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Chinese Consumer Group Has Asked Apple To Investigate 'a Considerable Number' of iPhone Shutdowns (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader writes:The China Consumers Association (CCA) has asked Apple to investigate "a considerable number" of reports by users of iPhone 6 and 6s phones that the devices have been shutting off and cannot be turned back on again, it said on Tuesday. The reported problems specifically involve users seeing their iPhones automatically shut off despite 50-60 percent battery levels, and the involuntary shutting off in room temperature or colder environments, as well as the inability to turn the cellphone back on despite continuous battery charging, the statement said. "In view that Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s series cellphones in China have a considerable number of users, and the number of people who've reported this problem is rather many, China Consumer Association has already made a query with Apple," the association said in a statement on its website.
First question: Are they knockoffs?
Second question: If this is only happening in China, has the Chinese government asked Apple to modify their firmware in some way?
Third question: Are we hearing about this because someone is trying to FUD Apple out of the Chinese market?
"That $100 dollar brand new iPhone that I bought at the night market/store that sells electronics for a fraction of their cost stopped working. But I know it must be legit despite the low cost because the guy who sold it to me told me it was legit. Funny, neither he nor the store are there any more. What's wrong with your crap products, Apple?"
I've been to China. It's definitely that. Keep in mind that this is also a country where most of its citizens believe that you can't lose money on the stock market no matter what stock you buy - ever.
Phone would randomly shutdown even though battery was 40%+ per the iOS UI. If I then tried to power it back up I would get the big charging icon, implying that the battery was completely drained. If I then charged the battery for just 5 minutes the phone would work fine and allow the battery to be discharged from its previously indicated 40%+ as expected. Based on my observations it appeared to be an intermittent problem with the power gauge firmware mistakenly detecting the battery as depleted and engaging the Li-Ion full-discharge protection logic as a result.
I brought mine to the Genius bar and of course all their battery diagnostics showed nothing wrong. Took three return attempts before they finally agreed to replace my phone even though it was still under warranty. This guy wasn't as persistent as me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XCBydkR6dI
A coworker of mine went to China on vacation and bought one of these knockoff phones and holy crap, I had a hard time telling it apart from the real thing.
The thing that really surprised me was the cut of Android on it that had been skinned to look just like iOS. There was some serious work put into the product.
Clearly there's a huge market for these knockoffs.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I had an iPhone6 that would do the same thing, die with a 30-40% charge, then show the charge again and work after plugging it into a charger for a minute. This problem has been known for a while. A quick search shows the following thread on the apple discussion boards. There is a fix posted on payetteforward. I used that fix and my iPhone6 never had that battery problem again. I'd forgotten how I fixed it but 5 secods of a Google search for "iphone 6 turns off at 40" turned it up again.
in anima Apparatus
but asians expect even shit electronics to last couple of years.
they expect premium electronics to work forever, basically, and the crappy one's to be able to be fixed for pennies.
you would too if iPhone cost 6000$ to you.
My girlfriends iPhone6 shuts off at randomly at anything under 50 percent now, it pretty much needs to be tethered with a charger all the time to use. without you can use it for maybe like 45 minutes. it's nearly 2 years old.
this is in Thailand though - but the point is that iPhone batteries degrade in 2-3 years and the power management doesn't seem to be able to handle the fluctation and degrading of the battery at all - resulting in phones shutting down when it shows to have 50%+ battery. the charge indicator circuitry doesn't learn and the power management circuitry doesn't limit speed or anything if the voltage dips - instead it just does a random shutdown - which might just as well make some phones unbootable if you run this scenario enough times.
in china though most of the apple looking chargers can't provide the 2.1 amps anyways, but the issue happens even with genuine chargers.
I think it's just about westerners not complaining about it or they change the phone after 2 years anyways - in Asia though they still sold new(unrefurbished) iphone5s' like couple of months ago at least - direct from operator. Point being, that status phones like iPhones have a much longer life in Asia - and where do you think all the trade-in iPhones from the west end up as well?
and about the organized complaints only happening in China.. well.. eh. this might surprise you but Consumer protection agencies practically don't exist in most of southeast Asia at least and in the West there is the 24month mandatory warranty anyways.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.