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Slashdot Asks: How Should Apple Have Responded To the Battery Controversy?
Yesterday, Apple officially apologized for slowing down older phones in order to compensate for degrading batteries. In a letter to customers, Apple said, "We apologize," 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 unusual replacement cost. They're also promising to add features to iOS that provide more information about the battery health in early 2018.
Apple's response has left many wondering whether or not it is enough. Even though they are discounting the cost of a battery replacement, for example, they are still profiting from each battery replacement. At the end of the day, "Apple only came clean after independent investigation, giving the whole situation an air of underhanded secrecy," writes Macworld. Should Apple have responded differently to the battery controversy? In the first place, should Apple even issue a software update to older devices to purposefully throttle the CPU and prevent the phones from randomly shutting down when experiencing rapid power draw?
Quinn Nelson via Snazzy Labs explains the controversy and how it is largely exaggerated.
Apple's response has left many wondering whether or not it is enough. Even though they are discounting the cost of a battery replacement, for example, they are still profiting from each battery replacement. At the end of the day, "Apple only came clean after independent investigation, giving the whole situation an air of underhanded secrecy," writes Macworld. Should Apple have responded differently to the battery controversy? In the first place, should Apple even issue a software update to older devices to purposefully throttle the CPU and prevent the phones from randomly shutting down when experiencing rapid power draw?
Quinn Nelson via Snazzy Labs explains the controversy and how it is largely exaggerated.
They could have made it an option. Speed or longer battery life.
They should have issued a statement saying the code was written to extend the life of the battery and prevent reboots due to voltage drops.
Then they could have issued a patch that made the behaviour optional, perhaps with a pop up message suggesting enabling it when the battery started failing.
Finally, the battery replacement discount is not a bad PR move.
I think what they did is about right - apologize for not making it clear, make it cheaper to get a new battery than any replaceable would have been, and then (most importantly) add information so people can tell if a battery is wearing out or not.
It's not like it's a manufacturing defect, where Apple would actually replace a part. The whole system is acting as designed, and in fact in the best interests of the users - lots of other companies would have just added an info panel and called it good. The batteries are still working just fine. The cheap battery replacement is beyond what they really had to do, but is good customer service.
I also question between parts and labor if Apple is really making money on the battery replacement at that price. That was just thrown out as a given but who claims that is still a profit?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The first "should" of this mess is: batteries should be user-replaceable.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Obviously, they should have used their vaunted "Time Machine" to go into the past and make different choices, like user-replaceable parts and full disclosure on how they were fixing the battery power related crashing issue.
What good is a time machine if you can't use it to fix past mistakes?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
A simple notice telling users that their battery was tired and the phone is being slowed to prevent unexpected shutoffs would have avoided the entire issue.
Not enough. Full on seppuku is the only way past this type of shame.
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If your cell phone CPU can't eventually cause this problem, by drawing more current than it's possible for a worn out battery to provide, triggering a shutdown...
You probably own a Nokia "feature phone", and not a smart phone.
Other cell phone vendors have already stated that "Yes, we do the same thing".
Do you know one company with a sealed battery that's going to want a lawsuit against Apple about this to be successful?
That's an automatic precedent against them doing the same thing, as well.
If the media wants to find a 'gate, they'll find a 'gate. There's nothing Apple coulda done to prevent it besides BEING PERFECT IN ALL REGARDS AND CREATE PERFECT EVERLASTING PRODUCTS.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
If your cell phone CPU can't eventually cause this problem, by drawing more current than it's possible for a worn out battery to provide, triggering a shutdown...
You probably own a Nokia "feature phone", and not a smart phone.
If your cell phone shuts down while attempting to draw even a fraction of the power that is still used to fast charge these old phones, you've stuffed up the design. It's also quite telling that it only effects a subset of Apple models too.
Other cell phone vendors have already stated that "Yes, we do the same thing".
Except where they haven't, where they have outright denied it (just scroll down the Slashdot front page a bit), and where the whole issue seems to be a uniquely Apple problem.
Do you know one company with a sealed battery that's going to want a lawsuit against Apple about this to be successful?
Yeah let's start with all the companies who don't have a problems with their batteries at end of life.
The replacement battery for my oldest smartphone (not an iPhone, but a popular model from [never again] Samsung) costs around $30, and that's with me doing all the work. Even if Apple can keep the labor time to 20 minutes, I think that's at least another ten bucks, and on top of that you have the administrative costs of tracking the phones.
Not sure, but I think the original battery-replacement charge was pretty close to their real costs. Apple is NOT in the business of trying to make money from replacing batteries. If there was a significant premium in the original charge, then I strongly believe that was mostly to encourage people to upgrade their iPhones. That's where Apple's big profits are coming from, and lost sales of new iPhones are their biggest profit reduction from this new battery replacement program.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Not sure, but I think the original battery-replacement charge was pretty close to their real costs. Apple is NOT in the business of trying to make money from replacing batteries.
It probably is close to their real costs, because of the way they designed their phone. But that was a choice, and they should provide reasonably-priced battery replacements. It's sad that they will only do it for a year, but that should be ample time for anyone who finds this offensive to jump ship, so a year is not bad.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
User-replaceable batteries wouold be sufficient.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
1) batteries should be user replaceable
2) phone (or any other product) should be reparable
3) OS should be open sourced to allow scrutiny and avoid misconduct by companies. A battery has a limited lifespan, driven by the laws of physics. An OS should not have a limited lifespan limited by the will of Apple, Google or any other.
Totof
Apple was faced with the PR problem of convincing people their approach was right--which it totally is-- or accepting blame. If you are going to do the latter, accept fault for something you are wrongly faulted for then your best move is not to do it grudgingly. Do it so everyone feels they got more than they deserved but isn't too painful. Apple is buying some customer loyalty with a write down.
What astonishes me the most is the other companies saying they don't throttle power usage as a battery degrades. How happy are you going to be when you fire up Halo or whatever on your fully charged Moto and in 2 minuted the phone hard shuts down? Or you can't make it through half a day with the phone, used just to send texts and calls?
That's insane. Of course you want the phone to take measures to deal with a weak battery.
People say, well it should be my choice. it should be a setting. Well people without iphones probably don't realize it is (partly) a setting. When your charge gets below 20% IOS asks if you want to use low power mode. So it is a choice now. Apple went a step further and had a second layer of adaptive power management on top of that as well. But they still gave you a choice on that. The Choice was to buy a new battery or not.
Everyone would prefer the option of a battery that lasts forever and never degrades and costs the same and weighs the same. But no phone has that option. Every phone in existence needs a new battery after enough use. For most people, the upgrade cycle is fast enough they never need that new battery. But for some, they do. ANd for those folks they are much better off with a slow thottling of the battery than not. That can buy you a year or more before you need to choose: Buy a new battery or live with noticably slow phone. That year probably converts most of those people to be within their upgrade cycle.
SO this is a feature not a bug. You can if you like fault apple for not touting this up front as a positive benefit. But as you can see from the idiots commenting below me that it's very hard to explain this in a few words and not people think "oh gosh they slow my phone down?". They don't think that it's always preferably to having the battery life be unusably short.
For the crazy people who run super computing calculations on their iphones and demand no degraded speed and don't understand that battery operated devices have considerations, then by all means buy a moto. or buy anew battery. But stop whining.
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