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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

#261

Post by iabacu »

audunw wrote: post #210
iabacu wrote: post #114

I think it's clear Apple intentionally* degrades software quality on older iphone/mac models in order to drive purchase of newer hardware. I've been considering switching away from Apple hardware, not because of hardware quality, but because of software. * By pushing software updates optimized to new hardware with obvious regressions on older models.

But this case shows the exact opposite. They updated phones to last longer without unexpected shut-downs. If they didn't do that update, many people who experienced these shut-downs outside of warrenty would change their old phone for a new ones. You can usually live with a slightly slower phone when the battery is low, but a phone that randomly dies on you? Not so much. To be clear, Apple still messed up, because th…

Not quite.

Users who complained about things being slower were hinted that perhaps the new models would be faster.

It was not a communication issue that damaged Apple; but the contrary, it helped sell more units. The only "bad" thing is that it got a lot of scrutiny.

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

#262

Post by Retric »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #256
Retric wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you’re paying to change voltage, which adds cost and heat. Sure, users don’t really notice that something’s wrong, but they get a worse device that costs more money and needs to heat throttle anyway.

Not a higher voltage battery. A physically larger battery. More watt-hours and more watts.

Voltage drop is minimally impacted by battery size, it only helps in that the battery would have less usage, but it still ages for time passing.

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

#263

Post by Dylan16807 »

Retric wrote: post #262
Dylan16807 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a higher voltage battery. A physically larger battery. More watt-hours and more watts.

Voltage drop is minimally impacted by battery size, it only helps in that the battery would have less usage, but it still ages for time passing.

> Voltage drop is minimally impacted by battery size

That makes the job easier! Just cut the battery in half. Let's say the original battery could handle 5 amps before the voltage drop got too bad. If a half-size battery can handle 4 amps, and you put in two of them, now you can handle 8 amps.

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

#264

Post by sthnblllII »

onion2k wrote: post #175
sthnblllII wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have the plaintiffs requested some kind of battery notification? Their angle has always been accusing Apple of planned obsolescence, which seems laughable compared to how little long-term support Android phones get.

Their angle has always been accusing Apple of planned obsolescence, which seems laughable compared to how little long-term support Android phones get. Apple making phones that last a little longer than Google doesn't mean Apple make products that last. That just means that both Google and Apple are designing products that fail unreasonably quickly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_14#Supported_devices

Google isn't the one failing to keep software up to date, its the hardware partners like Samsung.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/18/21373308/samsung-three-ge...

> Samsung generally promised two years of updates

After 2 years you are at the mercy of zero days and hackers. iOS 14 works on phones that are over 5 years old.

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

#265

Post by thaumasiotes »

jack_h wrote: post #204
thaumasiotes wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thus, when your phone clearly indicates say 20% battery remaining, if a high load were to be applied, the last 20% would be inaccessible because the battery sag from the spontaneous high load would cause a reboot. So, I treat the battery readout as basically a scale of "high / medium / low". This works well with the empirical fact that a 20% readout might in fact last longer than a 50% readout. What I don't underst…

Disclaimer: I've had to deal with batteries a lot in my career so I'm familiar with their complex nature. I am not an expert though, so I'm sure there are a million more confounding variables that complicate things further. > What I don't understand is that most other people seem to treat the percentages as meaningful. They certainly aren't based on "time until a recharge is needed", which is what people want. What a…

> I think a lot of people tend to view batteries as like a power supply that has a certain capacity you consume. This isn't an accurate view.

(Sorry for the late reply...)

This isn't an accurate view... so why is battery level reported according to this paradigm? The obvious effect is to frustrate and confuse people.

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

#266

Post by yreg »

xahrepap wrote: post #248
yreg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before this the old iPhones used to randomly reboot when the battery wasn’t able to keep them alive. (I had such phone.) I don’t think slowing it down is “nerfing” compared to that. I speak also as someone who used an old iPhone 6 which was slowed down this way. Btw they throttled based on battery health, not age.

When my Laptop runs low on power it pops up something like, "You're running out of power." They clearly have the technology to detect if the battery itself is going bad. Why can't my phone boot into that mode and say, "It looks like your battery's life is at X% would you like to slow your phone down to concerve power? [Yes] [Yes, always] [No, ask again when it's more dead] [No, Don't ask any more]" You know... let th…

Ofc they should have communicated it clearly, they failed in that regard.

Bad battery health (iPhone) != low on power (your laptop) btw.

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