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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

#81
post #70
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the only cost. There was also another $500 million us settlement, a $27 million dollar fine from France, and probably others, and probably more outstanding liability.

fines should be measured in $ per user.

Or per-device at least. Or barring that, a flat percentage of profits.

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

#82
post #79
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said that their decision obviously degrades the user experience. They were dealing with an engineering trade off and picked the side that didn’t risk data loss. I contend that that’s better than the alternative, irrespective of whether or not they tell people what’s going on.

You're ignoring the point that these weren't the only two choices - even after both 'invisible' and 'bigbubba' suggested alternatives (admittedly not as profitable for Apple).

I’m really not. I said they should have notified people. You’re ignoring that there’s no solution to this problem that doesn’t degrade the user experience in one way or another, which is the point I was making.

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

#83
post #46
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Karunamon made a very specific claim in this thread that I quoted. Your response doesn't discuss this claim. I'm interested in what data we have backing that claim.

Your quote mentioned "without notice", which was responded to. I would also like to see a response to this part of the quote: > and having internal tooling that would deny a replacement (even at full retail price) if the battery was above an arbitrary health threshold (but still low enough to cause throttling).

I’ve described my experience of this elsewhere in the comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25144761

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

#84

Worth mentioning here is that this wasn't just about the "sneaky" fix for battery degradation, it was about doing this without notice , and having internal tooling that would deny a replacement (even at full retail price) if the battery was above an arbitrary health threshold (but still low enough to cause throttling). Before Apple changed their tune, if you read about this, and went into an Apple store for a replace…

Hi, Battery engineer here at an electric vehicle company. The crux of it is this: when you draw high current from a small battery, the voltage will sag (1). The manufacturer has an on-board battery management system that MUST turn off the battery if it goes below a certain voltage threshold. As the battery ages, the sag effect increases significantly, up to 2-3x. Thus, when your phone clearly indicates say 20% batter…

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 cash in hand until after the suit was filed 4. ..leaving people with no good way to have a working device.

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

#85
post #39

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.

It is far more likely that these CPUs have the capability to throttle power usage instantaneously. If the battery monitor detects a problematic energy draw, it should have the capability to correct it before the CPU shuts down.

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

#86
post #82
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring the point that these weren't the only two choices - even after both 'invisible' and 'bigbubba' suggested alternatives (admittedly not as profitable for Apple).

I’m really not. I said they should have notified people. You’re ignoring that there’s no solution to this problem that doesn’t degrade the user experience in one way or another, which is the point I was making.

The reason for the lawsuits and bad PR wasn't that user experience was degraded, but that it was done in a way that was close to planned obsolesce. Apple had ways to avoid this.

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

#87

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…

I own an iPhone because I got sick of these kinds of issues I was having with my Pixel phones. (would last ~1yr of perfect bliss. Then the honeymoon ends and the phone would just behave like crap). I decided to give another brand a shot. I'll tell you what will really tick me off in another year or so... If my device is, without warning, notification, ability to change, etc, purposefully nerfing itself for ANY REASON…

The "behave like crap" comes from Google constantly bloating their apps to drive upgrades. New phone: maps run smoothly. One year later: maps is a laggy POS.

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

#89
post #86
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really not. I said they should have notified people. You’re ignoring that there’s no solution to this problem that doesn’t degrade the user experience in one way or another, which is the point I was making.

The reason for the lawsuits and bad PR wasn't that user experience was degraded, but that it was done in a way that was close to planned obsolesce. Apple had ways to avoid this.

There’s no other way to fix the spontaneous shutdowns though. And I will repeat that they should have told people it might slow their phone down.

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

#90
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is far more likely that these CPUs have the capability to throttle power usage instantaneously. If the battery monitor detects a problematic energy draw, it should have the capability to correct it before the CPU shuts down.

Indeed! They do throttle instantaneously. Which slows everything down, and stops the device from halting. This is what is being complained about.
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