Geekbench Results Visualize Possible Link Between iPhone Slowdowns and Degraded Batteries (geekbench.com)

Earlier this month a post on social media which suggested that Apple might be deliberately downgrading performance on iPhone models with degraded battery was widely circulated. Benchmark Primate Labs' Geekbench has looked into the matter and is corroborating the claims. From a report: Primate Labs founder John Poole has plotted the kernel density of Geekbench 4 scores for iPhone 6s models running iOS 10.2, iOS 10.2.1, and iOS 11.2, visualizing an apparent link between lower performance and degraded battery health. The charts show that on iOS 10.2, the vast majority of iPhone 6s devices benchmarked similarly in performance. However, Poole explains that the distribution of iPhone 6s scores for iOS 10.2.1 appears multimodal, with one large peak around the average and several smaller peaks around lower scores. In other words, after iOS 10.2.1 was released last January, the performance of a percentage of iPhone 6s devices began to suffer.

Comments

It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's look at this from a usability perspective. If you make a device with a non-replaceable battery and you want the device to have good battery life for as long as possible, what would you do? I would decrease the processor speed/energy demands as the battery gets older and the capacity diminishes, thus artificially making the battery appear to retain its original charge time as long as possible.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Bugler412]

fair from a technical standpoint. But why not actually tell users, or at least technical resources that might help users, about doing this?

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before Apple was a fashion brand for iHipsters, before Apple was the darling of Unix nerd posers, Apple made easy to use products for the rest of us who wanted stuff that just works without a lot of techy mumbo jumbo.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's look at this from a usability perspective. If you make a device with a non-replaceable battery...

I would never buy a device with a non-replaceable battery.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[mikael]

I bought devices with replaceable batteries - problem is, none of the shops sell the replaceable batteries, not even second hand stores or Ebay.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[viperidaenz]

Care to share some examples of these devices?

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[decep]

Except that is not how it works. Processors constantly scale their performance based on load. If you slow down a processor to 50% speed, a task will just just run 2x as slow and keep the processor active longer, therefore using more power than if it just ran at 100% speed. Slowing down 50% does not draw 50% less power, it might draw 10% less power.

Slowing down a processor will end up using more power in the long run and further reduce battery life.

Re: It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Anonymous Coward]

These iPhone 6s batteries aren't degraded. They are defective. Manufacturer defect. That deserves a recall and free replacement, not some software cheat to throttle the battery.

If the os can detect some irregularities in voltage, it should pop up a message instead of quietly throttling the cpu.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[mikael]

LG G4 bought in 2015. None of the mobile phone shops sell spare batteries. Not even CEX (Computer Exchange). They only sell complete smartphones.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[fred6666]

how about you let the user decide?

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Marcika]

That would be a fair point if (a) this wouldn't happen when the device is plugged in [spoiler: it is still dog-slow] and (b) if the user had a choice between longer battery run time and smooth video playback on his phone that is (gasp) almost two years old.
Since neither is the case, the balance of probabilities shifts towards deliberate planned obsolescence through sabotaging user's devices rather than prudent battery life management.

Re: It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Half the speed or running twice as long, but 2x as slow is impossible.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Altrag]

Hahahaha in an Apple device? How are you not marked +5 Funny already?

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Altrag]

If your goal is to stretch out battery life in time, then who cares if you're only getting 94% efficiency by slowing down the processor? The user still sees it running close enough to twice as long to make no difference from that perspective.

End users generally don't care about the technicalities as much as the perception. Of course if you slow the processor down too much then they'll perceive that as well so there's a balancing act involved if they want to play this game.. and it sounds like they didn't quite hit the sweet spot..

Re: It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Brockmire]

Bull fucking shit. A google search turned up on Amazon ($8.49 CAD with free shipping), LG, and best buy. In stock. I didn't bother with eBay, even though I know it would have spare batteries. You are garbage searcher.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[viperidaenz]

http://www.lg.com/us/mobile-ac...
Took 3 seconds to google it.
Heres more:
https://www.amazon.com/LG-BL-5...
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/d...

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there are too many cult members here.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Anonymous Coward]

..So Apple was for lazy and demanding people ; ) (Sorry, I saw the opportunity to make a bad joke)
I did use the Apple IIc and it was for all kinds of people, from casual to poweruser, the handbooks were done mostly for casual people but there were lots of great power information in magazines and boards.
Today is expected that even home users develop certain knowledge about the things they use, you can't keep all your life without knowing a little bit more than the bare basics of your TV, your microwave or your car, specailly because for most people computers and cellphoines are work tools, would you use an electronic hammer without at least a little knowledge about actual hammers? It's ok that people don't have to think about how things works but people at least should know a bit about how their tools work.

Re:It's a positive. Stop the hate.

[Agripa]

Except that is not how it works. Processors constantly scale their performance based on load. If you slow down a processor to 50% speed, a task will just just run 2x as slow and keep the processor active longer, therefore using more power than if it just ran at 100% speed. Slowing down 50% does not draw 50% less power, it might draw 10% less power.

Slowing down a processor will end up using more power in the long run and further reduce battery life.

If dynamic voltage scaling is used, then power is greater than proportional to frequency. Further, higher power also results in higher operating temperature increasing the static power from leakage. So efficiency is lower even though the computation time is shorter.

I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Batteries don't just have less of a charge when they get older, their peak draw also diminishes. If, when you are using an older battery you need more than the battery can supply, the phone reboots. So Apple is slowing down the CPU on older iPhones so they do not go over the max battery draw available on older batteries.

It is preferable to have a slower iPhone than it is to have it rebooting. If the slowdown is an issue, replace the battery for $75 and the performance will be back to normal. As for those who complain "I want a removable battery", well I much prefer having the water resistance that has saved my phone a few times than a removable battery that I only need after 3 years.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

By that logic VW should have been allowed to degrade performance on their TDI engines and not offer customers any compensation.

Re: I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

If water resistence is seriously a problem, it's probably because you're dropping it into water. And if you're doing that, you need a rugged phone anyway, which the iPhone is definitely not

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Baron_Yam]

>well I much prefer having the water resistance that has saved my phone a few times than a removable battery

You know this is a solved problem, right? It's called a 'gasket'. It means your battery probably needs a screwdriver to swap out instead of just popping open the case, but it's still trivial from a design perspective.

Your iPhone battery is non-swappable because Apple wants more control over the device, not because it's a good design choice for the consumer.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

It is preferable to have a slower iPhone than it is to have it rebooting.

These aren't the only options. In past versions of iOS if your older phone just couldn't handle the full feature set you could go into the settings and turn off or limit various features that your phone couldn't handle well. Within a week of a new iOS release, there would be dozens of tutorials around the web with step by step instructions and these tutorials would be highly shared so that people didn't have to do much digging, if any at all, to find them.

What changed? Apple software development practices, presumably. Anyone could have seen this coming when they introduced the program to allow people to get brand-new iPhones every year just by paying a never-ending monthly fee. Financial analysts loved it!

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

It is preferable to have a slower iPhone than it is to have it rebooting.

It is preferable to design a phone and its power system so that it doesn't have a flaw that causes it to reboot over the expected useful life of the battery. It's also preferable that if you fail this design goal, you fix the phone and the battery rather than sneaking in software that slows the phone down to unusable levels.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

It is logic that says if the car detects that the fuel supply isn't supplying adequate pressure it automatically degrades full throttle response to prevent detonation that can damage the engine or cause the car to stall unexpectedly at a time when maximum power is needed. This isn't really any different than the safety parameters builtin and enforced in fly-by-wire systems.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[vux984]

" well I much prefer having the water resistance that has saved my phone a few times than a removable battery"

For a $1000+ phone with the largest profit margin in the industry; you could very reasonably expect to get both.

What I don't need or particularly want is the thinnest phone ever made. The original iphone was thin enough. I like the bigger screens of todays phones (and use an S7 Edge now), but I haven't really been looking for a thinner phone since the StarTAC replaced my DPC650.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

Google "limp mode." Modern cars absolutely will degrade performance if they detect something wrong in one of the systems.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is batteries in phones these days aren't "smart batteries" you know like the type that are in laptops that have removable batteries and usually have data communication to a board in the battery pack keep a running total of the charge cycles in an eeprom in the pack. Phone batteries are dumb, with just + and - power leads, maybe a 3rd lead for a thermistor to monitor the battery temp. There is no way they are properly tracking the health of the actual battery. Maybe using a internal charge counter in the OS. If that is the case it could be defeated by modifying wherever that value is stored.

In the end simply replacing the battery is not going to bring your performance back to brand new status. They are either using a counter in the OS, or they are just going even simpler and for every year old the phone is drop the performance by whatever amount. In the later case a battery change isn't going to fix your performance either

The only other way they could be doing it, some lowlevel hardware in the phone is tracking the battery age, disconnecting and reconnecting a new battery causes a power loss and resets the age counter. This could be proven by simply disconnecting and reconnecting the same aged battery and seeing if performance comes back to it's brand new levels.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Hal_Porter]

As for those who complain "I want a removable battery", well I much prefer having the water resistance that has saved my phone a few times than a removable battery that I only need after 3 years.

And I got replaced my Samsung Galaxy S5 with an LG V20 instead of V30 because I valued keeping a removable battery over keeping water resistance, i.e. not everyone shares your priorities.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

I am pretty sure Samsung had a phone model or two back in the removable battery era that was water proof, or at least water resistant. It wouldn't be that hard to totally seal in a phone to protect the expensive bits, but still leave the battery compartment relatively unsealed. In the battery compartment you are just dealing with single + and - power connections which could be easily dried, and if the battery were damaged from the water it's as simple as dropping in a replacement battery.

I still love and use my old note4 because of it's removable battery. The phone is still plenty fast by today's standards and as the batteries age I just purchase new ones. I've purchased a new battery every year. I am on my 3rd on right now. Batteries are still available many places. I am currently using an Anker battery in my phone of which I was able to purchase two of them for $20. I keep the spare one charging in a stand alone charger. When my battery gets low it's as simple as swapping the battery for a 100% charge. No quick charger can beat a 100% charge in the 30sec it takes to swap and boot the phone back up again.

Re: I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what they did after it was shown that the emissions were too high: they were forced to make a recall and degrade the performance of the engine without compensation to the owner (depending on jurisdiction).

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[viperidaenz]

No single cell batteries are "smart". Removable cells with exposed contacts usually have a simple over/under voltage and over current cut off protection circuit.
The smarts are there for cell balancing. The ones that have the columb counters built in are still only approximate and only have an advantage when you constantly change the battery. There is no reason the phone can't have accurate charge level detection after only a few charge-discharge cycles.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[supercell]

While that is technically a correct solution, to keep the device from out right failing, by degrading them. The RIGHT thing to do by Apple would have been to INFORM the customers that their hardware was being degraded and they could have their batteries replaced for $75 rather than buying a $600 new phone.

Apple knew good and well what it was doing and choose to obfuscate the problem to maximize new hardware sales.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

To any sane customer, it would be preferable for Apple to replace any broken device. But iDiots will only thank Apple for pushing update which forces them to buy a new iPhone.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a note 4 as my daily driver - I bought an anker battery from amazon about a year ago; just noticed that it's swelled pretty bad. Put the original back in the phone for now - but ordered a brand new samsung battery from their site just 2 days ago.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather have my phone at least alert me to why its slowing down. People act like the fact that Apple implemented this functionality without telling anyone, and a third party had to figure it out, is fine and dandy because Apple is looking out for their users, or something. Lets think, why would Apple implement logic to start slowing down your phone and not tell you anything about it? Could it be because they want you to buy a new phone for $600 instead of having someone install a new battery for $75?

Re: I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

In many (all?) places they were forced to buy back the cars at a pretty high value.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Hal_Porter]

I am pretty sure Samsung had a phone model or two back in the removable battery era that was water proof, or at least water resistant.

Yeah, the Galaxy S5. Peak Galaxy really, it's been all downhill since then.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

Google "vw TDI scandal" since you've apparently been living under a rock and have no idea whats being referred to.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Hal_Porter]

The depressing thing is that Samsung have adopted the same sort of bullshit with Galaxy phones. Which makes me think Samsung's days as the top selling Android manufacturer are basically over. It's shame really, up to the S5 they made decent if pricey phones. Now I wouldn't buy any phone they made.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

>well I much prefer having the water resistance that has saved my phone a few times than a removable battery

You know this is a solved problem, right? It's called a 'gasket'. It means your battery probably needs a screwdriver to swap out instead of just popping open the case, but it's still trivial from a design perspective.

I have a Samsung S5 mini. It's IP67 rated, meaning it can be submerged to 1 meter of water. It has a replaceable battery. It needs no screw to lock the battery case. The GP just knows what Apple has fed him and doesn't even bother to use his own head to think...

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and the biggest difference is that the dashboard lights go nuts to indicate something's wrong, instead of just limping along and not telling the driver anything. Some non-car enthusiasts might even thinks this is normal behaviour for their car.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[fred6666]

iPhones have been without a removable battery AND without water resistance for years.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Just so that it'd make you feel better is not a sufficient reason. Nor is because otherwise "you'd think the worst of their reasons for doing so" because that's visibly already true.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Whatever floats, er sinks your boat...

Sales of the LG20 versus current iPhones show that many many more people agree with me than with you.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Given that there aren't any phones with replaceable batteries with the water resistance of my 7+ (that replaced a drowned 5), it is a very _UN_reasonable expectation to want both.

Those that complain "phones ere too thin. I want a bigger battery" and that do NOT buy a battery case to have exactly what they claim they want are lying about what they want anyway.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Given that _every_ phone that lasts long enough exhibits the same "design flaw" (rebooting when drawing too much off a weakened battery or slowing down), it just shows once again that iPhones are used for years longer than Android phones that get tossed before they can generally reach the age where this becomes necessary. But making it so that your android phone is obsolete before it is old enough isn't a design flaw, nope not at all...

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

That samsung phone sold so poorly and exhibited such poor water resistance that Samsung quickly abandoned it.

It took me 10 minutes to change the battery on my wife's iPhone 6 that came out around the same time as the note4. I suppose that 10 minutes after three years of use is far far to long and the procedure much too complex for you to feel comfortable performing.

My memory of phones with changeable batteries is dimmed by all the times a small drop caused the battery connection to reseat and the phone rebooted, losing calls because I was switching batteries, not being sure if the backup battery was charged or not and not being able to help a friend with a low battery because we didn't have the exact same phone/battery.

Having an external battery pack that I can charge/check/loan easily and that I just leave connected for 15 minutes changed all that.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[vux984]

"Those that complain "phones ere too thin. I want a bigger battery" and that do NOT buy a battery case to have exactly what they claim they want are lying about what they want anyway."

Imagine a world with no pickup trucks.
Now imagine someone said, hey i'd really like a pickup truck.
You're the guy who says, "anyone that claims they want a pickup truck but doesn't buy a utility trailer is lying about what they want."

A battery case is not the same thing as a bigger battery. Just as a car + utility trailer is not the same thing as a pickup truck. It embodies a whole set of compromises that inevitably result from trying to bolt a 3rd party solution on after-the-fact versus having an integrated solution.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Hal_Porter]

I've bought an S2, and S5 and now a V20. If I'd got an iPhone I'd have had less flexibility and a higher total cost of ownership. Samsung are heading the same way and I want no part of it - both Samsung and Apple sell you a very expensive phone you basically have to replace in 1 or at most years' time.

The V20 was $400 or so and it should hopefully keep me going for 3, in the unfortunately highly likely case where no one makes a phone I can upgrade to without losing features I want.

What would be an ideal phone?

Something like this -

A Qualcomm Snapdragon that's one generation old to keep down costs. A removable battery. Dual SIMs. Water seals. Probably a 1080p IPS display to maximize battery life and keep down costs. A fingerprint sensor. A headphone jack. USB-C. Stock Android or LineageOS. Perhaps 64GB of internal memory, but an microSDXC slot to make it expandable. Ram perhaps 4GB.

I'd aim to sell it for $300-400.

I.e. it's basically a V20 except with seals. It might sell a bit cheaper actually given the lower spec display and that I'm not bumping the flash and ram size.

Now you say more people buy Samsung and Apple phones. I reckon given the choice above phone it'd sell pretty well. Not Apple or Samsung levels of well but you could make a business selling them.

Sooner or later I think a lot of people are going to get pissed off with the Samsung/Apple model which pushes people to upgrade and at the same time removes features people like - headphones jacks, SD cards, fingerprint readers and removable batteries and adds features people don't like.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Three phones (that certainly all cost more than 1/3 of an iPhone if they weren't budget phones) versus what would probably be a single iPhone. Yeah, the TCO must be on your side, snort.

You go ahead and build your business in your perceived wonderful marketplace. Give it a real good shot & invest everything you have into it.

Do come back in a few years to let us know how you did...

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Altrag]

A gasket adds size and weight.. perhaps not much but when we're dealing with a phone every mm and gram counts (at least for marketing materials even if the users don't notice the difference..) And then even more size and weight to make the interface terminals more end-user-friendly. Internal components tend to use connectors that are practically microscopic and require a very fine touch to pull and re-seat (or specialized tools) while user-facing connectors tend to be fairly large and bulky in comparison.

Not to mention, being able to be opened creates hard lines around the compartments that sends designers into a tizzy, and with phones (especially high end phones such as the iPhone) being as much status symbols as they are tools for some bizarre reason, having them not look "perfect" (by whatever standard of the day) is a serious detriment to sales.

There are definite design advantages to having a sealed case, well above and beyond simply "it forces people to upgrade more often."

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Altrag]

And how exactly do you expect them to do that? If they want to design their phone so that it runs the same on a fresh battery as it does on a 3 year old battery, that means they have to slow it down to 3 year old standards right off the bat and it will always be slower than its potential. That seems like a pretty shitty tradeoff.

The only other option is to build a better battery that doesn't drop voltage as it ages. And there are lots and lots and lots of companies attempting to do just that. But unless you have a time machine kicking around, that's not going to help you in the near future either.

So that leaves just handling the reboot mode directly. You can't just say "OK don't reboot" -- if there isn't enough power there isn't enough power and all the magic in the world won't fix that. So instead they chose to reduce the amount of power required by slowing the phone down (I wouldn't be surprised if they were also dimming the screen a bit and tweaking other such things in order to reduce the power consumption, hoping you won't notice.)

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

So you want a bigger battery phone instead of a functionally equivalent phone+battery case because it isn't fetching. OK, message received.

I look around the roads around me and very rarely see any pickup trucks, yet somehow there is no lack in vehicles performing the tasks you attribute to them as uniquely pickup based. Nor do people say that they actually want/need a pickup.

Ahh, but what you're really trying to say is that pick-ups are the _in_ thing among the people around you which is why you desire _that_ and only _that_. Isn't that also what some people say about Apple products?

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Hal_Porter]

Three phones (that certainly all cost more than 1/3 of an iPhone if they weren't budget phones) versus what would probably be a single iPhone. Yeah, the TCO must be on your side, snort.

I bought an S2 and waited three years to get an S5. And the S5 lasted three years and now I've got a V20. Which will hopefully last three years until I have to replace it.

I.e. I buy a phone every three years. Interestingly I'm not alone in this - Motley Fool say people upgrade every 29 months on average

https://www.fool.com/investing...
"Americans now take an average of 29 months to upgrade their cell phone, up from 28 months at the end of last year, and an increase of 24 to 26 months that was typical just a couple of years ago, as noted in a recent Wall Street Journal article. And just four years ago, the upgrade cycle was just 22 months. "

A phone with no removable battery from a manufacturer who degrades performance with each software update isn't going to last you three years. It will be 1-2 tops. And the Motley Fool article points out Apple and Samsung are both pushing for 12 month upgrade cycles.

"But if users are taking longer to upgrade their phones, it's clear that this could be a problem for two of the biggest smartphone makers, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Samsung (NASDAQOTH: SSNLF).
Both companies now have their own yearly smartphone upgrade plans, which allow customers to pay the companies directly for their device each month, choose any of the four U.S. wireless providers, and then trade in their smartphone every 12 months for the latest model."

Actually without a firmware reset and new battery, which is tricky on the new phones, I'd have upgraded sooner, probably in 1-2 years. Like Apple, Samsung phones seem to slow down alarmingly with time, and batteries wear out.

So yeah, TCO is on my side over people who buy a new iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy every 1-2 years. And Motley Fool point out that Apple users buy a phone every 22 months with Apple trying to push this to 15.

" Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said back in February that he believed Apple has already sold about 250,000 iPhones through its upgrade program, which could definitely be considered a success given that it debuted not too long ago. But Munster made a prediction that the iPhone upgrade program would also lower the device's upgrade cycle, which appears unlikely now.
Originally, Munster thought the program would reduce the average iPhone user's upgrade time frame from 22 months to only 15 months. But that 15 month time frame would mean iPhone users would be upgrading their phones 14 months earlier than the average American, based on Citigroup's new data. And with Apple's iPhone sales currently slowing, that quick upgrade time seems even more unlikely. "

You go ahead and build your business in your perceived wonderful marketplace. Give it a real good shot & invest everything you have into it.

Do come back in a few years to let us know how you did...

Apple fans show their people skills once again. If I find a viable manufacturer I'd be tempted to Kickstart it, but to be honest I've got other things that I need to work on.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

It is _so_ amusing when people choose arguments through ignorance of a subject that actually weakens their case and that that when one knows something about it, strengthens mine.

Try putting sub-standard fuel (like something that has been stored in a tank for the past 3 years to parallel battery degradation) into your TDI and see how it reacts, hmm? As multiple ACs correctly noted, it WILL degrade the performance drastically until you can get it into the shop so that they can reset it. Oh and that little reset is going to cost you, often $100-$250.

That has nothing to do with anti-pollution norms being evaded with defeat devices, but then you'd have to know more about the subject to understand that.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

I've still got my S5. I have taken photos underwater with it in the pool at home. Wouldn't now though, as I took a chip out of the back - and broke the battery - when it fell down 3 flights of concrete stairs. Replacement battery and it's working fine. Other than some of the chrome coming off the edge and the chip on the back cover, it's fine. Pretty tough phone.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

I doubted that you actually believed that there was enough of a market because it is a common refrain from the Apple critics. They claim that there is a HUGE unfulfilled market of bigger/replaceable battery/jack phones and yet when pricked with "well then go do something about it", their balloon always withers away pretexting "I'm too busy". You're far from the first to opine and then run away, I just like making that retreat explicit.

My first iphone was a 4, then a 6+ purchased when my daughter wanted my 4, replaced after water damage with a 7+ that I'll probably be using for another 2-3 years. iPhones in this family last (except for damage) much longer than yours do.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[vux984]

"So you want a bigger battery phone instead of a functionally equivalent phone+battery case because it isn't fetching."

No. They're clunky and awkward, and the reviews are pretty mixed, with lots of them having tons of 1 star reviews; with many of the available options made by shitty generics with lousy QA and QC. Don't reduce this to a simple 'fasion' statement, although yes, that's part of it too.

"I look around the roads around me and very rarely see any pickup trucks,"

I look around the roads around me and about 20%+ are pickup trucks.

"Nor do people say that they actually want/need a pickup."

The people around here definitely seem to want them.

"Ahh, but what you're really trying to say is that pick-ups are the _in_ thing among the people around you which is why you desire _that_ and only _that_."

No. I drive a 911. I rent a u-haul the few times a year I need a pickup. But I don't presume that is a good solution for the people around me who buy trucks.

"Isn't that also what some people say about Apple products?"

Apple doesn't give us a choice. They make 2 models. They sell the one with the big screen and the little one, and the one from last year. That's it.

The whole industry doesn't give us much choice. All the premium brand name phones are basically the same. The niche phones are a huge gamble of functionality, support, QA, and so. I buy Samsung galaxy's because they work well and get good support... I'm super wary of niche products not because its not "popular"; i couldn't care less about that, but a phone that only sells a few thousand is going to have more app compatibility issues, fewer os updates, etc. At least with a galaxy I know I've got a phone that samsung is going to stand behind and all the apps and accesories will be sure to work with it.

If Apple's iphone X had been 2mm thicker and lasted an extra day do you really think it would have sold worse? Did removing the headphone jack just so it could be thinner really do anything the consumers wanted? Really? Apple didn't give consumers a choice.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Hint: Not everyone that frequents /. lives in your neighborhood or even the U.S.

Choosing pickups instead of other vehicles is an entirely subjective and not a functional choice from what > I If Apple's iphone X had been 2mm thicker and lasted an extra day do you really think it would have sold worse?
Yes. Once again, your circle of friends is not the world and Apple knows far, far more about what people will buy than you do.

> Did removing the headphone jack just so it could be thinner really do anything the consumers wanted? Really? Apple didn't give consumers a choice.
The 6, 6+ & SE are all choice. I have needed to charge and wanted to listen music over earphones at the same time _twice_ in the 2 years I've had my 7+. OOOHHH THE HORROR!!! I suppose you also choose your 911/pickup by choosing the model that has the most convenient ashtrays? Because THAT's what 's _important_ to you so it _must_ be the same for everyone...

There's an expression in French for people like you: Nombriliste. The direct translation is belly-button gazer but the full definition is even more apt.

Re: I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Brockmire]

Your posts are interchangeable with FakeTimCook's. Comes across as desperate and butt hurt.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[vux984]

"Hint: Not everyone that frequents /. lives in your neighborhood or even the U.S."

Thank's cap'n obvious.

"Apple knows far, far more about what people will buy than you do."

Apple releases turds on a regular basis (g4 cube, trash can mac); some of them even sell well and are still turds (puck mouse anyone?).

Reality -- apple is a fashion brand now. And this is apples new phone, as long as they don't fuck it up and its thin enough then it will sell. There's nothing really exciting about the iphone X vs the last one; and its 'z'-axis measurement is the among the least exciting thing about it.

"I have needed to charge and wanted to listen music over earphones at the same time _twice_ in the 2 years I've had my 7+."

Good for you. I've needed to do that exactly zero times. I'd still choose a phone with a headphone jack given the choice. My daughter easily spends 4-6 hours a day with her headphones and she uses the same pair with her phone and her laptop. Different people need different things.

"I suppose you also choose your 911/pickup by choosing the model that has the most convenient ashtrays? Because THAT's what 's _important_ to you so it _must_ be the same for everyone..."

Nobody cares how much thinner the new iphone X is vs the last one. Really. Nobody cares. Even the people who bought one... they don't really care. The 7 was thin enough.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

When your cultural reference is pickup trucks, you clearly need reminding that /. is not U.S. only.

Even Apples's less successful releases would be successes for anyone else and every "failure" has been deemed the beginning of the end by critics of your kind. An objective observer, which you are not, would note that Apple has gone on to greater success every time. What are _your_ successes, eh mr belly button gazer? Lint?

Yeah you'd choose a phone with something you rarely if ever needed over having a security model that isn't swiss cheese and needs twice the RAM/Flash to function adequately.

Nobody cares about thinner phones? Funny how the best sellers are NOT an inch thick. Yeah, twits keep repeating that they want thicker phones but every time someone comes out with a thicker model phone it's sales tank. You chubby lovers just don't care enough to actually _buy_ them in significant numbers, you just whine about it.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[vux984]

"Funny how the best sellers are NOT an inch thick."

No. That's no surprise at all. People don't want inch thick phones. Who said they do?

If you'd actually read what I wrote instead of putting words in my mouth maybe you'd stop chasing strawmen in every post.

The the iphone 4 and 5 weren't thick. They were thin enough. The iphoneX being thinner isn't winning any new fans... there wasn't anybody out there with an iphone 4 saying ... "you know I'd buy one if they were just a bit thinner."

Re: I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

Both apple supremacists (i.e. wackjobs)
.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

> Who said they do?

You keep baselessly opining that that "Nobody cares how much thinner the new iphone X is" when thicker phones keep tanking in the marketplace. Again mr belly button gazer, what you want != what the market has been shown to want.

Inch thick was an exaggeration (I had meant to write half-inch) but even the original iPhone's half inch which you glorified further upthread would tank in today's market. Feel free to furnish sales figures of any half-inch thick phones that sold well in the last 3 years.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[AmiMoJo]

It's because they use undersized batteries. Other manufacturers fit bigger batteries that can supply the necessary current even when they get old.

I'm not sure why they do it. Their phones are not the thinnest... Maybe they want to second source the battery so can't use high end ones?

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

No other phone has this issue of shutting down for a battery aging through it's normal useful life so I'm not sure why your're so stumped about how Apple could have achieved this.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

I've never seen this on a phone other than the iPhone 6-series and your ridiculous claim that it's due to the iPhone being used "years longer" than other phones is absurd on its face considering iPhone 6's were resetting within their first year of use.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[thegarbz]

Batteries don't just have less of a charge when they get older, their peak draw also diminishes.

While you're correct in the physics you're entirely wrong in the application. There's no reason even a 5 year old lithium battery can't provide enough current to keep a phone running at 100% CPU. The internal resistance just doesn't increase enough to matter for a phone.

Just don't try and jump start a car with it.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[thegarbz]

It means your battery probably needs a screwdriver to swap out instead of just popping open the case

Does it? My case (with gasket) just pops open, and is IP rated. Though I imagine there is a risk if I drop the phone in a pudle that the case may pop off, but really out of the many hundreds of times I've dropped it, it has yet to come apart. (Or crack for that matter *touches wood*)

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

You're mistaken as even a trivial search on "phone shutdown old battery" would have shown.

It's not just an iPhone issue, this has been tested and spontaneous shutdowns on older batteries when not throttling has been confirmed on different phone makes & models.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

None are so blind as those who refuse to see.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=phone+shu...

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

There is no systemic issue with aging batteries triggering voltage-drop shutdowns other phones like there is on the iPhone 6-series. There were 1.5 billion smartphones sold last year - pointing me to a google search with a random sampling of QC issues on those 1.5 billion units doesn't persuade.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[thegarbz]

Faulty battery maybe, but not with age. If these old batteries had that problem with internal resistance you'd be googling "Why does my phone take 4 hours to charge."

And end of life lithium battery will still happily output 1 or 2 amps and phones generally don't draw that much, even if you're stressing them.

The problem with using a google for symptoms to prove a point is: https://imgur.com/gallery/fFgF...

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Riiiight. All those older batteries that cause shutdowns on older phones don't exist because you refuse to admit that they do.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Were the google search to be unsupported by other means, you might have had a point.

Yeah, just call those older batteries "faulty", that makes you think you have an out to dismiss everyone on multiple platforms that noted that spontaneous shutdowns phones with aging batteries go away when the battery is replaced. Because you think that blaming "faulty batteries", allows you to call the code Apple has added that has been shown by third party testing to avoid spontaneous shutdowns on aging batteries "a bug" instead of a feature allowing further (but slower) use of ageing batteries without issues.

Because you (think) you know more about the batteries Apple uses than Apple does.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

Did you respond to my comment by mistake? Because that's not what I said.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Altrag]

I don't know what magic phone you've got but my Android definitely stops working when the battery is drained.

Why Apple does a restart specifically I of course don't know, but I'd be willing to bet that just chose a different trade-off than Google. All electronics will start screwing up in one way or another if they aren't fed enough juice. Perhaps Android devices would indeed suffer reboot problems but Google decided to just go for a full shutdown when that happens instead so that you have a shorter (but fully working) charge time rather than a longer (but possibly screwy) charge time once your battery starts behaving non-optimally..

Obviously I don't design phones or know specifically what choices the two companies made (or if any of the Android manufacturers would have overridden Google's choice and done something completely different) but its no secret that batteries degrade over time so each phone maker has to be handling that scenario in some fashion.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

You claim, contrary to the experience of all those that have noted spontaneous shutdowns on old batteries that "there is no systemic issue with aging batteries" -- no modifier so your claim is that this issue cannot exist in your opinion on _any_ aging batteries.

That people _do_ see the issue, that the problem is solved by replacing the battery and that Apple has released an update that has the effect of avoiding the shutdowns cannot be denied -- but you do anyway. Why? Because you refuse to believe in them.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

By systemic I meant one which is endemic to a specific model of phone. There are QC issues in all electronic devices and batteries - it's unavoidable when you sell 1.5 billion of something. Aggregating a cross-section of QC issues across a variety of models to compare against a systemic issue with one specific model of phone isn't very methodical.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Aaaand ___AGAIN___, it's NOT a design flaw or QC issues or limited to iPhone 6 phones, _every_ phone that lasts long enough exhibits the same "design flaw".

https://techcrunch.com/2017/12...

Apple's statement included: Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components. Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.

As the stories of non-iPhones that display _the_exact_same_bug_ (spontaneous shutdowns that are cured with a new battery or avoided by intelligent platform management as in iOS) are legion, you're being willfully obtuse.

If you think you have some claim to knowing better than Apple how aging in Lithium-Ion batteries affects platform stability, post it.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

My iPhone 4 still serves as a remote but after a support period years longer than most android phones can hope for, it's OS is unsupported & I value my security so that's all it does. Your point is that you think that using a phone with well known vulnerabilities is a good thing?

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

If it isn't a design flaw specific to the iPhone 6 then why was this issue not reported en masse on previous IPhone models?

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

Apple is avoiding issues with its poorly designed / sourced batteries by reducing performance of their phones so that customers don't get their phones replaced under warranty.

Obviously VW intentionally breaking the N0x rules is worse than incompetent engineering or inept manufacturing, but a potential fix for the emissions would have had a negative effect on the performance of the car that the customer was sold.

Did the iphone users by cheap chinese batteries on ebay? No? oh so putting shitty fuel in your car and having issues is in no way germane to the discussion.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

I must have missed where it was that you posted what you think makes you know better than Apple how aging in Lithium-Ion batteries affects platform stability. Do you think being an Android fanboy suffices?

Add to your credentials why you think that non-iPhones that display _the_exact_same_bug_ (spontaneous shutdowns that are cured with a new battery or avoided by intelligent platform management as in iOS) have _not_ been reported, when a trivial google search shows that _they_have_. Is being an android fanboy what makes you so obtuse?

Apple stated that they added the code for their oldest supported iPhone models (6, 6s & SE) last year, certainly after having taken years to add the means within the iOS platforms to study & confirm the issue and develop a methodology for avoiding it. An android fanboy sees only nefarious possible reasons for doing it last year. The less biased judge that they had bigger fish to fry in other higher priority iOS upgrades, not a clear enough picture and had yet to code and validate the workaround.

Why, pray tell mr fanboy, have android phones yet to add in equivalent battery supervision and throttling to avoid spontaneous shutdowns? We _know_ that Android phones suffer from the _same_ problem. What are they waiting for? For Apple to identify the problem so they could copy the solution?

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Yeah, because Samsung has done __SO__ much better than Apple with their batteries. Remind me who it was that claimed to have fixed a major problem twice before recalling all of their most recent high-end phones because they were spontaneously combusting?

Given that _ALL_ phones with LI-ION batteries have the same issues with ageing, oh ignorant one, why are you attempting to only blame Apple?

https://techcrunch.com/2017/12...

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

I use an iPhone 7, so your imaginary narrative about me being an Android fanboy was about 2 minutes of wasted effort on your part. I previously owned a 6s that had the battery issue we're discussing, which started manifesting only 4 months into owning the phone. And your explanation that this problem always existed in previous iPhones but took years for Apple to cultivate and understand, with that understanding conveniently intersecting with the iPhone 6 release cycle is the least compelling theory you've presented thus far. Apple sold hundreds of millions of previous iPhone models that didn't have this issue.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[thegarbz]

Nope I just know a lot about batteries. And age related degeneration does not stop a 2800mAh Lithium battery from providing at least 1-2A of current.

I'm not denying the problem, just that age related increase in internal resistance isn't it.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

So then you have no expertise or knowledge, just a claim to having owned an iPhone as if such a claim belies your posting history.

You have no explanation of why other phones display the exact same problem and are too dim to realize that Apple only published the fix in iOS 11 -- which leaves out all older phones.

In sum all you have is a clear anti-apple bias. Bye hater.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

You know more than Apple's engineers do? Specifically the behavior of LI-ION batteries because you work in the field?

You think that your unsupported opinion suffices to explain why it _isn't_ a battery problem when older batteries produce spontaneous shutdowns on all makes and models of phones yet no longer do so when the battery is replaced with a now one?.

You think that your unsupported opinion suffices to explain away why independent tests have shown that spontaneous reboots on 6 6S & SE iphones on iOS 10 stop occurring when updated to iOS 11 that throttles the CPU instead of shutting down?

You think that your _vast_ knowledge of batteries and clear bias suffice to make you a better reference than independent testing and information from Apple itself?

Quite clearly, you think the answer is yes to all.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

The iPhone 6s fix was in 10.2.1, not 11. And if you still don't believe me that the problem is unique to the 6-series iPhone maybe you'll believe Apple instead:

https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6s-unexpectedshutdown/

Since you're convinced it happens on other phones as well perhaps you can point me to the Apple's repair advisories for those as well, like the one I posted above for the 6s.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

NOT the same problem hater, that was a bad batch of batteries. Besides which, Apple has already stated that they have since added the fix to the 7 and will be adding it to further models as they attain an age in which it is useful to have it.

Here's the URL that you didn't read the last time I gave it. You won't read/understand it any more than the last time I gave it.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/12...

And again you cannot explain why every other phones with aging batteries display the same problem.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

Bad batch of batteries even though iPhone 6s owners outside Apple's two-month window experienced the same problem, myself included? And the iPhone 6s runs iOS 11 so why wouldn't Apple carry the fix over from IOS 10 for that phone? As for me not explaining why other phones with aging batteries display the same problem, that's because no other phone had a systemic issue shutting down with aging batteries, but we covered that already.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Try _reading_ the link you gave, hater:

"Apple has determined that a very small number of iPhone 6s devices may unexpectedly shut down. This is not a safety issue and only affects devices within a limited serial number range that were manufactured between September and October 2015."

Apples's patch was for the 6, the 6+ and the SE and they have since added the 7 & 7+ because they are getting old enough to potentially have the problem.

As for you refusing to acknowledge that non iPhone 6 and in fact all phones spontaneously shutdown when using washed out batteries, that's because you prefer remaining ignorant and refuse to look at all the other reports of it happening.

Oh but you'll play semantic games and redefine systemic yet again...

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

Yes, I'm refusing to acknowledge that non-iPhone 6 iPhones have an issue with spontaneously shutting down when using "washed out" batteries. I'm supporting that assertion with the fact that out of the hundreds of millions of phones Apple sold prior to the 6s, there was no widespread reports about phones shutting down with aging batteries. These problems started and ended with the 6s.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Yeah, yeah, hater, you keep ignoring everything that doesn't fit your diatribe like these and these, and these, and these, and these, etc.

_Their_ problems are all imaginary. _Yours_ are the only ones that matter.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[JoeyRox]

Where are your links for iPhones other than the 6s? Hundreds of millions of iPhones sold and no widespread issues and suddenly they start appearing on the 6s, but there's no issue specific to the 6s?

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

Holy Apple white knight, nice strawman you have there. Did anyone laud Samsung here? No?

Its not unreasonable to expect your device to last more than 1-year before the manufacturer degrades it to hide defective design.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Given that the degradation over time is present on _all_ LI-ION phones you're claiming that spontaneous reboots/shutdowns are preferable.

Sure bat-viilain, sure,

Again I'd rather have a slightly slower phone when performing intensive CPU tasks than one that reboots. People trained my Microsoft to find spontaneous reboots a normal part of life are free to feel otherwise.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Just for you: http://bfy.tw/FhXb

Re: I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[tehcyder]

If water resistence is seriously a problem, it's probably because you're dropping it into water. And if you're doing that, you need a rugged phone anyway, which the iPhone is definitely not

I think this translates as: even though you bought a phone that claimed to be water resistant, you shouldn't in fact expect it to resist water.

But my head is spinning.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

Given that the degradation over time is present on _all_ LI-ION phones you're claiming that spontaneous reboots/shutdowns are preferable.

While battery degradation is normal, spontaneous reboots are not and have only been occurring on a couple devices. And no, I'm claiming that manufacturers need to engineer them properly or they need to supply free battery replacements for the lifetime of the devices.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Given that the degradation over time is present on _all_ LI-ION phones you're claiming that spontaneous reboots/shutdowns are preferable.

While battery degradation is normal, spontaneous reboots are not and have only been occurring on a couple devices. And no, I'm claiming that manufacturers need to engineer them properly or they need to supply free battery replacements for the lifetime of the devices.

Pray google for spontaneous shutdown battery or reboot plus samsung or android or HTC or huawei or nexus or ...
Then explain how the problems are that are present on non-apple devices is apple's fault.

Apple is merely the first to implement a fix.

All the haters and their followers that are so quick to criticize apple whether or not it is a major issue are yet again attempting to make mountains out of molehills.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[vux984]

You keep baselessly opining that that "Nobody cares how much thinner the new iphone X is" when thicker phones keep tanking in the marketplace.

One of the top selling phones worldwide, the Moto X is 0.44mm thick, only 0.02mm thinner than the original iphone. Hardly tanking. But that's not really the point either.

  While I said the original iphone was fine, I am not suggesting that everyone wants a 0.44mm slab; even the original iphone wasn't a 0.44mm slab. The design made it feel like less.

I am suggesting that, the progression of thin has long since reached the point of no real additional benefit -- by the time we'd reached the iphone 4 at 0.37 there really wasn't much point to going thinner.

And I'm not suggesting the new iphone X be 0.44mm thick. I am arguing that had it been 0.35 with more battery etc it would have sold just as well. Nobody really cares about those 5/100ths of an inch.

Do you know what would take actual courage?
Not trying to perpetually one up themselves and samsung each generation to be thinnest at any cost.

The pixel 2 is thinner than the S8+ and as thin as the iphone. IF the market just wanted the thinnest phone, the pixel 2 would be usurping the S8's position at the top of the android hierachy, but its not. Its still in distant 2nd because consumers care far more about brand than thickness.

Apple could make a 0.35" thick phone and it would still sell brilliantly because it's still an Apple.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

Pray google for spontaneous shutdown battery or reboot plus samsung or android or HTC or huawei or nexus or ...

Again, couple devices it has not been an endemic problem in the vast majority of smart phones. There are a couple, e.g. Nexus 6p and iphone 6 in which it has been a huge issue.

Apple is merely the first to implement a fix.

Look at the benchmarks, they go from clustering at 2500 to clusters at 2200, 1700, 1400 and 1000. Do you really consider a 60% performance penalty a fix? The users on the bottom end of that spectrum will feel the difference.

This is not Apple doing something wonderful for the customer, this is Apple deciding to protect their bottom line and not replacing batteries or be subject a class action suit for the flawed design or manufacturing process.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Look at the benchmarks, they go from clustering at 2500 to clusters at 2200, 1700, 1400 and 1000. Do you really consider a 60% performance penalty a fix? The users on the bottom end of that spectrum will feel the difference.

This is not Apple doing something wonderful for the customer, this is Apple deciding to protect their bottom line and not replacing batteries or be subject a class action suit for the flawed design or manufacturing process.

I read the benchmarks before I began posting to this subject. Had you been less lazy you would not have asked that question because I answered it in the very first post of this thread: "It is preferable to have a slower iPhone than it is to have it rebooting. If the slowdown is an issue, replace the battery for $75 and the performance will be back to normal."

This is Apple giving their clients a slower but better experience by NOT allowing the devices to reboot when the battery is unable to deliver enough and the alternative is spontaneously rebooting.

Lawyers attempting to cash in on a payday file class actions against deep pocketed targets actions all the time but most fizzle.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

This is Apple giving their clients a slower but better experience by NOT allowing the devices to reboot when the battery is unable to deliver enough and the alternative is spontaneously rebooting.

Again you give Apple a free pass - Apple should be replacing the battery for free. This problem has been limited to a handful of devices, it is not something happening to most smart phone models. The responsible party here is Apple for selling a defective product.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Newsflash: Apple already replaces defective batteries for free.

Apple guarantees their iPhone batteries to 80% of charge after 500 charges or 1-2 years (depending on the country) and replaces them for free when they do not. When Apple has discovered that the battery supplier has not met the required level of performance for a batch of batteries they replace them for free as they did for the 6s recall.

Now what to do about older out of spec batteries? Apple's patch avoids spontaneous shutdowns.

Tell us, do you also go whining to your gas station complaining that they "should" give you free gas because you've used up what you bought? To your grocer for free milk? Toothpaste? Toilet paper?

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

Newsflash: Apple already replaces defective batteries for free.

Except now they're hiding defective batteries to avoid doing it by negatively impacting their customers

Now what to do about older out of spec batteries? Apple's patch avoids spontaneous shutdowns.

Again, this is not normal for smart phones, its happening to a handful of manufacturers including Apple who should step up and accept responsibility. Apple is not accepting responsibility, they're fucking over users

Tell us, do you also go whining to your gas station complaining that they "should" give you free gas because you've used up what you bought? To your grocer for free milk? Toothpaste? Toilet paper?

Again, straw man argument. If those companies start selling you a defective product then yes they should replace it

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

You keep baselessly opining that that "Nobody cares how much thinner the new iphone X is" when thicker phones keep tanking in the marketplace.

One of the top selling phones worldwide, the Moto X is 0.44mm thick, only 0.02mm thinner than the original iphone. Hardly tanking. But that's not really the point either.

The last time Motorola figured in the top 10 mobile phone manufacturers was in 2012 with 1.2% and they have since sunk beneath notice, so that clearly is the point. Kindly give your references for this "top selling phones worldwide" -- and not just Moto promotional stuff either, they're happy just selling a few million phones a year nowadays so +50% is meaningless without comparisons to the real best sellers.

While I said the original iphone was fine, I am not suggesting that everyone wants a 0.44mm slab; even the original iphone wasn't a 0.44mm slab. The design made it feel like less.

I am suggesting that, the progression of thin has long since reached the point of no real additional benefit -- by the time we'd reached the iphone 4 at 0.37 there really wasn't much point to going thinner.

And I'm not suggesting the new iphone X be 0.44mm thick. I am arguing that had it been 0.35 with more battery etc it would have sold just as well. Nobody really cares about those 5/100ths of an inch.

Do you know what would take actual courage?

You're whining that Apple, the company that has perfected design elegance and supply chain optimization on their way to becoming the largest IT company in the world by narrowing it's offer down to just a few well designed, clearly differentiated models should change their corporate DNA to make a tiny fraction of the market happier. You've got market studies that prove you're justified? Ah, no, _Apple_ has market studies and real life results that have proven accurate, you just have your own contrary unsupported opinion.

Not trying to perpetually one up themselves and samsung each generation to be thinnest at any cost.

The pixel 2 is thinner than the S8+ and as thin as the iphone. IF the market just wanted the thinnest phone, the pixel 2 would be usurping the S8's position at the top of the android hierarchy, but its not. Its still in distant 2nd because consumers care far more about brand than thickness.

Apple could make a 0.35" thick phone and it would still sell brilliantly because it's still an Apple.

While Apple has been known to take some inspiration from Samsung (larger phones in particular) Apple's reference is not other makers but themselves. Thus Apple's one upmanship of it's successive phones must be judged by whether each successive iPhone sells better than the last one. Sorry, Apple has been right for 10 years...

That subsequently Samsung's reference is Apple has been proven in court but if you want to complain that Samsung is wrong to ape Apple, you're going to have to do so elsewhere or in any case with someone else.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Oh, so they're "hiding" them are they, so, when in 02/17 Apple said that maximum power draws were causing shutdowns and that they were using power management to avoid them, that was their way of "hiding" this.

Now what to do about older out of spec batteries? Apple's patch avoids spontaneous shutdowns.

Again, this is not normal for smart phones, its happening to a handful of manufacturers including Apple who should step up and accept responsibility. Apple is not accepting responsibility, they're fucking over users

And AGAIN, I never said that out of spec batteries are "normal", but as anyone with a brain realizes, they DO occur more and more as the battery ages. And AGAIN, if you have an out of spec battery within warranty period, Apple ALREADY replaces the battery for free.

Tell us, do you also go whining to your gas station complaining that they "should" give you free gas because you've used up what you bought? To your grocer for free milk? Toothpaste? Toilet paper?

Again, straw man argument. If those companies start selling you a defective product then yes they should replace it,

Naaah, this is you going to your grocer whining that the new chocolate milk recipe you bought 4 months ago has gone bad, that he only came out with the new recipe to hide your ability to determine that it had gone bad and that you deserve to get all the free milk you want. In fact it you never even bought any of that brand's milk you're just arguing that everyone deserves free milk -- because milk goes bad.

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[Luthair]

Oh, so they're "hiding" them are they, so, when in 02/17 Apple said [techcrunch.com] that maximum power draws were causing shutdowns and that they were using power management to avoid them, that was their way of "hiding" this.

Did they tell the users they were negatively impacting their phone? No, they made it slower without informing affected user or making note of the behaviour anywhere. And here is the definition for you: the action of concealing someone or something.

And AGAIN, I never said that out of spec batteries are "normal", but as anyone with a brain realizes, they DO occur more and more as the battery ages. And AGAIN, if you have an out of spec battery within warranty period, Apple ALREADY replaces the battery for free.

Again straw man. We were talking about phones spontaenously rebooting, and as per the above Apple hid the fact the device was defective from the user. Users have reasonable expectations about device lifespan, the purpose warranties is to cover one-off flaws not large fuck-ups like we see here or with the Nexus 6P. Here is another example for you, Google the Porsche 996 IMS bearing class action.

Naaah, this is you going to your grocer whining that the new chocolate milk recipe you bought 4 months ago has gone bad, that he only came out with the new recipe to hide your ability to determine that it had gone bad and that you deserve to get all the free milk you want. In fact it you never even bought any of that brand's milk you're just arguing that everyone deserves free milk -- because milk goes bad.

No its more like the milk goes sour before the expiration date because the store failed to refrigerate it, or the store changes the expiration on meat (which is illegal).

Re:I'd rather have a slower iPhone

[phayes]

Oh, so they're "hiding" them are they, so, when in 02/17 Apple said [techcrunch.com] that maximum power draws were causing shutdowns and that they were using power management to avoid them, that was their way of "hiding" this.

Did they tell the users they were negatively impacting their phone? No

Snort, yeah because Apple uses pixie dust to magically avoid shutdowns. No, Virginia, it's not.

When Apple says "sudden spikes of activity to the maximum power draw could cause older batteries, which had some mileage on them, to deliver power in an uneven manner, which would cause an emergency shutdown" the _only_ way to do so is to throttle the CPU during periods of low battery. That _you_ are unable to see that 1+1=2 does not mean that others are unable to do so.

Naaah, this is you going to your grocer whining that the new chocolate milk recipe you bought 4 months ago has gone bad, that he only came out with the new recipe to hide your ability to determine that it had gone bad and that you deserve to get all the free milk you want. In fact it you never even bought any of that brand's milk you're just arguing that everyone deserves free milk -- because milk goes bad.

No its more like the milk goes sour before the expiration date because the store failed to refrigerate it, or the store changes the expiration on meat (which is illegal).

So now you are claiming that Apple ages it's batteries before selling them?!?! And you have proof of this extraordinary claim? You've clearly started on the eggnog already.

Apple already replaces batteries that are out of spec but within warranty for free. So you _are_ whining that you deserve free milk by brandishing months old spoiled milk cartons saying that "Apple made the milk spoil" without any proof.

Re: whiny whining motherfucking morons

[Anonymous Coward]

mod parent up

Re:I'm sure APK will tell us hosts will fix this

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically APK posts are written by a cabal funded by George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Vladimir Putin, the Uranium One corporation and BumpStocksRUS.

APK

IPhone 6 Subjectively Faster with New Battery

[Ironic Daemon]

Very interesting story and I have a data point to add: I bought my iPhone 6 new in 2014 and as of about two months ago the battery (which was at more than 750 cycles - Apple rates it for about 500) was getting really flakey. The reported capacity of the battery started varying between 45% of its rating and 85% with random power offs becoming common below 10%. So last weekend I finally bit the bullet and put a new battery in - fiddly but doable in about 30 mins. I then reset the phone and left it to fully charge overnight.

Since changing the battery the iPhone has been subjectively faster to launch apps and display information. So this report that Apple may have something in iOS that compensates for a failing battery doesnâ(TM)t seem implausible.

Though I would have thought that a better thing (or perhaps as well as) would be if Apple gave the user an alert once 500 cycles exceeded advising them that the battery was wearing out and linking them to the official Apple page for getting it changed.

Cheers, Chris W.

Re:IPhone 6 Subjectively Faster with New Battery

[leonbev]

What's odd is that my iPhone 6 never seemed to slow down when the battery started failing. It started showing "degraded battery performance" warnings in the settings page a few months ago, and it started randomly powering itself off when it got below 40% battery life. No slowdowns, though.

Replacing the battery fixed my power problems, and I went from having about 2 hours of runtime on a fully charged battery to about 2 days. Big difference.

Re: IPhone 6 Subjectively Faster with New Battery

[Brockmire]

Until you get your apostrophe fix, stay away from double negatives. Why the fuck hasn't Apple fixed that shit and rolled it out? Is it intentionally trolling /.?

Here come the ipologists

[Anonymous Coward]

To tell us all this is a great this apple is doing. Crippling their phones.

This explains Trump's low performance also.

[Anonymous Coward]

The retard runs on diet coke and Fox News, that's going to take years off his battery - in prison.

Possible link??

[Anonymous Coward]

The link is the code apple uses to throttle the CPU when the battery get old.

goofs, assholes

[Anonymous Coward]

The newest upgrade for ipad prevents it from recognizing external batteries, so if you run out of juice you can only recharge through an adaptor or usb port.

Pretty charts... what do they mean?

[Gravis Zero]

Look, I'm a "techie" person but I'm not statistician. What the fuck do these graphs even show? One axis is "Density" which is seemingly the kernel density... of something? The other axis is "Geekbench 4 Score" and I have no fucking idea what that even is.

Seriously, if you are trying to explain something to me using charts, you're going to have to make it clear what in the flying fuck you are charting.

Re:Pretty charts... what do they mean?

[Mal-2]

It seemed pretty clear to me. Most devices run at some predictable speed, but as they age, they get "binned" into speed steps. That's why it's not just a tail to the left, but a series of peaks.

Re:Pretty charts... what do they mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right? Also they are impossible to interpret as they are. The axis should be switched show that there is a clear trend as battery life increases or decreases

Re:Pretty charts... what do they mean?

[Hal_Porter]

I think a Kernel Density Function is just a probability density

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

In statistics, kernel density estimation (KDE) is a non-parametric way to estimate the probability density function of a random variable. Kernel density estimation is a fundamental data smoothing problem where inferences about the population are made, based on a finite data sample. In some fields such as signal processing and econometrics it is also termed the Parzen--Rosenblatt window method, after Emanuel Parzen and Murray Rosenblatt, who are usually credited with independently creating it in its current form.

So the X axis is the Geekbench score and the Y axis is the percentage of phones.

Now if you look at iPhone 6s devices with 10.2.0 they're one peak - i.e. all the phones cluster around some mean performance. Looking at devices upgraded to 10.2.1 you see some smaller peaks to the left and with 11.2.0 those peaks grow. It seems like iOS knows if it running on an older device - perhaps it checks the battery health. If the battery is worn out it can run in a low power/low performance mode to keep the battery life acceptable.

Now personally I'd never buy a device with non removable battery. But if you're selling an OS which auto upgrades and runs on devices with non removable batteries it sort of makes sense. It also pushes users to buy new hardware. Imagine if you had an iPhone 6s with 11.2.0. If your device is on the right it'll seem OK. If its one of the devices in the low power/low performance modes it will seem sluggish and you'll probably go out and buy a new one. What I'm not sure about is what happens if you replace the battery? Does that reset the device into high performance mode or are you still stuck in slow mode?

Re:Pretty charts... what do they mean?

[thegarbz]

It's easiest to think of kernel density estimation as a smoothing algorithm that removes outliers and peaks from statistical data. The Geekbench score is a unitless performance metric used to compare various devices running Geekbench.

What these graphs show is that iPhone 6 running 10.2.0 (implying relatively new devices) all performed in consistently the same way. iPhone 6 11.2.0 (implying not as new devices) show distinct performance groups. Quite critically the fact that there are multiple peaks rather than a smooth trend highlights that the phones appear to be degrading in performance in discrete steps. Note the relative size of peaks on each graph related to the assumed age span of these devices given model and OS version.

Seriously, if you are trying to explain something to me using charts, you're going to have to make it clear what in the flying fuck you are charting.

You rather ask on Slashdot than click the links in the article that explained the statistical methods? Or you could scroll to the bottom of the page for the conclusions.

Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it's a good design doesn't mean it's okay to deliberately deceiver your customers. How about admitting that their non-replaceable batteries have failed on schedule, instead of silently crippling the device.

Re: Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Especially when updates can be forced onto the phone for security fixes, there is no way to escape Apple downgrading the capability of a device you bought last year. Class action lawyers, start your engines.

Inform/empower the user, period

[Anonymous Coward]

I am shocked to see comments that defend what's going on - and to be precise, what is going on is not having:
  INFORMED the user
and/or
  PUT A SETTING to let the user be in charge

Instead, they hoped we wouldn't notice and simply slide it under the rug, "oh I guess old stuff runs slower" so we throw it away and buy the new versions.

Very sad. I'm a 6s user hit by this and my feeling, after many many years of iPhone love, is to start looking at Android.