Slashdot Mirror
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.
So Apple checks my battery voltage, sees that it is below spec, and then they limit performance to ensure the phone keeps working. Sounds like a good plan to me. Perhaps they could/should add a battery health report in settings>battery so I know when to take it in for a new battery. Not a Apple freak, unlike many that act like phone OS is a religion. I have a 6S Plus 64GB and a Pixel XL 128GB. Love both and switch daily driver every few months.
But they shouldn't force it.
You think that because you come from Android. Obviously I'm talking generalities here and there are plenty of exceptions but Apple and Android have a different philosophical approach.
Apple try to provide a good service, in part by making it simple to operate so the end-user doesn't have to make any decisions. They make an educated decision on behalf of their user base. (many who are old and don't really understand the technology, so appreciate that).
Android try to leave many decisions in the hands of the users. A lot of them make poor decisions, but it is their decision to make. A lot of them are uneducated about the decisions, but again, if they wanted to they can learn and customize the operating system and the whole experience much more minutely than can be done on Apple's part.
Apple understands their customer base. By and large, it's older and more wealthy than the Android customer base. It's less tech savvy, and wants an experience provided for them. They don't want an operating system that is work for them to configure. Yeah, it might be nice to default it on and give them an option to change it, but the more options there are, the more complexity there is in configuring.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Yes I know, most Apple users aren't nerds, etc.
However, it would be nice to do the same thing Tesla does with their cars: always keep the battery between 30~70% (or was it 40~80%?). Letting the phone charge its battery to 100% every time and letting it drop to 0% just kills lithium-ion batteries.
Just let the user set "maximum battery run time" or "maximum battery longevity".
#DeleteFacebook
The thing is that Apple DOES give the user some visibility to this issue. When iOS senses that the battery is failing, it puts up a "Battery Performance Degraded" warning in the Battery section of the Settings screen. I saw it on my iPhone 6, but not until it got to the point where the phone would only last 3 hours on a charge and the phone would just randomly power itself off when the battery got below 40% charge. I got the battery replaced, and now it goes 2 days on a single charge again.
They might want to put that battery warning in a place more prominently, but it is there.
How many people have access to a tech enthusiast or professional who can perform such a thing? And in every mall is a kiosk that will do it for $25 plus parts while you wait (30 minutes tops)
This is not a problem.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Apple rates their laptop batteries as retaining 80% of their initial charge after a fixed number of recharge cycles. If they die in the three-year warranty, they'll replace them anyway. If they die after the warranty has expired, but within the number of recharge cycles that they advertise, then they'll also replace them. I had a battery die in my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro after 4 years. System Profiler shows the number of charge cycles and the full charge capacity (for me, this was down to about 20% of what it was new). I called up Apple's customer support line at 3pm and after quoting these two numbers they shipped a new one that arrived at my house at 9am the following morning. I expected Dell's in-warranty service would be as good as Apple's out-of-warranty support, but I was mistaken. After three hours of arguing with various people, I eventually gave up. Dell machines just aren't worth my time - those three hours of my time are worth more than the price differential.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News