they typically are for most users and use cases.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#198

Post by valuearb »

jhiska wrote: post #103
IBM wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The spinsters are deliberately confusing "lifespan" with "resale value". I realize I'm responding to someone arguing in bad faith. But lifespan directly influences the resale value.

Replaceable batteries increase lifespan. The iPhone is a well-made phone which would have greater lifespan if the batteries were replaceable. As it is, users who bought an older iPhone now have to pay middle-men to replace the battery or face degraded performance.

The iPhone already has replaceable batteries. Making them user-replaceable just reduces battery capacity, increases size/weight, all so in 2-3 years you can save about 5% of your purchase cost by replacing the battery yourself.

iPhone users buy iPhones because they wanted the best in class functionality, if they wanted to save money they'd buy a phone with a replaceable battery.

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#199

Post by jtbayly »

unobtaniumstool wrote: post #129
jlmorton wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't dispute that, but that does not explain the observations that a fully-charged, reduced-capacity battery performs poorly on a standard benchmark test versus a new battery. It's not just smoothing out a peak demand. It's reducing the peak performance all of the time, and that is unique to iPhone.

That's not entirely accurate. They observed that with a fully charged battery it performed as expected. The CPU wasn't throttled until the battery was depleted.

That's not my experience. Unless depleted means 95% charged and 87% capacity compared to original spec.

Mine runs at 50% CPU speed under those circumstances. I wouldn't call that "performing as expected."

Re: Apple Says It Slows Older iPhones to Save Their Battery Life

#200

Post by valuearb »

scotty79 wrote: post #57
djrogers wrote: post #3

It's not only to make them run longer - they're reducing the peak demand on the batteries to avoid spontaneous shutdown when the aged battery can't handle the load. This seems like a good idea, and it appears to be well executed (ie it's not apparently based just on age or milage like a crappy car maintenance reminder), but Apple should probably have something in iOS that tells people their phone is running slow beca…

> they're reducing the peak demand on the batteries to avoid spontaneous shutdown when the aged battery can't handle the load. It doesn't seem to help my gf had an iPhone 5 that started dying on peak demand but only after it got upgraded to new ios (i guess 8.0). We replaced it (it had bad battery from the start and apple had a program for replacing those). After few years on new battery it started doing the same thi…

All batteries wear out after a few years of use.
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