Apple's Alleged Throttling of Older iPhones With Degraded Batteries Causes Controversy (macrumors.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A Reddit post over the weekend has drawn a flurry of interest after an iPhone 6s owner reported that a battery replacement significantly increased the device's performance running iOS 11. The ensuing discussion thread, also picked up by readers in the MacRumors forum, has led to speculation that Apple intentionally slows down older phones to retain a full day's charge if the battery has degraded over time. According to TeckFire, the author of the original Reddit post, their iPhone had been very slow after updating to iOS 11, especially compared to their brother's iPhone 6 Plus, so they decided to do some research with GeekBench and battery life apps, and ended up replacing the battery.

Comments

Might be a nice option

[Anonymous Coward]

But they shouldn't force it.

Re:Might be a nice option

[TWX]

And basically this is entirely invalidated by designing the phone such that the battery is not user-replaceable.

Apple designed a device that will intentionally run slower without the end user paying someone else to disassemble the phone to replace parts. Given the cost to service an older device weighed against the cost of a new device, a lot of users are going to opt for the new device, especially if they don't realize that the reason the phone is operating poorly is because of the battery.

Re:Might be a nice option

[TheRaven64]

Not voiding the warranty is not really a good argument, because if the battery needs replacing in warranty then Apple will replace it for you. I assumed that this was normal across computer vendors, but had a recent experience with a Dell laptop whose battery failed after about a year and was told that the battery wasn't covered by the warranty because batteries are consumables. I couldn't be bothered to take them to court over it, but hopefully we can knock Dell of the approved supplier list at work, which would likely cost them a lot more than replacing a battery.

Speculation

[Anonymous Coward]

So when does speculation make the leap to fact?

Huh - a subject I'm entirely divided on

[jareth-0205]

On the one hand it's eminently sensible to slow the device if that will eek out enough battery for the expected usage - a dead phone has zero performance. And batteries degrade as they get older, that we know... but if the user has no visibility of this, if they have no idea that it's happening or how to fix it then their device is being hobbled without an obvious fix.

Everybody knows that if battery doesn't last, you should replace the battery. But if the phone gets slower... the fix isn't visible. And we know Apple employees aren't the most honest when you ask for diagnosis...

Sensible thing to do, but as all closed-source bundles, if the user isn't informed then it's still pretty anti-consumer.

Re:No real controversy, IMO

[Bing Tsher E]

The real controversy is the lack of communication to the owners of the devices. They should be fully informed of this 'innovative technology' so they can spend the $40 to get a new battery installed, instead of giving up and buying a new iGadget.