Apple Apologizes For iPhone Slowdown Drama, Will Offer $29 Battery Replacements (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Apple just published a letter to customers apologizing for the "misunderstanding" around older iPhones being slowed down, following its recent admission that it was, in fact, slowing down older phones in order to compensate for degrading batteries. "We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down," says the company. "We apologize." Apple says in its letter that batteries are "consumable components," and is offering anyone with an iPhone 6 or later a battery replacement for $29 starting in late January through December 2018 -- a discount of $50 from the usual replacement cost. Apple's also promising to add features to iOS that provide more information about the battery health in early 2018, so that users are aware of when their batteries are no longer capable of supporting maximum phone performance.

Comments

Start from the top.

[Known Nutter]

Saying all of that in the beginning would have saved them a lot of grief. It's not like they solved a mystery today. So, why did they not simply disclose this? They could have buried it in a KB article and been done with it.

Re:Start from the top.

[MoleStrangler]

And they are still looking to make a profit at the reduced cost of replacing the battery, just not as much as before.

And I'm sure their plan is if they are dragged screaming and kicking into court they will say 'well we did knock down the price of the replacement battery by $21, that that means we do listen to customers and we are a nice company'.

The class action may go ahead but will never amount to anything and reduce an SKU profit margin is not a punishment.

Re:Start from the top.

[phalse phace]

And I'm sure their plan is if they are dragged screaming and kicking into court they will say 'well we did knock down the price of the replacement battery by $21, that that means we do listen to customers and we are a nice company'.

You mean knock down the price of the replacement battery by $50.

Battery replacement price is currently $79.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

well, now they look like heroes. probably planned this from the start, just in case of a shitstorm from when/if people found out what they were doing.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

And their legion of sheep will swallow it whole.

Re:Start from the top.

[Crashmarik]

And you can buy a full replacement battery kit for $25 from third parties.

Apple isn't doing their customers any kind of favor with this.

Re:Start from the top.

[phalse phace]

If Apple damages your iPhone while they replace the battery, Apple will cover the damage.

If you damage your iPhone while you attempt to replace the battery, you're SOL.

Re:Start from the top.

[supercell]

It's simple, they didn't want the users to know about it. It's planned obsolescence.They knew the Lithium batteries would deteriorate after a few hundred charge cycles, ~18-24 months and the software would slow down the phones. The fact that it was NOT disclosed, tells you about their motive. Sell more hardware.

Re:Start from the top.

[dgatwood]

And you can buy a full replacement battery kit for $25 from third parties.

Apple isn't doing their customers any kind of favor with this.

For $4, you get the repair done by someone who does it five times each week, plus a 90-day warranty.

Re: Start from the top.

[Xenx]

It's not unique to Apple, and it's not necessarily nefarious either. New features, fancy transitions, and other whatnots all take a hit on performance and battery. Yes, some people would rather keep their old OS and the better performance. A lot would rather the new bells and whistles, so they can be like the newer phones without shelling out more money.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheFakeTimCook]

And they are still looking to make a profit at the reduced cost of replacing the battery, just not as much as before.

And I'm sure their plan is if they are dragged screaming and kicking into court they will say 'well we did knock down the price of the replacement battery by $21, that that means we do listen to customers and we are a nice company'.

The class action may go ahead but will never amount to anything and reduce an SKU profit margin is not a punishment.

If you treally think that Apple is making ANY profit at $29, you need to show me EXACLY the proof of that statement.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheFakeTimCook]

And you can buy a full replacement battery kit for $25 from third parties.

Apple isn't doing their customers any kind of favor with this.

You're talking about a shitty aftermarket battery, that you will be lucky to get an additional YEAR out of.

And BTW, what are you paying yourself to replace that battery? How much experience do you have doing it? What's it worth to you to know hat Apple will fix anything their technicians accidently break. But if YOU accidently break something, THEN how cheap is that whole FOUR DOLLARS you "beat" mean-old profiteering Apple out-of?

You make absolutely ZERO real-world sense.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheFakeTimCook]

And you can buy a full replacement battery kit for $25 from third parties.

Apple isn't doing their customers any kind of favor with this.

For $4, you get the repair done by someone who does it five times each week, plus a 90-day warranty.

Where?

Re:Start from the top.

[Khyber]

Spoken like a true idiot that doesn't know Apple uses the exact same $4 'knock-off' batteries.

Come back when you've actually worked the repair lines like I have, you fuckwit.

Re:Start from the top.

[Khyber]

Simple real-world math: Apple pays about $5 for the battery itself. There's a $24 profit margin.

Why, yes the BOM on the battery is pretty easy to get if you just Google the fucking numbers on the cells.

Someone ban this dipshit fuckwit already.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Spoken like a true idiot that doesn't know Apple uses the exact same $4 'knock-off' batteries.

Come back when you've actually worked the repair lines like I have, you fuckwit.

You've worked IN an Apple authorized Service center. Prove it.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Simple real-world math: Apple pays about $5 for the battery itself. There's a $24 profit margin.

Why, yes the BOM on the battery is pretty easy to get if you just Google the fucking numbers on the cells.

Someone ban this dipshit fuckwit already.

Prove it, or STFU.

Your move.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheFakeTimCook]

It's simple, they didn't want the users to know about it. It's planned obsolescence.They knew the Lithium batteries would deteriorate after a few hundred charge cycles, ~18-24 months and the software would slow down the phones.

The fact that it was NOT disclosed, tells you about their motive. Sell more hardware.

If that was the real motive, the "slowdown" would have been baked-into iOS 2 rather than iOS 10 or 11.

Instead, the timing of this (no pun) makes it OBVIOUS that the "current spike-spreading" code was added to iOS when Apple said they had a software-fix for the iPhone 6 "shutdown" problem. They just didn't take the infinity amount of time it would take to discover how that fix would affect every single iPhone on the planet, and thus, eventually, someone noticed. But what's clear is that Apple was DEFINITELY NOT "trying to sell new phones". New iPhones have been PLENTY faster year-over-year on their own!

https://www.iphonebenchmark.ne...

And lest you think that those recent performance figures are in any way ho-hum compared with the competition, read this:

https://www.cultofmac.com/4626...

http://appleinsider.com/articl...

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/i...

So, Apple doesn't HAVE to slow down their older phones to "make their new phones seem faster." They ARE faster (and also fastEST!)

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Genius Bar.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

For the slow kids: $25 for the battery + $4 = $29, i.e. the amount that Apple is charging.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the standard tune we hear from corporations and high profile personalities: "We're sorry we got caught". If they had done the right thing from the start, disclosing what they were doing and why, it would have been a relative non-issue.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof, use your empty head. apple buys these batteries from the cheapest supplier they can and buys them in bulk. Stop talking like a idiot for the sake of a company that is ripping you off. I agree, you should be banned. Your lies are toxic.

Re: Start from the top.

[kenh]

Because genius bar workers are all volunteers, they never break a phone, and phones never come back for warranty claims... Yep, $25 pure profit!

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then it comes down to how long does it take to replace the battery and how much are they paying their genius bar employees. If they are making more than $15/h id be surprised. If it takes more than half an hour to replace the battery id be surprised. So that's still about $12 in profit from the battery change.

Re:Start from the top.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Or they could have made it an on/off setting, but they know the Faithful(c) will STILL buy their overpriced shit no matter what. After all, you're nobody if you don't have the latest iPhone!

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

You realise no one needs to prove anything to you. If you cant use Google or accept simple facts that is a problem with you.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume that $15/hr is all that they have to pay. Obviously youâ(TM)ve never employed anyone. The employer has a separate share of taxes to pay the state, feds, social security, and unemployment insurance. My guess is that theyâ(TM)re going to break even at best or sell them at a loss. Either way itâ(TM)s a huge CYA to protect themselves from the worst of the lawsuits.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from unemployment insurance, all those taxes are passed on to the employee and come out of their paycheck.

Re:Start from the top.

[inflex]

If you're working the repair lines then you'll know if you tear apart a clone and compare to the genuine and you'll see there's notable differences. The protection/controller board attaching to the cell on those $4 batteries is a random hackjob at best. The cell quality too is different, cheap replacements have poor internal resistance compared to the genuine.

The $4~$12 replacements are a crap shoot, sometimes you get a decent quality unit, other times not so much. The resellers of replacement batteries give you grading options, cheap = 'zeroed' cycle count, non-original board, then you can get a "pulled from existing phone" batteries and their markings rubbed out, and then you can also get "Genuine zero cycles, high quality" packs but even if you ask for those, usually someone up the supply chain at some point pulls a swifty and starts sending you dodgy packs.

While Apple might pay $4 for theirs, the "3rd party" ones are probably $1 and it shows.

Apple has had some dud events like the iPhone 5 puffer fiasco but overall their packs definitely are of higher quality/consistency than the 3rd party replacements.

Couple of hundred batteries a year and it's averaging about 50% duds within 3 months.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Letâ(TM)s say your unsubstantiated claim that they spend exactly $5 for the battery is true. Granting you that, their profit isnâ(TM)t $24 when they charge $29 for a replacement. They had to spec it, source it, warehouse it, ship it to Apple Stores, pay techs who might use their time elsewhere to do the labor, cover damages to phones if the replacement fails, etc etc etc.

Re:Start from the top.

[inflex]

Apple really didn't want to have to go down the route of indicating/advising that something is wearing out and could be replaced because it infers that the phone is serviceable, and if people feel their devices are serviceable then that'll tend to bite in to the annual churn & profit rates.

From a technical perspective, throttling back the phone could have been pitched as a nice feature but again, it opens up the can of worms on serviceability, particularly in light of Apple's strong push against the "Right to repair" legislation.

Re:Start from the top.

[jpaine619]

Simple real-world math: Apple pays about $5 for the battery itself. There's a $24 profit margin.

Why, yes the BOM on the battery is pretty easy to get if you just Google the fucking numbers on the cells.

Someone ban this dipshit fuckwit already.

You didn't factor in labor to remove the old battery and place the new one. Therefore, all of us reading, we can assume you really do not know what you are talking about

And you want to ban someone for disagreeing with you? Are you 12? Maybe you should just .... leave.. You appear to be very unhappy here.

Re:Start from the top.

[hcs_$reboot]

Elements tend to show that Apple did this on purpose, with iOS 11, to push people towards an upgrade. I know people who thought about upgrading (to 8 or X) a few weeks after iOS 11 was released.
1) The device capacities were fading, little by little. This is suspicious: a 3 year old iPhone 6, having an old battery, did not go slow the first day, but very softly over several weeks (while its battery was bad from the first day of iOS 11).
2) The iPhone 8 is not subject to that "feature", while its battery will get old as well, at some point in the future.
3) Apple did not disclose the "feature" until a hacker exposed it publicly.
4) And Apple offers a discount on battery replacement ; would they have done that had the hack not been revealed?

Re:Start from the top.

[TheRaven64]

I can't speak for the iPhone ones, but I recently got a third-party battery for an old MacBook Pro. Even from new and after doing all of the conditioning steps, it gets about half to two thirds of the battery life that the original got. Batteries are definitely not all equal.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheRaven64]

Exactly. I don't mind that they reduce performance to extend battery life, I do mind that they don't provide a way of seeing the battery status. On macOS, you can go to System Information and it will tell you the cycle count and full charge capacity of the battery. If the cycle count is below the rated maximum (I think it's 1,000 complete discharge cycles these days - mine's done 378 after 4 years of use) and its full-charge capacity is no longer at least 80% of the capacity when new, then they'll replace it.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Still, why doesnâ(TM)t Android slow down their phones? Manufacturers use LiOn for those too.

Re:Start from the top.

[SharpFang]

Only because Apple made the procedure hard in the first place.

Replacement batteries for other phones are often $5, and easy enough to replace that there's no chance to damage the phone.

"These are not bullshit excuses, these are genuine problems!" is an old Apple bullshit mantra - these are "genuine problems" which Apple deliberately chose to create artificially in the first place.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect light, heat, rent, taxes, training, etc. are also required. $29 is conceivably close to cost, though.

Re:Start from the top.

[SharpFang]

Unless you've been smoking near your iPhone. Or farted. Or looked at it wrong. Apple is extremely happy to disclaim any responsibility for repairs. And the reason why the procedure is difficult and labor-intensive = expensive? Because Apple deliberately made it so. Other companies somehow can keep battery replacement easy.

Re:Start from the top.

[SharpFang]

Somehow none of these "miracles" happen to any other brands... Only Apple. How is it that every company in the world can get this right, only where it comes to Apple suddenly you're faced with insurmountable mountain of problems?

Re: Start from the top.

[SharpFang]

I've engineered devices which would need to be serviced later. I'd lose my job if I made them such that a routine maintenance procedure like battery replacement took more than five minutes to perform, and more than ten minutes to train someone to do it.

I bet if I lost my job that way, though, Apple would welcome me with open arms and request me to develop a device as complex and difficult to repair as only possible.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

well, its a common misconception (a bit like piracy accounting) to assume that the Genius Bar worker is working flat out the whole day. I doubt it. In fact, I guarantee that a lot of the time theyre stood around doing fuck all. Still getting paid. So giving them something to do as part of a fixed time shift filled with lots of not doing anything amounts to "free" labour in that sense.

Re: Start from the top.

[SharpFang]

...and still end up charging some $15 more than in case of other brands.

Re:Start from the top.

[SharpFang]

Oh, but that cost of labor somehow miraculously happened all by itself? Or some nefarious entity engineered it into the innocent Apple's products (and only Apple products!) with no Apple's involvement?

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Iâ(TM)m not trying to be mean. Honestly Iâ(TM)m not. I understand that there are people in the world who desperately want an identity, but may not have a talent to back it up. These people tend to be exploited by corporations who agree to sell them an identity in exchange for evangelical loyalty. Maybe itâ(TM)s not exploitation, though, maybe theyâ(TM)re better off this way. That said, Apple has done better than most at selling suburban white folks an identity, and these people protect it. They see an attack on the company as an attack on their identity, and it upsets them.

I donâ(TM)t know if this is a disorder, or a variation of normal.

Iâ(TM)ve always found it frightening, though. These are people who could easily be manipulated to believe all kinds of crazy things, and itâ(TM)s a little weird when you think about it.

I mean, the guy above wrote âoeApple is definitely not trying to sell more phonesâ, and Iâ(TM)ll bet you anything that he believes it.

The propensity of the human animal to allow itself to be manipulated is shocking. The need for an identity is just that strong.

I didnâ(TM)t really have a point, this thread has just been a fascinating psychological study.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider the battery is about 2000-3000mah.

Consider the retail price of a pack of 4 pack of AA rechargable is around $9 (https://www.amazon.com/Energizer-Recharge-Rechargeable-Batteries-Pre-Charged/dp/B00000J47L)

You'll need 2.5 of those batteries to make 5v 2.3mah.

$5 is a severe overestimate, if you factor in oem and volume pricing

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

So the guy is off by $2

$3 for the battery (likely an overestimate) + $4 for the 15 minutes it takes for the best minimum wage grunt to do it = $7

Re:Start from the top.

[Bongo]

It is a negative of the "walled garden" -- my Apple TV was losing track of some TV episodes, and on a Mac you might think, well I can try deleting some caches. Instead, it is cloud weirdness, where the instant I went to report the problem with that TV show, using Apple's iTunes problems website, I received a message saying that the, now two weeks old, and missing, episode, was suddenly available. All I did was select that show on the report page... I didn't even get as far as clicking to submit the issue. *Boom* your ep is ready.

Likewise I have been trying to figure out why my iPhone 6 had been getting different kinds of slowness. I like my phone, I do not do contracts, and I like to buy a new one when I am satisfied the balance of cost and new stuff is worth it for me. Anyway, it would indeed be nice to have more diagnostics to hand, so as to, as you say, make an informed consumer decision.

Doing a full backup, reset, and restore, has gotten rid of the worst of the lags. I guess that is maybe more down to the flash. But I still have the weird screen refresh artefact, where I can see it draw the top of the frame, and then the bottom of the screen frame, as two separate events, sometimes. I guess that is the GPU or whatever running deliberately slower. And again, it would be nice to have some numbers, even if most people won't know what they mean.

And likewise with the flash performance. Because otherwise I spend a lot of time wondering if it is just my imagination. Like when I started listening to podcasts about a year ago, later I felt like the podcasts had slowed down my phone, and I guess it was the flash being overused, with all those new downloads, near filling the phone. But some *actual* numbers would be great for just like, knowing.

People go to the doctor and they can quickly understand what say, an HbA1c means -- why not more health metrics for the phone device?

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can buy a full replacement battery kit for $25 from third parties. Apple isn't doing their customers any kind of favor with this.

It's amazing how our stupid human brains work. Once we've chosen a side in an argument we are willing to think or believe just about anything as long as it supports our decision. Your post, for example. It's not your fault though. That's how humans are. It's amazing that we were actually able to form civilization.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the $3 battery gets to the place where it can be put in your phone by magic? In the real world there is some shipping involved and that's not free... Also the overhead of running the shop this happens in...

Also, you really think $3 will get you a high quality battery?

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparing NiMH in AA form factor to Li-Ion in custom form factor... And the Li-Ion battery doesn't have 5V, it's more around 3.7V, up to 4.1V when fully charged.

Try again.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

At the Volume Apple needs (millions), you don't just go to the cheapest supplier and buy their batteries. It doesn't work that way. You can do that only for low volume products.

With volumes like Apple's, you have multiple suppliers, you work with them to get the batteries with the exact specs you want/need and then negotiate a price that both sides can live with.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I was thinking more along the lines of the entire customer interaction, from the time the customer started talking to the genius bar employee, basic troubleshooting, battery swap, any other explanations the customer needs after, and ringing up the sale.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

No they don't. Employers pay the same amount as the employee for social security and medicare.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow none of these "miracles" happen to any other brands... Only Apple.

You must have missed the problems Samsung had with its batteries. It has only been world news for weeks, so it was easy to miss...

Sure, that was about new batteries, but the truth is that batteries require care to manufacture, install, maintain, and replace. It is very easy to cut corners, and it is very easy to miss that there are problems, because these will just be incidents.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Unless you've been smoking near your iPhone. Or farted. Or looked at it wrong. Apple is extremely happy to disclaim any responsibility for repairs. And the reason why the procedure is difficult and labor-intensive = expensive? Because Apple deliberately made it so. Other companies somehow can keep battery replacement easy.

Prove it.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Insurmountable mountain of problems." WTF are you even talking about. You take the phone in and have the battery replaced for 25 bucks. Talk about mountains from molehills.People who go cheaper are just asking for dodgy. No different with Apple than anywhere else.

  I had a Sony compact z3 that absolutely sucked at many things. It DID have great battery life, but the screen crapped at the slightest hint of sunshine and developed weird purple spots. My iphone still looks and works great so a battery replacement is less of a hurdle than a product that isn't so great to begin with.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Psst. Hey you. Yes you Sharpfang. There are other phones without easy battery replacement besides Apple. After you're fired, try Samsung. They made FLAMING phones. But the batteries were cheap.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.androidauthority.com/best-android-phones-removable-battery-697520/

these are phones with user-replaceable batteries.. does that "Prove it"?

Re: Start from the top.

[Pikoro]

Kind of funny that you have all the standard errors in your text, due to the crappy iPhone's keyboard turning apostrophes into something that's trademarked, so you're obviously using an iPhone. Back that ass up!

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you asking him to prove you are a dipshit fuckwit and should be banned?

Every single comment from you is "Prove it" - way to contribute to the conversation.

Re:Start from the top.

[Plumpaquatsch]

Only because Apple made the procedure hard in the first place.

Replacement batteries for other phones are often $5, and easy enough to replace that there's no chance to damage the phone.

And there still is an extremely high chance that the cheap Chinese knock-off you bought will blow up sooner rather than later. https://www.howtogeek.com/172680/danger-why-you-shouldnt-buy-cheap-third-party-batteries-for-laptops-or-smartphones/. But hey, you get what you deserve.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

You realise no one needs to prove anything to you.

Says the child rapist. No proof needed for the claim.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok sure there are some shipping costs, likely to be minimal, and warehousing batteries is an issue? I bet every apple store in the country can find a empty cabinet somewhere that could easily hold tens of thousands of batteries.

What I see no one mentioning is the fact that THEY NOW HAVE YOU IN THEIR STORE.

Time to up sell. Hell I bet they make a boat load up selling people coming in for repairs.

Re: Start from the top.

[Plumpaquatsch]

...and still end up charging some $15 more than in case of other brands.

Yeah. Right. What do other companies with built-in batteries charge for a replacement you don't have to yourself?

Authorised replacement for Google Pixel battery; only $79.99

Official statement from Samsung about replacing batteries for Samsung Galaxy S7 edge: "t's $73 according to Samsung customer service (12/14/16)."

In both cases you can't even find that information online from the companies themselves, you have to rely on what a customer says in some support forum.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

And we know the AppleHate crowd would still be crying up a storm. Do you really have that much of a problem with people using what they like versus them having to use what you like? Do you really have the much of an emotional investment in whatever gizmo you carry in your pocket that you hate others who don't see the world through your lens?
 
It's really gotten pathetic.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

Replacement batteries for other phones are often $5, and easy enough to replace that there's no chance to damage the phone.
 
Yeah, like the Galaxy Note8. No problems just swapping out the battery on that one.
 
Oh, wait...

Re:Start from the top.

[jellomizer]

I am not sure if you have worked in IT or not. But unfortunately my experience is if I share too much info, it creates a panic in the non-technical user who gets angry because they think they are so smart, but something goes on beyond their understanding.

The battery in your device gets worse every day, they are a lot of factors that can affect the rate of decay. Too much info to the user, especially ones who do not really understand what is going on, will see after a month of usage their battery isn't at 100% there can be a rush to get it fix, having staff trying to explain the numbers are not in the warranty range, thus opening to seem like they are performing bad customer service.

I would rate this on bad judgement in Apples part, not part of some evil plan. Just because there are areas where giving too much info causes in general more problems then less.

Being that an old phone, will have updated apps made for new phones it is kinda expected to run slower anyways, and the speed probably wasn't that notable to most people. Apple was probably trying to extend the usage life of the device vs actively trying to get people to upgrade.

Re:Start from the top.

[networkBoy]

unfortunately I *can't* get new batteries for my Nexus 5's only the cheapo knockoffs now.
I buy the highest quality ones I can but it's still a crap-shoot.

As to the ability to change the battery, on the nexus 5 I can do a battery swap in 5 min, a screen swap in 38.

I'm rather fearful my pixel won't be so easy.

Re:Start from the top.

[iampiti]

Well, you can often find $5 batteries for phones buy they're usually very crappy chines batteries. They usually last a few weeks then severely degrade or stop working altogether. 15-20$ ir more like it for decent batteries. Samsung asks for about 30€ where I live so it's not a bad price for an official battery.

Re:Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

The battery in your device gets worse every day, they are a lot of factors that can affect the rate of decay. Too much info to the user, especially ones who do not really understand what is going on, will see after a month of usage their battery isn't at 100% there can be a rush to get it fix, having staff trying to explain the numbers are not in the warranty range, thus opening to seem like they are performing bad customer service.

You seem very keen to defend Apple 'protecting' the poor idiots from 'too much information'. It would be ridiculously easy to show the battery capacity as a number next to a mark on a green/yellow/red status bar, with a note (for example) to the effect that 'green' status is not eligible for warranty replacement.

Re:Start from the top.

[datavirtue]

....and then act like they are fixing this by doing people a favor. An upgraded battery for a Samsung is $9 on Amazon and you dont have to part with your phone for any amount of time to install it.

Re: Start from the top.

[tsqr]

All of the costs you listed are there whether the employee is replacing batteries or standing around with their finger in their ear.

Re:Start from the top.

[JohnFen]

An upgraded battery for a Samsung is $9 on Amazon

Have you used those? I have. They tend to last less than a year before needing to be replaced again.

Re: Start from the top.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are people getting upset over?
The software helped your phone run longer....

It's like customers actually want to be forced to buy a new battery every two years.

Re: Start from the top.

[david_thornley]

And, while you're closer, you're still lowballing it. That Genius Bar the guy's working at isn't free. Apple presumably leases the space and pays for utilities. The Genius needs a supervisor, and there will be administrative costs. If the employee gets actual benefits, or vacation, or anything like that, the cost goes up. Typically, an employee costs something like double his or her actual pay.

Re: Start from the top.

[david_thornley]

You know what you should do? Go into business for yourself, since you've figured out how to get by without a lot of costs real businesses have. You'll be able to undercut them.

Re:Start from the top.

[datavirtue]

The shit batteries are curated on Amazon. The reviews filter out the crap. I have been buying really well made batteries from China....no problems. In years past you usually got screwed but not the case as much any more.

Re:Start from the top.

[datavirtue]

Your straw-man is on fire.

Re:Start from the top.

[datavirtue]

You forgot "holding it wrong."

Re:Start from the top.

[datavirtue]

Not Apple profit....just regular profit. The horror.

Re: Start from the top.

[datavirtue]

They are so happy to be working for the Apple that they work for free. So yeah...somewhere around $15 an hour...charity work essentially.

Re:Start from the top.

[Khyber]

Flextronics, Bartlett, TN (Before they moved to off of Shelby Drive in Memphis, TN.) Even then the G3 and G4 laptop batteries were like $12 while Apple charged $120 for a replacement. I handled the OS imaging for the east coast schools, with those utterly shit district-locked versions of OSx 10.2.x and would only accept those operating system versions, never to upgrade. That means I had identical hardware which could not run the latest 10.2.x updates, I had about 18 system images to choose from (none of which were labeled by district, and every terminal had a different order for the images, with no means of separation. That means I had to deal with memorizing four different OS imaging stations and each of their actual menu configs. Oh but those were laptops, too, and sometimes they got switched around because some tech needed a quick system to double-check an external device that got sent in, like a firewire drive. Great, now I have to figure it out all over again, meanwhile constantly failing to install the proper OS onto the goddamned laptops because of this.

And the shipments of logic boards from Guadalajara. fucking sand in them. We were having to send 1/3 of the repairs right back to the beginning because the logic boards were fucked. Thanks for outsourcing assembly to Mexico, Steve!

Looks like similar QA standards still happen at Apple today, with the same cheap labor and same cheap-ass parts.

Hey, did you guys ever get rid of that shit Cashmere testing suite?

Re:Start from the top.

[Khyber]

You did the conditioning steps. That is your problem. You condition NiCd batteries. Ni-MH and Lithium did not need it and in fact damages it.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheRaven64]

Yeah... no. The instructions specifically said that it won't have the full charge capacity until you do. Conditioning has nothing to do with the chemical part of the battery, it's entirely to calibrate the electronics that control the charge and discharge rates.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Your straw-man is on fire.

No "straw man" here.

The quality of the battery is ABSOLUTELY germane to this discussion.

Grow up.

Re:Start from the top.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Flextronics, Bartlett, TN (Before they moved to off of Shelby Drive in Memphis, TN.) Even then the G3 and G4 laptop batteries were like $12 while Apple charged $120 for a replacement. I handled the OS imaging for the east coast schools, with those utterly shit district-locked versions of OSx 10.2.x and would only accept those operating system versions, never to upgrade. That means I had identical hardware which could not run the latest 10.2.x updates, I had about 18 system images to choose from (none of which were labeled by district, and every terminal had a different order for the images, with no means of separation. That means I had to deal with memorizing four different OS imaging stations and each of their actual menu configs. Oh but those were laptops, too, and sometimes they got switched around because some tech needed a quick system to double-check an external device that got sent in, like a firewire drive. Great, now I have to figure it out all over again, meanwhile constantly failing to install the proper OS onto the goddamned laptops because of this.

And the shipments of logic boards from Guadalajara. fucking sand in them. We were having to send 1/3 of the repairs right back to the beginning because the logic boards were fucked. Thanks for outsourcing assembly to Mexico, Steve!

Looks like similar QA standards still happen at Apple today, with the same cheap labor and same cheap-ass parts.

Hey, did you guys ever get rid of that shit Cashmere testing suite?

Sounds like you are a pretty lame technician.

Why would Apple go to ALL the trouble of having to create and maintain separate SKUs for "version-locked" computers? It makes no sense; because not only is it SURE to get Apple booted-OFF the "vendor list" for the next-round of computer purchases, but it actually costs Apple MORE money to keep all the manufacturing, warehousing, shipping and other logistics SEPARATE for those ALLEGED "version-locked" machines!!!

Oh, and as for the "sand in the boxes", EVERYONE, even Apple, occasionally has a supplier go off the leash. Wonder if they are STILL a Supplier for Apple?

Since you are obviously stupid, what I suggest was happening was you were attempting to install OS X with an incorrectly-chosen MACHINE-SPECIFIC Install Disc (grey label) for Panther, rather than using the "Full Retail" (Jaguar-fur-looking label) 10.2 install disc, which would install on ANY system of that time-period capable of running OS X at ALL.

But you and your hack employer obviously didn't bother to find any of that out. Now why Apple had those machine-specific OS X install discs is obviously to reduce piracy. Remember, OS X was selling for $129 retail at that time, and Apple didn't want a gazillion pirate copies of OS X installer discs floating around, killing sales of upgrade discs. In retrospect, it probably was more trouble than it was worth for Apple; but it wasn't that the MACHINES were "version-locked" to a specific version of OS X, it was that the INSTALL DISCS you were using only had Drivers loaded on them for one, or a small group of, models of Macs.

By the way, one of the LEGITIMATE reasons why Apple made those machine-specific Installer-discs was that it reduced the "footprint" of the installed OS. Hard drives were miniscule at that time, and saving a few GB (or even 10s of MBs) by not installing a bunch of Drivers and other Libraries that would NEVER BE USED on a particular machine, the machine-specific installers provided a way for Apple to keep their Installer code as simple (and thus as bug-free) as possible, while providing the user with an OS X install that MAXIMIZED their Hard Drive's free-space.

Re:Start from the top.

[Khyber]

"The instructions specifically said that it won't have the full charge capacity until you do"

That should have been done at the factory right after coming off the assembly line, when the battery control electronics were installed and should have been tested.

Re:Start from the top.

[SharpFang]

Only after a world-wide scandal. Formerly, you'd have it replaced for $80.

See? The battery is removable!

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can replace the battery, it's removable!

scummy

[Anonymous Coward]

the non-apology.

a chance to give apple more money!

Re:scummy

[TheFakeTimCook]

the non-apology.

a chance to give apple more money!

Oh, boy!

$30 rather than $1k for a new phone.

Apple sure are some evil geniuses...

Re:scummy

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, boy!

$30 rather than $1k for a new phone.

Apple sure are some evil geniuses...

Well, that's better than losing hundreds of millions of USD in lawsuit.

Re:scummy

[Anonymous Coward]

you must work for apple. only an apple shill would think that everyone else is so stupid. At this point they trying to minimize the damage.

Re:scummy

[sound vision]

Oh, so now it only costs twice as much as other phones' batteries... until the price cut expires in a year.

Sounds about as good as the Republican tax plan.

Re: scummy

[Brockmire]

Fuck, you're being obtuse. Up until recently, people thought their best option to a slow phone was a newer $1000 phone, not a $79 repair. People think of battery as operating life, not operating performance. If it reports having juice, it should be at max speed, right? By hiding this "feature", many people couldn't make an informed decision. Given the new information, how many people would have been happy to replace the battery instead of the phone? Apple is going to take a beating on new sales because now that this is public, those old, slow ass phones will get a $29 new battery and resold for cheaper than a new phone. The resale market is going to boom and people will not upgrade as often.

Re: scummy

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple loves all of us, but Apple loves you more than most people. They want you to be happy, and they will do anything to make that happen. I hate how some people canâ(TM)t just let go and let Apple. They always have to think, but Apple doesnâ(TM)t want you to think, they want you to consume, and to love them as much as they love you. Stop thinking, and let Apple take the wheel. Let them drive you to the promised land, where all of the issues are but a distant memory. Open your heart to Appleâ(TM)s love, and happiness will be your reward!

Re: scummy

[Bongo]

I'm an apple fan, and their not making the info available right up front, "hey guys, new feature! we call it replicant-survival mode, where the candle which burns half as bright burns... ah whatever you get it, anyway, it is there", was definitely an oversight/bad decision/rubbish.

A lot of people will sensibly think, yeah ok, that feature makes sense, even if there was no way to turn it off. If you have an old phone, you are probably into "conserving" anyway, so it makes lots of sense.

Re:scummy

[TheFakeTimCook]

Oh, so now it only costs twice as much as other phones' batteries... until the price cut expires in a year.

Sounds about as good as the Republican tax plan.

Prove it"

Re: scummy

[TheFakeTimCook]

Fuck, you're being obtuse. Up until recently, people thought their best option to a slow phone was a newer $1000 phone, not a $79 repair. People think of battery as operating life, not operating performance. If it reports having juice, it should be at max speed, right?

By hiding this "feature", many people couldn't make an informed decision. Given the new information, how many people would have been happy to replace the battery instead of the phone?

Apple is going to take a beating on new sales because now that this is public, those old, slow ass phones will get a $29 new battery and resold for cheaper than a new phone. The resale market is going to boom and people will not upgrade as often.

Dumbfuck. When you get your battery replaced by Apple, you get your original phone BACK.

Re: scummy

[TheFakeTimCook]

I'm an apple fan, and their not making the info available right up front, "hey guys, new feature! we call it replicant-survival mode, where the candle which burns half as bright burns... ah whatever you get it, anyway, it is there", was definitely an oversight/bad decision/rubbish.

A lot of people will sensibly think, yeah ok, that feature makes sense, even if there was no way to turn it off. If you have an old phone, you are probably into "conserving" anyway, so it makes lots of sense.

I think Apple realizes NOW, that it should have been more transparent about what their "fix" for the premature shutdown issue was actually doing. My personal opinion was that they expected that their timing changes would be small and relatively infrequent, and so really WOULDN'T be noticed by Users. But then Real Life intervened, and some phones' batteries were bad enough that the temporary throttling WAS noticeable; especially when compared to what performance was AFTER a battery-change...

And the rest is history.

TL;dr

Even big, "evil" corporations make mistakes. Apple is handling this as best as can be expected.

Re: scummy

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried this, shit for brains? That is actually not Apple policy.

Re: scummy

[sound vision]

Source: apple.com, Amazon.com

Re: scummy

[Anonymous Coward]

Prove it...

Re: scummy

[TheFakeTimCook]

Source: apple.com, Amazon.com

So, you're SERIOUSLY going to compare Apple's REAL OEM batteries to some slabs of plastic-wrapped aftermarket bacon off of some STILL-UNREFERENCED source on AMAZON?'!?

Got it!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:in other words

[Known Nutter]

As I understand it, the lawsuits don't really have much to do with battery life, but rather Apple intentionally slowing devices as new devices are released. Do I have that right? IANAL, of course.

Re:in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

They're already facing multiple suits... this is more of a goodwill move

It's about intent.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about intent.

Re: It's about intent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I do find the feature useful. I would prefer my phone last longer than for the apps to run smoother.... itâ(TM)s.... ultimately a phone.

But hey, we got cheaper Batt replacements so not a bad outcome! ;)

Actually I think all they could have done is to make it a setting and default it to on.... so whoever donâ(TM)t like it can turn it off.

Re: It's about intent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the margins they're making from you, they could make the battery change free, and it would still be a rip off ;)

Re: It's about intent.

[JohnFen]

But hey, we got cheaper Batt replacements so not a bad outcome! ;)

I suppose, in the sense that someone telling you "I'm going to temporarily stop assaulting you" is a "good outcome".

Re:in other words

[rjstanford]

And those are likely to be dismissed - no evidence yet shows any correlation between iOS version and performance scores that's not actually due to a poor battery.

FWIW, I replaced the battery in my 3yo iPhone 6 a few months ago, and it despite heavy use it hadn't dropped enough to trigger the slowdown. It had degraded noticeably from a battery life standpoint though, so well worth replacing regardless.

Looks like the Verge is playing defence

[Hal_Porter]

for Apple a bit like BGR did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Finally doing what they should have done

[SuperKendall]

From the article on the $29 battery replacement:

Apple's also promising to add features to iOS that provide more information about the battery health in early 2018, so that users are aware of when their batteries are no longer capable of supporting maximum phone performance

I'm more happy about that than anything, it will be great to have something concrete to point to if someones phone seems slow and I want to rule out an old battery being part of the issue.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[LordKronos]

Except that they're lying

so that users are aware of when their batteries are no longer capable of supporting maximum phone performance

Bullshit. Even a severely degraded battery is capable of supporting maximum phone performance. No other phone on the market slows down no matter how bad the battery gets. This is a bullshit scam on their part. If they want to provide users the OPTION of favoring full-day battery over performance, then give then the OPTION. But apple doesn't like options. They like to decide for you, and part of that is deciding that if you don't like a slow phone you must either pay them for a new battery or you pay them for a new phone. One way or the other, you WILL pay them and you WILL like it.

Re: Finally doing what they should have done

[Anonymous Coward]

Give the option when the battery takes the dump: how about a simple 50/50 choice; extend battery life at the cost of performance, or run at full performance at the risk of running out of battery. Holy fuck, that's hard.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually...other phones suffer the battery issues constantly. I deal with the crap all the time where Android users complain thier phone have weird issues crop up as their phone ages past the 12-18 month stage. They swear it can't be the battery, we wipe the phone, and yet it persists. A new OEM battery later, and their issues are almost always cleared up. When phones required the small amount a Nokia candybar used it was no problem. There's more power in a modern iPhone than desktop computers released a few years ago. Just as when a PC PSU is failing & making for bizzare shit going on, so can a battery make for high speed computations to eat it.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[JohnFen]

It's not as much bullshit as you think. When Lithium ion batteries age, they are no longer able to handle peak loads while maintaining the rated voltage. Apple was not lying about old batteries causing phones to mysteriously shut down for no apparent reason.

I've seen the same thing happen in other phones -- the battery indicator says you have adequate charge, then you do something computationally intense and your phone shuts down without warning.

Having an indication that your battery is in this condition is very useful. Otherwise, it's not clear what's wrong with your phone.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Luthair]

Why is the problem endemic in a handful of models? That suggests to me the engineers didn't design the phone or battery correctly or some sort of widespread manufacturing error. Either way the companies behind these problematic devices should be fixing them for free for the device lifespan.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Anonymous Coward]

What they SHOULD HAVE DONE is not be a bunch of arrogant pricks and sold a phone where the end user can't simply buy a replacement battery and pop it in themselves.
Sorry, but I am simply DONE with Apple and all their apologists not facing up to the consequences of their design choices.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[hey!]

As Mr. Scott would say, you canna change the laws of physics.

All batteries have internal resistance, which limits the power the battery can deliver. As you draw more and more current, the voltage across the internal resistance increases, and that limits the amount of power you can actually deliver into a load.

This is true of every battery, so to the designers have to supply a "big" battery -- which is the same as saying a battery with a low internal resistance. The wrinkle here is that batteries age. Lithium ion batteries age rather quickly too, even if they're just kept on the shelf. And by age, I mean that the internal resistance rises, which is the same as saying they become "smaller" as they get older.

So saying that some models have this problem and others don't is just wrong. *All* models have this problem, it just affects some models earlier than others.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Luthair]

Except that we've had modern smart phones for 10-years and the only models that I've heard about with widespread complaints about this issue are the Nexus 6P and the iphone 6. If this were purely physics we would be hearing this for every model yet - heck on the Android side we even have phones using the same processor as the 6P but don't seem to have the issue.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[xystren]

Three words: User Replaceable Battery

There is absolutely no reason why Apple, and every other mobile device can't do this. But it doesn't fall within their planned obsolescence marketing strategy.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[AmiMoJo]

Most manufacturers design their phones to work at maximum performance with aged batteries. If the battery is fairly large it's generally not a problem anyway.

Apple likes to use small, low capacity batteries. I guess it helps them keep the smaller models thin. What is really bad is that they apparently didn't test with degraded batteries. That's a really basic mistake to be making.

Even if they didn't test before launch, I'd expect them to have phones on long term test, going through charge cycles and stress tests so that they can see any problems before they become widespread. That's what I do.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[CanadianMacFan]

Crap, that means I'm going to have to downgrade to iOS11 after all. There's nothing else there except stuff that take up cpu cycles for eye candy and the increasingly crappy Music app (if you just want to play music you have downloaded onto the device that is).

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Three words: User Replaceable Battery

There is absolutely no reason why Apple, and every other mobile device can't do this. But it doesn't fall within their planned obsolescence marketing strategy.

Exactly. I use an old Galaxy S5 and replacing the battery takes about a minute and costs ~$25 or so. What's not to like about that?

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Uberbah]

Except that we've had modern smart phones for 10-years and the only models that I've heard about with widespread complaints about this issue are the Nexus 6P and the iphone 6.

Well, there is the amplification effect of the Hatorade Distortion Field. There are many phones where the manufacturer advises users not to hold it wrong - but they weren't made by Apple so it wasn't a problem.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The lawsuits saying the phone has a defective design are bang on. All this battery performance crap is just typical apple and their mindless followers smoke and mirrors. I hand down my old Android phones to family and none of them are throttled. Batteries must work different in the reality distortion field.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[hey!]

First of all, ten years isn't the right time frame. For most of that time replaceable batteries were still the norm. You have to focus on the the period in which replaceable batteries had become a rarity. During that shorter period, more phones than just those two developed battery issues over their lifetime. The Samsung Galaxy S6, for example. That would have been a fiasco, except that by the time it started to be a problem it was overshadowed by a bigger fiasco Samsung was having with its next gen phones.

Li-ion batteries means they lose capacity rather quickly, but that didn't matter when you could replace them. These days the only way to be sure that a phone still usable after two years is to spec a battery with plenty excess capacity.

But do customers appreciate that capacity? Not when they're auditioning the phone in the showroom, and not in the first few months when critical word of mouth could kill sales. So future capacity is an attractive place to shortchange the customer.

Re: Finally doing what they should have done

[houghi]

And you are sure they will not lie about that?

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[hcs_$reboot]

Thanks, but that's a bit late. How many people wouldn't have upgraded to a 8/X if their iPhone didn't behave snailish (or if they'd known the slow-down is programmed / linked to the battery health)?

Re: Finally doing what they should have done

[Brockmire]

So an Android user is able to figure out its defective battery and not software so they can replace it and get full functionality again. What the fuck point were you trying to make in Apple's favour?

Re: Finally doing what they should have done

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple loves you. They want you to be happy. They could show you how to be happy, but you need to let go and let Apple. Come on, join us! Join us, and we will face a new day together! A day where we work to serve in Appleâ(TM)s glory, and prove our love to them by giving our most precious gift to them ... our undying loyalty. Fight beside me as we battle against the forces of evil which would try to make Apple look bad. Itâ(TM)s all a conspiracy. Theyâ(TM)re all jealous. These are people who worry how much memory is in their phones, instead of trusting in our organization t give us what we need. Decisions cause stress to the human mind and are counter-productive. Apple offers us a way where we no longer have to make them. A few times a year, they tell us what to buy, and without question, we buy them. In exchange, Apple looks out for us, and make sure weâ(TM)re always well taken care of. I love Apple. Apple loves me. Come to Apple, confess the negative things you said about them, and throw yourself on their mercy. Let go. Let Apple.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[l20502]

I'd say the cause is power management, older phones even at full power didn't suck up as much battery/current as modern ones can in a short time, because they only had a slow single core processor with 2 or 3 frequency scaling options. Cram too much power in without an adequate supply and rush to compete with other manufacturers and when the battery gets weaker the phone dies.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Luthair]

First of all, ten years isn't the right time frame. For most of that time replaceable batteries were still the norm. You have to focus on the the period in which replaceable batteries had become a rarity. During that shorter period, more phones than just those two developed battery issues over their lifetime.

The battery being user replaceable doesn't matter for this - even if users could replace the battery themselves we would have heard complaints about phones with widespread issues consistently crashing

The Samsung Galaxy S6, for example. That would have been a fiasco, except that by the time it started to be a problem it was overshadowed by a bigger fiasco Samsung was having with its next gen phones.

What Samsung S6 problem? High battery drain after the update? That sounds very much like laziness with software support than a hardware battery issue

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Luthair]

Again, in the case of the Nexus 6P there are phones with identical processors that do not exhibit the issue.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[thegarbz]

Apple was not lying about old batteries causing phones to mysteriously shut down for no apparent reason.

Not lying, but not exposing the truth which is the Apple's design was fucked from the onset and that these sudden poweroffs under load are unheard of from any other manufacture. An ancient lithium cell will happily provide 2A of power. If you are able to crash your phone due to that limit you've screwed up your design.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Anonymous Coward]

A severely degraded battery does NOT support full performance. Without reducing speed, you get issues like the phone just crashing under high demand or just going from 30% to 5% in the blink of an eye.

And no, this doesn't happen only to Apple or phones. I once had this happen to a Laptop. It went from just sitting there idle with around 30% battery to 'off' in a second. New battery, problem solved.

There is also a good reason why you don't want the phone to crash. Smartphones run a UNIX OS nowadays, crashes can cause problems with the filesystem and corrupt data, something you really don't want to happen.

I do agree that they handled this poorly, they should display a warning once they have to slow down the CPU so you know the battery is going bad and should think about getting it replaced while still being able to use the phone. But then people would complain about the warning.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Anonymous Coward]

So taking off a couple screws and removing some adhesive makes it user non-replaceable? Come on now.
 
Oddly enough, we hear this noise from the same people who thought that recompiling an OS kernel to get a print driver to work correctly was just fine and dandy. Give me a break.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[JohnFen]

I agree that it was a terrible design decision -- like removing the headphone jack. Those decisions are made even worse because other manufacturers are copying them.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[JohnFen]

Why is the problem endemic in a handful of models?

I have seen this occur in all sorts of different devices -- even ones I've designed and built myself. It's not just iPhones, and it's not just a handful of models. Different designs can affect things, though. If you have circuitry that has high peak current demands, that makes the problem worse. And the more modern the phone, the more likely it is that it has high peak current demands.

This is all basic physics and chemistry -- none of this is surprising or new. Actually, battery tech has made the situation much better than it was in the early days of lithium ion, although the increasingly power-hungry nature of phones has made some of that improvement hard to see from the user's perspective.

Apple's problem wasn't the design at all. Apple's problem was that they weren't being honest and forthright to their customers about the limitations of the tech.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it was true that 'the same people' say these things (and you probably just pulled this out your ass), it's still in no way comparable. Opening your glued-up phone is an operation which can definitely lead to your phone being bricked, in the proper sense of the word (i..e hardware damage beyond economic repair with void warranty). Recompiling a kernel and finding it won't boot means you can recover in 20s by rebooting with the previous kernel.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[david_thornley]

You know why they're unheard? Nobody bothers reporting them. People who have other phones have observed problems, but reporting on iPhones grabs eyeballs.

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[ZorroXXX]

Yes, that move by Apple was truly anti-feature and anti-competitive. And you know they have zero good reasons for doing it when the best excuse they come up with is "courage". It is hard to imagine a worse non-relevant excuse. As I have said before, the sensible problem analysis would be

What is the problem? The 3.5mm audio jack limits the minimum thickness of phones. What is the cause? Physical properties. What is the solution? Standardize a thinner analog audio jack. Possible bonus: Making sure all existing 3.5mm jack "extensions" like additional microphone are included.

However, this being mainly driven by Apple the obviously correct solution above is not what they want. The problem analysed from their point of view looks like the following:

What is the problem? Apple would like to sell more and expensive audio accessories to people, even though they actually do not need this. Also Apple would like to do this as exclusively as possible, without bothersome competition. What is the cause? People already own a lot of existing audio hardware that works just fine. And there is a lot of competition with a low barrier to entry. What is the solution? Remove the option to use the 3.5mm jack (and justify by blaming physical size) and thus force people to just discard all their existing, fully functional audio hardware and buy new (from Apple).

And now before you start objecting that the analogue audio signal is not as good as what a digital signal could be (let's ignore for the moment the relevance of this considering the typical noisy environment a phone is used in), then consider the following: There exists zero technical obstacles to designing a jack that defaults to analogue but can be switched into digital. Any objections to this would be of political nature.

Re: Finally doing what they should have done

[Anonymous Coward]

while I support user-replaceable batteries, you cannot make a waterproof or water-resistant phone with them. it's either waterproof or user-replaceable. for now, you can't have it both ways and the market wants the former(waterproof).

Re:Finally doing what they should have done

[JohnFen]

Except that we've had modern smart phones for 10-years

And the vast majority of those smartphones have let you replace the battery, which mitigates the issue. Last year, my Android phone battery reach the end of its life. I knew it because it started to randomly shut down even though I made no changes to settings and installed no new applications.

I just replaced the battery, and it's like new. Nobody heard me complain because it was a nonissue.

Comsumable component

[Anonymous Coward]

That's inside a phone SEALED SHUT with **GLUE**.

One part of this saga I still don't understand

[93 Escort Wagon]

So early on after iOS 10 was released, we started to see a significant number of people reporting an issue where their phone batteries would be at 30% (or thereabouts) and suddenly the phone would just quit. This apparently is the problem the 10.2.1+ slowdown was intended to fix, and the one Apple is saying is due to older batteries not being able to provide as much power under load, as it were.

So if this was simply an "old degraded battery" issue - why didn't we have people reporting these problems in iOS 9, iOS 8, or earlier? It seems to me that the battery problem can only be part of this story.

Re:One part of this saga I still don't understand

[sims 2]

Still sounds like bs to me lithium batteries are very good at providing amps up until they run dead so it seems to me that their battery meter just needs to recalibrate. So 1% battery actually means 1% instead of 30% meaning 1%.

The older IOS versions could handle this as their batteries degraded did they just forget how to do that?

Also IIRC they implemented a low power mode years ago that would lower the processor speed at 10% and below but nothing directly related to the battery capacity.

Re: One part of this saga I still don't understand

[Brockmire]

More current draw. Bigger screens, more CPU, different radios.

This was my first thought

[rsilvergun]

I'm guessing this comes with some paper work to sign bowing out of any class action. I've replaced three iPhones now due to declining performance and I'm guessing this was to culprit.

Not a bad business model while it lasted.

[thevirtualcat]

1. User buys iPhone.
2. iPhone gets "slow."
3. Users sells iPhone back.
4. Replace battery.
5. Sell "refurbished" iPhone to another user for a tidy profit.

Re:Not a bad business model while it lasted.

[QuietLagoon]

Quite correct. Apple had the golden goose and was eating it too. Quite the boon to the stock price.... while it lasted. I learned about the Apple hardware upgrade treadmill when my Macmini was tossed aside by Apple because it was no longer "compatible."

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the Battery Life app my three years old iPhone 6 battery still is at 97% capacity. I think I will just wait until the end of 2018 before spending 29 bucks for going to 100% again.

And yes, I’ve probably just been lucky. But I charge my phone every other day or so and never got all the complaints. I certainly will cherish the fact that I will be able to sell my iPhone next year with a “new battery”.

Could have avoided this mess

[phalse phace]

by including in iOS the ability to see health information of battery like you can on MacBooks. Show the Cycle Count and Condition and other pertinent info so users have a better idea of when the battery is bad and needs replacing.

$79 is typical Apple: overpriced.

[Anonymous Coward]

A battery pack costs Apple about $5: https://technology.ihs.com/api/binary/595761

Which means they are only making a $24 profit instead of $74.

$29 is actually a fair price price that an independent repair shop might charge.

Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then start designing a phone with a battery that can easily be replaced without a suction cup, specialized screwdriver, and three or four other tools.
If the average consumer canâ(TM)t pop a new one in then the phone is consumable, not the battery.

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

And then people put in some cheap, crappy 3rd party battery which causes issues not much later and blame, of course, Apple...

Re: Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, a LOT of people were using third party batteries with nokia/samsung phones a few years ago. even extended batteries with custom battery covers were commonly used. this should not be a concern. what usually happened with a bad/low-quality battery is that the charge would last only three days, as opposed to a whole week with a OEM battery.

Just proves the adage...

[QuietLagoon]

... it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Sort of stuck now

[joe_frisch]

If they remove the slowdown, then they will be admitting that the excuse was a lie in the first place. So providing inexpensive batteries doesn't force them to admit to lying and open themselves up to a lawsuit.

Obviously I don't know if the original excuse was true or not, but this was pretty much the only thing that they could have done in either case.

Does anyone know enough about Li Ion batteries to weigh in on whether or not this makes sense? Does the peak power capability drop enough that its likely it couldn't support the power use?

Re:Sort of stuck now

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that they did it to the 6 and 6S first with iOS 10, and then started doing it with 7 too with iOS 11 (after the iPhone 8 and X were announced), I'd say: no. No, it does not make any sense.

Are you aware of any Android phone that has to throttle the CPU when the battery is old? Any anything that does that? Like a laptop or a tablet?

I've never heard of such a thing. Ever.

I'd say Apple got caught trying to trick people into upgrading older phones and are now desperately looking for excuses.

Re:Sort of stuck now

[AmiMoJo]

The limiting factor in how much power can be supplied is usually the physical layout of the battery. In particular the size of the cathode. Because Apple want physically small batteries they selected marginal batteries.

Re:Sort of stuck now

[sabbede]

Even if battery life degrades as they claim, the only reasonable way to throttle performance is dynamically according to actual battery health info, not force it through OS updates. The only consumer friendly option is to let us decide if we prefer charge or performance.

Re:Sort of stuck now

[david_thornley]

If it was forced through OS updates, replacing the battery wouldn't restore the performance. It's connected to battery health.

Sorry, not sorry

[PopeRatzo]

These are my favorite types of corporate apologies:

"We at Apple want to apologize to any of our snowflake consumers who misunderstood our intent to force them into our new models. We did not mean to offend these little pricks who expect our products to work more than a couple of years. Now send us some money and we'll totally fix the problem we created."

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[Glarimore]

Oh, fuck off.

I know this is Slashdot, so everyone likes to paint Apple like they are complete corporate assholes, but let's consider this for a second: Maybe Apple started slowing down phones with diminished batteries because they realized that their customers, on average, prefer a phone that lasts 20 hours with diminished performance, than one that operates at peak performance but is dead after they've been out of the house for four hours? And I can see where having a phone that doesn't die midday would cause you to keep using your current phone for LONGER!

This is the same company whose major selling point is "it just works" -- "It's still works fine, but is slightly slower" is a lot closer to that goal than "it works great until lunchtime and then it's completely unusable."

I'm also willing to bet that have most of you assholes making snide remarks are Android users who are wholly unaffected (I am an Android user myself, if it matters), but feel a need to take it to the company whose users aren't quite /r/iamverysmart enough to operate in the Windows/Android space.

As for my personal opinion, I don't think Apple made a bade decision here. They should have been transparent about it from the get go, but I do not think they were acting in a nefarious way or with poor intentions.

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you sir can F/O!
The reason you see so many complaints about Apple on Slashdot is that most of us have been around long enough to see Apple's arrogance stomp all over their customers time and time again and those very same users go running back to them because they have been sold on their image of being a "premium" product.
I was actually OK with that (because it only effected those who bought Apple products) until all the other tech companies completely lost their minds and started trying to clone Apple's every decision. Now every stupid, fashion-jewelry-like decision Apple comes out with becomes the only choice for everyone. THAT is what has made me so bitter towards them these last few years, and I suspect it's the same way for others.

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[PopeRatzo]

Maybe Apple started slowing down phones with diminished batteries because they realized that their customers, on average, prefer a phone that lasts 20 hours with diminished performance

So why not say that to customers? Why not make it a setting so customers can decide whether they want their phones slowed down? Why not make it a setting and give customers a choice? Remember, the fact that Apple was slowing down older devices was only revealed after an independent study proved it. That's what it took, to make Apple admit what they had done.

One should always assume a corporation is complete corporate assholes until there is ample evidence to the contrary. If someone buys a product, the owner has something of a right to know when the company that made that product is remotely slowing down their device.

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[Khyber]

"Maybe Apple started slowing down phones with diminished batteries because they realized that their customers, on average, prefer a phone that lasts 20 hours with diminished performance, than one that operates at peak performance but is dead after they've been out of the house for four hours? And I can see where having a phone that doesn't die midday would cause you to keep using your current phone for LONGER!"

Actually, you can fuck right off. When you sell me a product, you sell me a product that works at 100% capacity AT ALL TIMES. Anything else is outright fraud and apologist shills like you should have your right to vote revoked for your utter stupidity.

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[omnichad]

They should have been transparent about it from the get go, but I do not think they were acting in a nefarious way or with poor intentions.

Not even with the glaringly obvious reason that they wouldn't be transparent? The fact that they can let consumers assume it's because their phone is "old" or "behind the times" without having to lie to them directly. They had a huge profit motive in not stopping or slowing customers from buying new phones.

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

These are my favorite types of corporate apologies:

"We at Apple want to apologize to any of our snowflake consumers who misunderstood our intent to force them into our new models. We did not mean to offend these little pricks who expect our products to work more than a couple of years. Now send us some money and we'll totally fix the problem we created."

Genius!

Re: Sorry, not sorry

[houghi]

That would be given the customers optiond. Not one of the things they like to do. They where reluctant to let the customers pick a color.

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

No phone works at 100% capacity at all times, it can't with all the constraints (cooling, power)... Remember that one Qualcom Snapdragon SoC that would overheat after a few minutes of running at 100% and had to throttle back?

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[sabbede]

EXACTLY!!

Maybe I'm fine with a 6 hour charge and max performance.

And since it's based on OS versions instead of actual battery health info, it looks ever more like another lie.

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

One should always assume a corporation is complete corporate assholes until there is ample evidence to the contrary

Is this an extension of Hanlon's Razor or a different law entirely?

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[david_thornley]

Exactly what phone are you describing? It clearly isn't the iPhone.

The performance limits are not to extend battery life. They're to prevent phone crashes. You may be willing to accept 6-hour battery life. Are you willing to accept random crashes when you're using the phone to get maximum performance?

It is based on battery health. The iOS version was that Apple introduced the limits into a version to prevent random crashes, giving it a capability. If it were the iOS version, it would not be possible to restore performance by installing a new battery, and it we have good reports of it doing so.

In the past, Apple has released iOS versions that ran badly on older iPhones, but that was because the OS was designed for a more powerful phone. They may have learned from that; my four-year-old 5S is running fine on the latest OS.

Re:Sorry, not sorry

[Khyber]

Thank god my MIL-SPEC phone can run at 100% because it's got a weirdly usable thermally-conductive plastic heat sink built into its tank body. And it can charge at very high rates of speed as well thanks to said construction.

Think seriously about Apple's development process

[QuietLagoon]

Seriously... How can anyone even think that this was an unintentional by-product of some other update? Has Apple really gotten that sloppy with their software development process? ... Really.... Apple is famed for their software developemnt process and the user experience it creates. imo, this was an intentional "feature" that the fan bois would love. Unfortunately, it backfired.

Re:$79 is typical Apple: overpriced.

[phalse phace]

A battery pack costs Apple about $5: https://technology.ihs.com/api/binary/595761

Which means they are only making a $24 profit instead of $74.

Where is Apple getting the free labor from?

The cynic in me asks

[stabiesoft]

Did they do it all on purpose for some twisted marketing reason, from slowing it down, to leaking the problem, to giving a solution. The X is not selling well. I was at my carrier's store getting a new phone today (not an apple) and asked about the X. The manager said they had 20 in stock and they were not moving. Worse for them, they own it, can't discount it and can't return unsold inventory back to apple. There could be some very unhappy carriers if the get stuck with a bunch of X's. Could this battery getting headlines actually help sales of the X in some weird way?

Re:The cynic in me asks

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows you're a shitty little spammer. No one will visit your crappy little malware ridden website except to DDoS it. Just die already.

Well, You're Not Holding It Wrong...

[cstacy]

But you're draining it wrong...

Called it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sort of. I figured they’d offer free battery replacements to settle the lawsuits, but I guess they’re trying to get out in front of it. IMO, and standard IANAL disclaimer applied, if they had offered the replacements for free, it would make it difficult for the plaintiffs in the lawsuits to show any harm. Apple could cite legitimate engineering reasons why they took the action they did, and show that they were willing to restore devices to full original performance levels at no cost to the device owner, effectively making them whole. I doubt many judges would have the time of day for people who voluntarily refuse to avail themselves of a free service.

Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they end up having to reduce the price to free in order to settle the lawsuits, and then deal with the hassle and expense of refunding the money to everyone who coughed up the $30 before it was free.

Re:$79 is typical Apple: overpriced.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not free - look at the that summary and you'll see that labour is approximately 2.4% of cost price.

Re:$79 is typical Apple: overpriced.

[phalse phace]

The parent is stating that Apple is "only making a $24 profit" which isn't true.

The battery might "costs Apple about $5" but the parent fails to factor in the cost of labor, rent, electricity, and other overhead costs. Apple's true profit is lower.

Apologies are meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Make iPhones with USER-REPLACEABLE batteries, FFS. I have an old string-trimmer with a rechargeable/removeable Li-Io battery. On a full charge, when the battery gets low, there's a slight decrease in RPM for a while, then it dies. I then squeeze the release mechanism on the trimmer, slide the battery off, & drop it into the charger. I then grab my fully-charged spare battery, slap it onto the trimmer, & I'm back in business. How fuckin' cool is that?

Re:Think seriously about Apple's development proce

[93 Escort Wagon]

Has Apple really gotten that sloppy with their software development process?

Have you not been paying attention to the parade of Apple software bugaboos, large and small, that’ve occurred in the fairly recent past? Do you - or anyone in your circle of friends - honestly think iOS 11 is functionally better than iOS 10? Do you honestly believe that High Sierra is an improvement over Sierra, or that Sierra was an improvement over El Capitan?

Looking back a bit further... did you watch as Apple basically threw away a professional niche they pretty much owned with the ill-planned “update” known as Final Cut Pro X?

The days when Apple was known for software quality far above the competition is long gone. It’s true a number of us have still stuck around... I can’t really say if that’s just inertia, due to a potentially ill-founded hope they’ll return to the quality company they once were, or caused by something else though.

what apple should do for old phones

[FudRucker]

is make a striped down bare bones OS that just does the basic things the phone was made for, make phone calls, text msgs, camera, at least allow them to continue being used as a phone if the full features are vulnerable or no longer available as supported secure software, no need in annoying customers any worse than necessary or bricking otherwise good phones both of which would be bad business ideas

iPhone 4s

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand, the iPhone 4S isn't affected by this intentional slowdown. Then I wonder why my crappy old 4S is so dog slow. It's only got a few apps on it - I only use it for music streaming.

Re:iPhone 4s

[Khyber]

The iOS update itself is the cause.

Still overpriced

[Anonymous Coward]

Although people who are accustomed to paying Apple's prices probably won't be bothered.

The first time I replaced the battery in an Android phone (an HTC G1) it cost me $6.95. Including shipping. The second time it was cheaper.

(Appropriately, my captcha says "nameless".)

Fuck apple

[Anonymous Coward]

and their bullshit apology.

Bring on more lawsuits for this shitty evil company

Re:Fuck Apple

[gravewax]

if anything I only see my battery get stronger over time!

that is the sort of dumb shit I would expect an apple fanboy to say. Seriously Apple are arseholes we know that, that doesn't mean you should make up garbage like that and if you actually believe it is true you better sell it back to Samsung as I am sure they would be interested in this magical battery.

Re:Fuck Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure he was trying to be funny and sarcastic. At least I hope so.

Re:Fuck Apple

[Plumpaquatsch]

if anything I only see my battery get stronger over time!

that is the sort of dumb shit I would expect an apple fanboy to say.

But unsurprisingly to everyone else, a Fandroid said it.

Re:Fuck Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice the (TM) in the post? That's there cause iPhones send the ' differently then most devices/browsers.

That post was written by an iPhoner trolling. Not a fandroid you numbskull. Shoot it was probably you that wrote it.

Re:Fuck Apple

[jellomizer]

Not even Apple fanboys will go that far.
They will normally tout how a long time missing feature once implemented is so superior to the other implementations (The swipe features in iOS 11 is so much more innovative then WebOS a decade ago).
If the feature isn't in the device, they will defend why they don't need such a feature. (We don't need a fast charger as part of our device, as most people will just charge it overnight)

Any fanboys for any technology seem to be equally as bad. But right now Apple is in the #1 spot so there is some added smugness.

Re: Fuck Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that most fanbois are shills on Apple's payroll, don't you.

Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Scaling back performance "because of the battery".... lmao. Yea right. They were scaling back performance to push new device sales.

$29 Battery replacement is not a good solution. They are most likely still profiting from this because batteries aren't that expensive anyway. Telling someone they can have a $10 battery installed for $29, onsale from the normal $99 price, is still helping people who've you've scammed into buying newer devices.

Completely unacceptable. They should have some sort of compensation for the damages, not just a cut in profits.

Baseless hysteria

[iamacat]

Your phone depends on complex thermal and power management to avoid unpleasant things like suddenly shutting down, burning your privates or bursting in flames. When the later case occurs, like with Note 7, you have a cause to complain. Otherwise, it's normal for performance to vary based on the weather or a particular bumper case. Would you prefer for devices to be artificially throttled when conditions allow faster operations so you don't get disappointed when they are a little slower?

Re:Baseless hysteria

[Anonymous Coward]

Because people on the internet are hysterical shitheads who spend time with other people who amp their outrage. They cannot do this IRL because acting like a childish douchebag would get them a broken jaw. So they cry whine throw tantrums until like the blob they consume whatever is in their path. It's a mob mentality that requires no logic or reason.

Re:Baseless hysteria

[Anonymous Coward]

How's that Kool Aid taste, shill?

Re:Baseless hysteria

[iamacat]

I prefer OnePlus myself, but would gladly take reliability over a big of speed in any phone.

Re:Think seriously about Apple's development proce

[jittles]

Has Apple really gotten that sloppy with their software development process? ... Really.... Apple is famed for their software developemnt process and the user experience it creates. imo, this was an intentional "feature" that the fan bois would love. Unfortunately, it backfired.

Have you been living under a rock for the last 3-4 years? Apple's software quality is on par with a high school computer class these days. They can't even merge OS fixes from one OS forward into the next release branch.

So what are the odds this also affects Mac's?

[nihilistcanada]

Hmmn, I wonder if they also do this with Macbooks as well? Seems an easy way to avoid complaints with the batteries in laptops as well?

Re: $79 is typical Apple: overpriced.

[kenh]

It's not free - look at the that summary and you'll see that labour is approximately 2.4% of cost price.

Seriously? So the labor to replace the battery only costs 12Â?

Re:Apple fucked up and customers pay!

[marka63]

Car companies sell cars with lots of parts that wear out. You generally pay for new ones when the car is serviced.

Oh, you caught us (tee hee!)

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Oh, goodness gracious- you caught us. We're so embarrassed that we'll use this opportunity to sell you something else, like an overpriced battery. Aren't we just a bunch of naughty little rascals?

Hey, look over there- it's the iPhoneXs! The "s" is for "suckers", but you knew that, and we know you'll STILL buy it!

Re:Oh, you caught us (tee hee!)

[drinkypoo]

Oh, goodness gracious- you caught us. We're so embarrassed that we'll use this opportunity to sell you something else, like an overpriced battery. Aren't we just a bunch of naughty little rascals?

$29 is a good price for an official battery replacement. That's not the problem. The problem here is that they're only going to charge a reasonable price for one year, then raise the price again.

Re:Oh, you caught us (tee hee!)

[Albinoman]

It only seems like it till you realize its less power than 3 AAs.

Re:Oh, you caught us (tee hee!)

[drinkypoo]

It only seems like it till you realize its less power than 3 AAs.

Try fitting AAs in your cellphone.

Re:Apple fucked up and customers pay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but your car isn't programmed to degrade its performance as it ages. What if you started with a 200HP car when it was new, after year 1 it was only 170HP, after year 2 it was only 140HP and so on.

Bullshit â" itâ(TM)s not the battery

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf, the battery is just an excuse, while there might be a tiny hint of an issue here, the real purpose is to force users to upgrade phones. Fuck that. The whole thing just smells fishy. Why the fuck does the phone not slow down with older versions of the OS.

Re:Apple fucked up and customers pay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, yes it is. On some cars, there are some ECU flashes that are done due to wear/tear of the engine.

Re:Think seriously about Apple's development proce

[omnichad]

It would put them closer to par with their hardware development process. They've been designing hardware with major flaws for years and never acknowledging a thing. If a customer complains loud enough, they get a free replacement with no explanation - but no recalls, no attempts at anything better. Especially see every Macbook Pro for the last 10 years.

Re:in other words

[tsqr]

As I understand it, the lawsuits don't really have much to do with battery life, but rather Apple intentionally slowing devices as new devices are released. Do I have that right? IANAL, of course.

My understanding is that the lawsuits are about the fact that Apple concealed from users the fact that slowing down thw phones was done to prevent a degraded battery from causing intermittent shutdowns, in the hope that users would buy a new phone rather than opting for a much less expensive battery replacement.

Re:Apple fucked up and customers pay!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're flashing your ECU to fix wear/tear issues with your engine, then you're doing it wrong. How bout actually getting those wear and tear items fixed.

Re:Apple fucked up and customers pay!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know of any manufactures that do ECU updates as maintenance for wear and tear. They occasionally do bug fix ECU updates. And even in cases like Diesel Gate it wasn't an ECU update that made the cars start suddenly polluting more. The code was in there from the start that it looked for conditions that matched the what the feds used for their emissions testing. If those conditions were met, it ran in super clean mode. If you were everyday driving,then super clean mode was disabled.

Older iPhone than 6???

[Anonymous Coward]

What about older iPhones than 6???
How much you gotta pay to replace battery of iPhone SE??

User-replaceable batteries

[sydbarrett74]

All of this would be prevented by offering user-replaceable batteries. But gracious, no, we can't have that! We must keep customers on a hedonic hamster-wheel of annual upgrades! And wouldn't it be blasphemous if the phone had to be a whole millimetre thicker to support such replacement!

Don't agree with you saying Android makers idiots

[SuperKendall]

Even a severely degraded battery is capable of supporting maximum phone performance.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

No other phone on the market slows down no matter how bad the battery gets.

I'm not willing to make the same claim that Apple is the only phone maker smart enough to optimize for what people most want out of a phone generally - battery life.

I'm pretty sure some other Android maker must care more about users than performance metrics? Yet you seem so sure, hmm.

Yes there are reasons

[SuperKendall]

"User Replaceable Battery -There is absolutely no reason why Apple, and every other mobile device can't do this."

Yes there is, it's because all of the space taken up by battery casing and door support is space you could have used for more battery.

That's why most Android makers are also going with sealed batteries - which are still user replaceable if you care, which most do not.

Also dropping the option for user replaceable batteries solves a huge problem - the utter crappiness of third-party batteries these days. Sure back in the old days you could buy some other replacement battery for a motorola flip phone and things would be fine. But electronics now are a lot more demanding, I've seen third party batteries now cause issues for things like cameras because they simply are not built to the same specs as the manufacturer battery. With Apple and every other maker having sealed batteries, it presents less opportunity for users to make catastrophic mistakes.

Sorry, Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

too late. I won't ever buy any of your products again.

Re: $79 is typical Apple: overpriced.

[Brockmire]

Fucking iOS. Push the motherfucking fix, already!

Re:Apple fucked up and customers pay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying that the engine power of an aged car without maintenance is the same as a the one brand new car ? Because it certainly is not.

they are avoiding multi billion dollar penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of this feature, any partially faulty batteries would be hidden to the end user, and he won't be able to claim warranty. I think the hidden intention behind this feature is not even disclosed.

Re: Apple fucked up and customers pay!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was ordinary. I had low self-esteem. Apple gave me an identity. A way to be somebody that other people wanted to be. When people see my new iDevice, the look on their faces make me feel good. I realize that I have something that they want and donâ(TM)t have. For that moment, I donâ(TM)t think about my inadequacies. Itâ(TM)s much like climate change. I drive to work every day, I drive on the weekends, I take completely optional plane flights several times each year. Yet, when I hear about someone who doesnâ(TM)t believe in climate change, I get so fake angry and people give me a lot of positive reinforcement for that. Same with defending Apple. Iâ(TM)m loved by the worldâ(TM)s wealthiest company while you are hated. Being an iPerson makes me better than you, and more desire able by corporate America.

Apple: Caught red-handed. AGAIN.

[fyngyrz]

It's about intent.

It certainly is.

It looks like either they did a really poor job of power supply design (other phones don't "suddenly shut down" and they don't have this "feature"), or that they're just throttling for the obvious reason: they want you to buy a new phone.

As for their protest, quoted verbatim here from their letter:

First and foremost, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades.

...this is utter bullshit. They constantly stop allowing their OS upgrades to run on hardware that is perfectly capable of running those upgrades. They've been caught at this multiple times. My 3 GHz, 12/24 core, 64 GB Mac Pro "can't" be upgraded to MacOS 10.13, so says Apple. But in fact, if you flash the bios to say that it's a machine made one year later, it'll upgrade perfectly. And why shouldn't it? It's little, if any, different than that machine. Even if it was slightly different (other than the date flashed into the hardware), this is a company with many, many billions of dollars in the bank that made a decision to obsolete this hardware for only one reason: So that it would go long in the tooth before its time and put buying pressure on the owner. There's no other possible reason.

They threw the PPC emulation out the window for just as little reason (no, probably less.) They let all those user's software suddenly go obsolete for a reason that boils down to "weren't going to pay for the emulation any longer", again, when they had tons of cash to maintain the tech and users had tons of PPC software. I still support PPC software running on (very) old machines, specifically because there is no reasonable in-OS upgrade path that lets that stuff keep running. The irony is that the massive power of the machines we have now would make those apps run very well indeed — and we know Apple did this as a choice, not a need.

I have more examples. From apps they took out of the store because they had integrated the tech into a new phone, thereby removing the possibility of users of an older phone having the tech unless they upgraded — to severe bugs they leave mouldering in old versions of the OS while not allowing upgrades to the new version of the OS, Apple is a known serial offender of the "let's pressure the customer."

Apple is lying here. Flat-out lying. And caught at it.

Re:Apple: Caught red-handed. AGAIN.

[Lothsahn]

Other phones definitely DO shut down suddenly. My Nexus 6 shuts down at around 15% battery left. My wife's shuts down at around 40% battery left. We replaced her battery, and the problems went away. The phones are over 3 years old now, and batteries do wear out.

Re: Apple: Caught red-handed. AGAIN.

[fred6666]

Except this has nothing to do with peak power draw which Apple tried to avoid.
This is simply a phone misjudging the battery juice left.

Re:Apple: Caught red-handed. AGAIN.

[datavirtue]

Yeah....and you can buy a $9 battery off Amazon and install it for free. That new $9 battery will also get you an additional 500mAh so your charge lasts longer than it did new.

Re: Apple: Caught red-handed. AGAIN.

[Lothsahn]

It's definitely a peak power thing. The shutdowns are dependent on the workload of the device. If I leave the screen off or refrain from any 3d apps, it'll usually go way below 15%, but it'll shutoff at 15% in a game. My wife had a similar experience. I just know that 15% is the level at which my Nexus 6 may randomly power off.

The Snapdragon 810 is well known for being a power hog.

Re: Apple: Caught red-handed. AGAIN.

[Lothsahn]

Sorry, meant Snapdragon 805.

Re:Apple fucked up and customers pay!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I am saying that the ECU is not programmed to degrade the performance of the engine just because it is old and has some wear and tear on it. Yes i know mechanical parts of an engine wear that will cause performance loss.

I am saying there is not purposely written software in the ECU that says oh, your car has hit 100k miles, lets detune the engine to half its horsepower to make it last longer.

Not an acceptable "fix", just a lie.

[sabbede]

Why? Because this - "their batteries are no longer capable of supporting maximum phone performance." - is a lie. Even an old battery is perfectly capable of providing enough power to keep clocks at max, the charge just won't last as long. A true statement would be, "old batteries can't support both our advertised performance and advertised battery time" (I'm blanking on the right term for how long a full charge lasts).

An actual fix would be to allow users to decide whether they want performance or battery time.

Re:Not an acceptable "fix", just a lie.

[david_thornley]

Sigh. It isn't a matter of battery life. It's a matter of the phone not crashing. The battery is indeed no longer capable of supporting maximum performance, which I suspect has gotten more power-hungry since I bought my latest iPhone. Apple is not going to provide a user option that causes the iPhone to crash more or less randomly from the user's point of view.

Re:Not an acceptable "fix", just a lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't a lie, you just assumed to know everything about batteries and spouting off unsubstantiated nonsense. It has been explained before that the Li-Ion battery isn't capable of supplying the same peak current as it ages, so some tasks will attempt to draw more current than the battery can now give and either cause the system to shut down when the voltage drops or behave erratically.

One way to deal with this is to throttle the processor so the peak current is lower. Another way is to design the system for the old battery and make it slower the entire time.

Not dealing with this issue is not a performance issue, it is a system stability issue.

Re:Not an acceptable "fix", just a lie.

[sabbede]

Okay, you're right about that. It wasn't immediately clear that's what was going on.

This is why...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I will NEVER own a phone without a user-replaceable battery. I can replace my LG phone with a spare battery in pitch black in ten seconds max. I always have a spare battery, charged up. Now, who makes a decent tablet computer with a user-replaceable?

Re:See? The battery is removable!

[hcs_$reboot]

This "removable" meaning is that anybody is able to remove and insert the battery, not only a bunch of specialized and well equipped geeks.

Oblig Courage Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is sooooo courageous. It's big league.

Now, go buy a $1,000 phone. #mara (make Apple richer again)

Re:in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

They throttle even when plugged in

"batteries are consumable components"

[roc97007]

I'm glad they're finally figuring this out. Maybe batteries will become easier to replace?

Sorry, I don't know what came over me. Of course they won't. By the time the battery is significantly degraded, the next version of the product will be out.

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[Anonymous Coward]

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Um. No.

[fyngyrz]

Other phones definitely DO shut down suddenly.

You're not getting my point. I'm sure it's my fault for not being clear. I wasn't saying it wasn't possible to design such a lousy power supply that a phone would not collapse under load, or that there weren't such badly/cheaply designed phones out there; On the contrary, I was saying there are phones out there that don't do this, so this unequivocally demonstrates the opposite (to the non-engineers... we engineering types already know very well it's possible to make sure adequate power is available if the battery isn't on its very last legs): It's 100% possible to design and emplace a power supply that won't collapse under load when the battery is not fully charged.

Bottom line: either the iPhone would collapse and required this slowdown, in which case Apple put an under-par power supply in their very-expensive-phone and tried to hide it, or it's propaganda to cover up the fact that they were trying to drive customers to a new phone, or it is both.

Missed Opportunity

[Brockmire]

Apple is missing an opportunity to introduce a proprietary battery enclosure and interface to solve this in future phones. Make it water proof with all white plastic design and it'll sell better than earpods. They can even claim they invented removable batteries.