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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

#21

Post by jrs95 »

Blazespinnaker wrote: post #14
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…

How about just the ability for a user to replace the battery? Should be a law to cut down on ewaste.

Most phones are probably getting recycled now anyways, so it really doesn’t matter. In fact, I would think user serviceability would increase waste because people would throw their old batteries away.

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

#22

Post by heisenbit »

Maybe, just maybe the batteries should be larger even if the case is slightly thicker.

It is one thing for Apple to compensate for weaknesses of current phones in the field. It would be another story if they plan to do this going forward without telling consumers at the time of sale. Car companies got in trouble over mileage...

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

#23

Post by elboru »

Upvoter33 wrote: post #6

THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. I always thought I was going crazy, thinking my increasingly "old" phone seemed slow. This is really irritating and disingenuous on Apple's behalf - as said above, they should at least add a switch.

I really want to believe they have good intentions, but this does smell like a Planned obsolescence to me. I can stand an old battery draining quickly (I just have to make my mind to bring a charger everywhere with me), BUT my phone taking forever to load a simple app is really FRUSTRATING.

"New" features usually are not a motivation for me to buy a new phone, but a slow phone will make me get a new one right away...

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

#24

Post by jrs95 »

Upvoter33 wrote: post #6

THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. I always thought I was going crazy, thinking my increasingly "old" phone seemed slow. This is really irritating and disingenuous on Apple's behalf - as said above, they should at least add a switch.

If it had a switch, the only thing it would do is crash your phone when the CPU utilization spikes.

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

#25

Post by LeoJiWoo »

Not a good implementation, this feature should be been far more explicitly stated in some sort of alert rather than buried.

This is something that is burning the good will towards apple. Something that is in shorter supply since the days of Steve Jobs. You can see the polarization about it on social media.

Again whether the feature was good/bad, there is clearly something to be learned from the shitstorm that it is causing. Something I hope Tim Cook learns quickly.

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

#26

Post by jrs95 »

elboru wrote: post #23
Upvoter33 wrote: post #6

THIS MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. I always thought I was going crazy, thinking my increasingly "old" phone seemed slow. This is really irritating and disingenuous on Apple's behalf - as said above, they should at least add a switch.

I really want to believe they have good intentions, but this does smell like a Planned obsolescence to me. I can stand an old battery draining quickly (I just have to make my mind to bring a charger everywhere with me), BUT my phone taking forever to load a simple app is really FRUSTRATING. "New" features usually are not a motivation for me to buy a new phone, but a slow phone will make me get a new one right away...

It’s intended to prevent crashes, not extend battery life. Once the battery degrades, trying to run the CPU at 100% will crash the phone.

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

#28

Post by IBM »

was_boring wrote: post #18
IBM wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does say in iOS that your battery needs to be replaced [1]. Everyone keeps saying they never told anyone about this but they basically announced it to the press with a statement (as well as the notice in iOS) when iOS 10.2.1 was released [2]. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207453 [2] https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/23/apple-says-ios-10-2-1-has-...

I read both, and couldn't find any verbiage indicating they limited the cpu speed based upon the condition of the battery. Only that they "fixed a bug" to reduce "unexpected shutdowns."

Yes I think it's safe to assume that Apple is not going to be notifying users about CPU speed adjustments and when those occur, given that it changes based on anything from cold to hot temperatures.

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

#29

Post by basseq »

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…

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 year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions [cold, low battery, battery age]."

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

#30

Post by derpaderp1 »

Blazespinnaker wrote: post #14
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…

How about just the ability for a user to replace the battery? Should be a law to cut down on ewaste.

If they did that then the NSA couldn't turn back on a "powered off" device while you are asleep to bombard you with ultrasonic waves.
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