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Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

abc.net.au

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Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#41

Post by leonroy »

blocked_again wrote: post #36
izacus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well but you DID buy another iPhone right? Apple got exactly what they wanted - you spending another 700$+ to replace a perfectly functional device after just a few years. The iPhone now goes to the garbage bin adding to pollution even though it can run the OS just fine without being crippled via update.

Holy shit. You people just throw away the old iPhone after buying a new one? That is a luxury almost no one in my country has. So weird that the people get to live the life on basis of how well the seed generator of Universe performed during their birth.

No one in the West (that I’ve ever met) literally throws away old iPhones. They either get handed down to a kid (merits of which are for another thread) or a friend or relative.

Some folk do trade in their old phone and a lot flip them on the used market. I think getting more life out of those devices for the original purchaser is of paramount importance though if we are to stop polluting our environment with the consequences of smartphone manufacture.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#42

Post by Symbiote »

williamscales wrote: post #39
izacus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well but you DID buy another iPhone right? Apple got exactly what they wanted - you spending another 700$+ to replace a perfectly functional device after just a few years. The iPhone now goes to the garbage bin adding to pollution even though it can run the OS just fine without being crippled via update.

Can you install Linux on it and run a small server or something? That at least would get some more use out of it rather than straight into the garbage bin.

If it's given to a place that specifically recycles phones, it may end up refurbished (or not) and sold for another couple of years' use in a poorer country.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#43

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

dba7dba wrote: post #23

So apple iphone was not magically faster than other phones because of better engineering?

I don't think the is the case. The SOCs are faster. The batteries can't keep up. So they need to throttle the performance to draw less power if the batteries degrade too much. Which is why swapping out the old battery restores things. A new battery can provide enough power.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#44

Post by blattimwind »

mistercow wrote: post #37
chrisper wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LiOn is all about loading cycles. In the same amount of time (let's say 5 days) she has used up way more cycles than you did. You probably charged 5 * 20% while she maybe charged 5 * 90%. Obviously she is using up her load cycles much faster than you are. So no surprise her battery isn't very good anymore. I don't think you two are using the phone equally much (meaning using up the same loading cycles in the 5 days).…

Do you have a source on lithium ion batteries working this way, because all of the sources I'm finding (and it's not the first time I've researched this) say that shallow cycles dramatically improve battery longevity. My understanding is that "cycles" are used in discussing battery lifespan for the purposes of warranties and the like because they're an easy-to-define user behavior, not because they actually reflect h…

> shallow cycles dramatically improve battery longevity.

Not necessarily; cycle depth is a big factor, but the interval covered is very important as well. I.e. a few cycles to a high charge end voltage ages cells more quickly than more cycles to a lower charge end voltage. This obviously directly relates to the amount of energy stored. The correlation is approximately exponential: you get somewhere between two to eight times the cycles for lowering charge voltage by 50-100 mV. You very quickly get to zero cycles raising it.

Another factor is cycle length, i.e. cell current, and temperature, as always.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#45

Post by dozzie »

aikinai wrote: post #32
izacus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year you see Tim Cook happily quote performance numbers on the keynote about how superior iPhones are compared to other manufacturers. When you buy the iPhone, they go and slow it down to make it run slower after a two or three yearsa. Like VW would lock your 300HP Passat to 200HP after three years with excuse of keeping the mileage up... without telling you in any way. How is that NOT considered false advertis…

Cars do get weaker over time as the parts wear. And I would certainly expect the microcontroller to adjust to provide the best performance possible under the new limitations. I assume most well-made, modern cars already do that.

> Cars do get weaker over time as the parts wear.

And so does the battery life get shorter as the battery wears. We know that. This in no way allows to anticipate that CPU gets slower.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#46

Post by chrisper »

mistercow wrote: post #37
chrisper wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LiOn is all about loading cycles. In the same amount of time (let's say 5 days) she has used up way more cycles than you did. You probably charged 5 * 20% while she maybe charged 5 * 90%. Obviously she is using up her load cycles much faster than you are. So no surprise her battery isn't very good anymore. I don't think you two are using the phone equally much (meaning using up the same loading cycles in the 5 days).…

Do you have a source on lithium ion batteries working this way, because all of the sources I'm finding (and it's not the first time I've researched this) say that shallow cycles dramatically improve battery longevity. My understanding is that "cycles" are used in discussing battery lifespan for the purposes of warranties and the like because they're an easy-to-define user behavior, not because they actually reflect h…

>There’s no need to let it discharge 100% before recharging. Apple lithium-ion batteries work in charge cycles. You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge. For instance, you might use 75% of your battery’s capacity one day, then recharge it fully overnight. If you use 25% the next day, you will have discharged a total of 100%, and the two days will add up to one charge cycle. It could take several days to complete a cycle. The capacity of any type of battery will diminish after a certain amount of recharging. With lithium-ion batteries, the capacity diminishes slightly with each complete charge cycle. Apple lithium-ion batteries are designed to hold at least 80% of their original capacity for a high number of charge cycles, which varies depending on the product.

From https://www.apple.com/ca/batteries/why-lithium-ion/

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#47

Post by wojcikstefan »

Before iOS 11 my 3 year old iPhone 6 behaved perfectly fine. After the upgrade it's so painfully slow it's basically unusable. For example, the Messages app maintains a lag of a few characters when typing, the Camera app freezes for ~5 seconds every time you open it, each tap on the screen has a perceivable delay, etc. My battery life hasn't been a problem over the last 3 years and I have not experienced my phone overheating or crashing (which I could interpret as signs of overclocking).

I do not believe Apple shipped the slowdown to "protect my battery". Even if that truly was their desire, I'd much rather protect my UX instead and let the battery die (though, again, it didn't show any signs of severe degradation). This underclocking should at the very least be a customizable setting.

Is there a reasonable chance Apple will revert this change after losing some of the lawsuits?

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#48

Post by crypt1d »

As far as I'm concerned, this is a deal breaker. I've been an iOS user since 3GS and now I'm ready to jump ship. Apple has been disappointing me since few years now, and I've postponed migrating to Android mostly because I'm accustomed to its UX. But this is enough of a push for me to make an effort to give Android a try.

I'm looking into Oneplus 5T and Pixel 2 XL. Any other suggestions?

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#49

Post by fredsted »

When I first heard about this, it was apparently due to Apple throttling the CPU when the battery started getting old and losing capacity. When the battery gets older, it keeps less charge and therefore, if you want the battery to last a reasonable amount of time, you'd need to lower the power usage.

I recently got my iPhone 6S battery upgraded since it started shutting off randomly below 40%, especially in the cold. I got my battery changed for free due to the Apple 6S battery exchange program.

Today the phone feels just as fast as I want it to. I have zero incentive to upgrade, and I'm even on iOS 11 which I've had zero problems with. I know of other people whose phones got faster after switching out the battery.

In my opinion, after 2 years or so, you just need to change the battery.

I wish Apple made it easier to see the health of the battery, and maybe a button that would send you a package with a return sticker so you could mail your phone in and get the battery changed in a day or two.

Re: Apple faces lawsuits after admitting it slows down aging iPhones

#50

Post by ecudev »

djmips wrote: post #22
williamscales wrote: post #12

Can someone explain to me how this can reasonably be considered fraud? I don't think Apple makes any guarantees about the performance an iPhone will sustain over time.

Cars also wear over time and the onboard computers might retard the timing and your performance or fuel mileage might suffer but I don't see people complaining about that.

No, stop it.

Great paper[1] by Ruhr University students. Whole research is great so take time to check it out, if you want to see bloody industry. Notable pages: 8, 17, 18 for rev. eng maps.

https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~klevchen/diesel-sp17.pdf

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