Senator Wants Apple To Answer Questions on Slowing iPhones (reuters.com)

The chairman of a U.S. Senate committee overseeing business issues asked Apple to answer questions about its disclosure that it slowed older iPhones with flagging batteries, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing a letter. From the report: The California-based company apologized over the issue on Dec. 28, cut battery replacement costs and said it will change its software to show users whether their phone battery is good. Senator John Thune, a Republican who chairs the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said in a Jan. 9 letter to Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook that "the large volume of consumer criticism leveled against the company in light of its admission suggests that there should have been better transparency."

Comments

Excellent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe while he is at it he can answer some questions about more pressing issues than bloody smart phones such as ... corporate tax breaks, endemic tax evasion and what he intends to do about it (I'm expecting 'nothing' but it does not hurt to ask).

what about not helping the FBI as well?

[Joe_Dragon]

what about not helping the FBI as well?

Re:what about not helping the FBI as well?

[unixcorn]

I think you mean to say that the Senator should thank Apple for not letting it's customers down by capitulating to government pressure to provide a back door. A door that hackers would certainly find and exploit in order to steal our personal data. A door that could be used by law enforcement without a warrant. I applaud Apple for standing up for personal liberties, even if it makes it tougher on law enforcement.

Re:what about not helping the FBI as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except of course China. Where apple will sell out in a second.

Re:what about not helping the FBI as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true but doesn't excuse what they did with the throttling.

Re:what about not helping the FBI as well?

[TheFakeTimCook]

what about not helping the FBI as well?

They already excoriated Apple for standing up for our privacy rights, remember?

Re:what about not helping the FBI as well?

[Demena]

What makes you think Apple phones have slowed down? Despite all the clamour, they have not been "slowed". The processor frequency is only lowered while there is insufficient current. I cannot see how this can translate to "Apple slowed my phone. It is a lie. I have a four year old iPhone 6 and it has not slowed at all. Because the battery is fine (86% original capacity). I'm not the only one in this situation. In fact, I personally don't know anyone with this problem.

This is created story by all the droids who are anxious to prove that their worship of google was the right thing. Now the evidence is in and they picked the insecure charlatans. They have to prove Apple is worse and they cannot do this with any truth. It is likely Apple will get hit bad in some places. Very unjustly.

Re:what about not helping the FBI as well?

[ewibble]

While I agree this is over-hyped and generally represented as worse than it is.

Throttling the frequency of the processor is slowing down the phone. Doing it in a transparent manner would mean that the user would say my phones running slow I should get a new battery. Just doing it and not indicating why would probably result the user investigating why, removing apps, doing a factory reset and then going out and buying a new upgraded phone. This wastes users time and money.

Re:what about not helping the FBI as well?

[Demena]

It is still slowing down the phone omnly when the load capacity is exceeded. That is really not very much of the time. I suspect that Apple's engineers thought it insignificant. Yes, they should have been more public but I think they (mistakenly) didn't see the need. A mistake they are fixing. If anyone went out and bought a new phone because they thought the phone was "wearing out" has a rather pathetic understanding of technology. [Aside: It is not that they don't wear out, they do, but it is slow.] I mean investigating it should come to the issue real quick.

Title should read

[guruevi]

Senator wants Apple to donate to its campaign funds. You know, to resolve the "issues" that they may have due to "consumer criticism"

Re:Title should read

[bobbied]

Senator wants Apple to donate to its campaign funds. You know, to resolve the "issues" that they may have due to "consumer criticism"

I doubt it.. His seat isn't up for election for at least 4 more years, is a 3 time incumbent and he won his last election by 40 points... He's in no danger of losing his seat...

Re:Title should read

[ZiakII]

fuck me clicked Overrated in the mod dropdown... posting to remove bad mod

Re:Title should read

[Anonymous Coward]

Senator wants Apple to donate to its campaign funds. You know, to resolve the "issues" that they may have due to "consumer criticism"

I doubt it.. His seat isn't up for election for at least 4 more years, is a 3 time incumbent and he won his last election by 40 points... He's in no danger of losing his seat...

You seem to be mistaken that re-election status has fuck-all to do with the job duty of "fundraising".

Re:Title should read

[Bing Tsher E]

There is a big difference. Before the shakedown, Microsoft was pointedly not involved in politics. Apple has long been deeply involved in the affairs in Washington.

Re:Title should read

[TheFakeTimCook]

There is a big difference. Before the shakedown, Microsoft was pointedly not involved in politics. Apple has long been deeply involved in the affairs in Washington.

Actually, not so much until the past few years.

Re:Title should read

[dwillden]

Unless he's looking to pad his bank account for retirement. Maybe looking for a cushy seven figure "Lobbyist" job in 4 years.

Re:Title should read

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is the proverbial money making tree that politicians love to shake.

What ever you do creimer, make sure Apple doesn't get to shake you with your multiple revenue streams because it would cause the San Andreas Fault to slip and California would end up in the ocean.

Overblown

[Dan East]

I'm not an Apple fanboi... really I'm not. I have an iPhone, but won't use their overpriced Macbooks because of Apple's draconian design decisions. Having said that, I really do not see what the issue is here. We know lithium ion batteries degrade with use. I (and I think most people) want their phones to last through the entire day. Besides making the display dimmer, which really isn't much of an option, slowing the CPU to reduce power consumption is one of the only viable methods available through software to preserve the operating time throughout the lifetime of the phone. Should Apple have made this a user controlled option? Sure. In fact, Apple could have had the phone show some message "Your battery needs replaced - your phone only has 75% of the capacity from when it was new" and could have made a lot of money off of people replacing their batteries.

I do not think that the devices are slowed to make them unusable so people would buy new phones. Having a totally dead phone after 8 hours instead of 12 hours is worse, in my opinion.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely with almost everything you said, except this:

"could have made a lot of money off of people replacing their batteries."

While that is true, it's a LOT less money than they'll make from people replacing the entire phone instead, which I think most folks would do.

Re:Overblown

[rhsanborn]

I also don't think this change was just to make the batteries last the full day. It was also to address an issue where the device was requesting more power than the degraded batteries could provide and was causing unexpected shutdowns. I know of several people with older iPhones that random turn off. It sounds like this could have been the problem.

Fanboy or no, Apple likes repeat customers, and phones becoming useless garbage doesn't help retention. They didn't slow down their phones to make people buy new phones. They add features that are only available on new phones to do that. Intentionally making old phones not work drives people to other manufacturers. We can safely remove the tinfoil hats for a minute.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a totally dead phone after 8 hours instead of 12 hours is worse, in my opinion.

Let's think about what would be better: Apple, from the get go, sell a phone with a battery that actually lasts a day even after some degradation. That's what the rest of the world phone manufactures do... but Apple somehow is special and should get away with this software workaround. Except it isn't and shouldn't.

Re: Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I think the market will sort this out â" and that the option to have a slow-mode as a low power option is a great idea.

With appropriate transparency when dealing with power spikes Apple might have discovered an excellent new feature. Instead they have a PR snafu because people didnâ(TM)t know what was going on and are thinking the worst.

Re:Overblown

[nasch]

I think the issue is mainly not telling anyone what they were doing. If they had announced what they were doing and why, there would have been some grumbling but probably nothing like the outrage we're seeing now.

Re:Overblown

[TheFakeTimCook]

Should Apple have made this a user controlled option? Sure. In fact, Apple could have had the phone show some message "Your battery needs replaced - your phone only has 75% of the capacity from when it was new"

Apple has already said they plan to provide more detailed information and control for the user regarding battery health and attempts to avoid random shutdowns.

Re:Overblown

[TheFakeTimCook]

I also don't think this change was just to make the batteries last the full day. It was also to address an issue where the device was requesting more power than the degraded batteries could provide and was causing unexpected shutdowns. I know of several people with older iPhones that random turn off. It sounds like this could have been the problem.
  Exactly.

Fanboy or no, Apple likes repeat customers, and phones becoming useless garbage doesn't help retention. They didn't slow down their phones to make people buy new phones. They add features that are only available on new phones to do that. Intentionally making old phones not work drives people to other manufacturers. We can safely remove the tinfoil hats for a minute.

Re:Overblown

[TheFakeTimCook]

I think the issue is mainly not telling anyone what they were doing. If they had announced what they were doing and why, there would have been some grumbling but probably nothing like the outrage we're seeing now.

Wanna bet?

You must be new to the internets...

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

They do... I only charge my iPhone twice a week and by the time I connect it to the charger I usually have about 40% charge left. But even on really heavy use days, I never went below 50% in the evening. I also got the same runtime on my company provided Galaxy S5Neo.

I really wonder what some people do with their phones... Do they stare at the screen all the time?

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Android phones have the exact same problem. After two years my Samsung S6 would last approximate 6 hours, and could go from 20% to 0% in about half an hour. Then the battery started expanding and pried off the case.

Re:Overblown

[Pieroxy]

I agree completely with almost everything you said, except this:

"could have made a lot of money off of people replacing their batteries."

While that is true, it's a LOT less money than they'll make from people replacing the entire phone instead, which I think most folks would do.

The question being, which scenario would lead the user to buy a new phone faster:
1) the phone randomly shuts down when below 30% and using a lot of CPU
2) the phone displays a message "Your battery is about to die we will slow it down to ensure proper usability"

My bet is on #1.

Re:Overblown

[nasch]

Of course people would be screaming on internet forums. That happens every day no matter what. I'm talking about protracted national news coverage, expensive remedies, public apologies, Senate hearings. Do you think all that would have happened if they'd been transparent about this from before they started doing it? It seems unlikely to me.

Re:Overblown

[Strider-]

More so than this, what Apple was doing was performance capping. The iPhone is already aggressive when it comes to keeping the CPU as slow as possible to achieve the tasks at hand. The issue is that as batteries age, not only does their capacity go down, the amount of current they can supply at a given voltage also goes down. You get into a state where doing something CPU intensive will draw enough current to under-volt the system, causing the phone to "Crash" and reboot itself. What apple was doing was putting a limit on the CPU so that it wouldn't cause a brownout/reboot.

To be blunt, if I had an old phone, I'd rather have it act a little slow from time to time, then for it to reboot itself seemingly randomly.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

And they plan to add the throttling code to other phones/devices. So expect the phone you buy tomorrow to be slowed down sometime in the near future.

Re:Overblown

[zifn4b]

I do not think that the devices are slowed to make them unusable so people would buy new phones. Having a totally dead phone after 8 hours instead of 12 hours is worse, in my opinion.

I agree with the first part. However, the way Apple implemented this "feature" is COMPLETELY stupid. They should have provided a setting and information about the health and age of the Lithium Ion battery (consequently they said they would do this after everyone got pissed at them) so that consumers could make the right choice for them. I would have preferred the opposite setting. The problem with Apple, and I have several Apple devices, is that Apple thinks it knows best how you should use its product instead of giving you the options to use the product how you want to. They took it the extreme here and they deserve the backlash they're receiving. Oh and hey, Tim Cook, now that you got your tax cuts, trickle down economics? Still waiting...

Re:Overblown

[zifn4b]

The question being, which scenario would lead the user to buy a new phone faster:

There is no reason to buy a new phone based on the battery wearing out if you're happy with the phone you have. Anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant. It costs $15 for a new battery. You can them on Amazon. Either you need to install it (there are tons of tutorials on youtube) or have someone else do it. It doesn't cost much and is WAY cheaper than buying a new phone.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an iPhone, but won't use their overpriced Macbooks because of Apple's draconian design decisions.

wow you're like an opposite fan of me.

I would buy and use a MacBook in a heartbeat but you couldn't get me to accept an iPhone with their draconian design decisions. I consider the iPhone X the most anti-consumer move of 2017 and that was a year with Battlefield 2.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

The 6 Plus battery would, brand new, last for many days. The fact that it might last a little less long with age is normal and expected. This is literally how every device ever made works and people understand that. No other manufacturer has ever decided that because the battery life is shortening that they have to cut the device's performance IN HALF to lengthen the battery. If the battery lasts 2 days instead of 3 that is fucking a-ok with me.

The actual pretext was that phones would suddenly shut down when the battery was aged. The batteries weren't dying at 100%. If the battery was dying at 20% then recalibrate the percentage display so that people would see it go down to 0% and plug it in. Not a hard fix.

I can live with a phone that lasts slightly less long. Having a piece of shit that I paid $1000 for and IS STILL SUPPORTED is not okay.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how apple and everyone supporting them keeps calling them "unexpected shutdowns". I'm sorry but no, its a fucking system crash because the CPU could not get enough power. A shutdown implies that it was able to shutdown properly.

Re:Overblown

[geekmux]

The question being, which scenario would lead the user to buy a new phone faster:

There is no reason to buy a new phone based on the battery wearing out if you're happy with the phone you have. Anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant. It costs $15 for a new battery. You can them on Amazon. Either you need to install it (there are tons of tutorials on youtube) or have someone else do it. It doesn't cost much and is WAY cheaper than buying a new phone.

90% of people who spend the money to pay for an iPhone wouldn't dream of DIY. Their rather ignorant and/or lazy mentality towards hardware and software maintenance is the main reason they love the idiot-proof products Apple makes.

The other 10% might take a chance on buying a questionable $15 battery from the global leader of Chinese knock-offs, hoping they're not the next victim of 3rd degree lithium-ion burns, but when you've got to spend another $50 on specialized tools to crack open the case and do the work, it's cheaper to just take it to Apple and have them do it, even at the standard price.

And unless you're beating the shit out of your battery, you probably only have to do a battery replacement once during your 2-year phone mortgage, and when your contract is up, you will buy the new model. After all, the iPhone is a fashion statement too, and no fanboi is caught dead with an old model.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for calling it what it is a system crash. I am sick of seeing the term "unexpected shutdowns" A shutdown implies that you purposely initiated a clean shutdown of the system and it was able to cleanly shutdown. What is actually happening like you are saying, the battery voltage drops, the system is not able to regulate voltage to the entirety of the phone and the fucking thing crashes.

Re:Overblown

[thegarbz]

requesting more power than the degraded batteries could provide

Except for devices that still quick charge in an hour that is a load of crap. We're not running phones on AAs. Old Lithium batteries have no problem providing more than enough power to run a flat out phone (not actually much power at all if you look at it).

Re:Overblown

[omnichad]

And the vast majority of users had NO idea that it was an intentional slowdown. Nor did they know that replacing the battery would fix it. They bought a new phone. They announced the battery program AFTER the holiday sales rush. Coincidence?

Re:Overblown

[omnichad]

They didn't slow down their phones to make people buy new phones.

Based on their iOS release history, that would be a literal first. The last supported version on iOS on any phone is one that uses way more resources than the phone can provide. That's been true going back almost their entire history. If you know it's the last iOS release for that model, do not upgrade.

Re:Overblown

[zifn4b]

90% of people who spend the money to pay for an iPhone wouldn't dream of DIY. Their rather ignorant and/or lazy mentality towards hardware and software maintenance is the main reason they love the idiot-proof products Apple makes.

If you're a stupid consumer, then you reap what you sow. It's the consumer's fault. It didn't take much for me to be an informed consumer on the topic 10-15 minutes tops. Since when did consumers become entitled to being idiots and require merchants to think for them? That's not only absurd but if you let the merchant think for you, a fool and his money are soon parted. Basically, what's being said here is people get to complain about other people taking advantage of them because they're stupid, ignorant or uninformed. Maybe they should move back in their parents' basement because obviously the real world is just too much for them.

Re:Overblown

[omnichad]

A system crash implies that it is a software problem. A sudden loss of power is not a crash unless you're flying a plane. Unexpected shutdown is a fine term.

Re:Overblown

[omnichad]

It didn't always die at 20%. Only under high load. It's about voltage, not remaining mAh

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

No. A crash is a software issue. This is a hardware issue, specifically a loss of power. That's an unexpected shutdown. If a circuit breaker cuts the power to your computer and it powers off, you don't call that a crash.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess when your system crashes because you were overclocking, it isn't really a crash then?

Re:Overblown

[Yaztromo]

In fact, Apple could have had the phone show some message "Your battery needs replaced - your phone only has 75% of the capacity from when it was new" and could have made a lot of money off of people replacing their batteries.

Or alternately this thread would instead be about money-grabbing Apple scaring people into paying them for new batteries when their existing battery was "just fine", and that Apple was crippling people phones on purpose to extract maximum cash.

Yaz

Re:Overblown

[Yaztromo]

A system crash implies that it is a software problem.

You have a faulty definition of crash. A "crash" is any unexpected, abnormal end of processing. Bad memory chips can cause a system to "crash", with nothing directly to do with software.

Yaz

Re:Overblown

[omnichad]

Show me where pulling the power cord out of a desktop computer is regularly referred to as a crash.

Re:Overblown

[geekmux]

90% of people who spend the money to pay for an iPhone wouldn't dream of DIY. Their rather ignorant and/or lazy mentality towards hardware and software maintenance is the main reason they love the idiot-proof products Apple makes.

If you're a stupid consumer, then you reap what you sow. It's the consumer's fault. It didn't take much for me to be an informed consumer on the topic 10-15 minutes tops. Since when did consumers become entitled to being idiots and require merchants to think for them? That's not only absurd but if you let the merchant think for you, a fool and his money are soon parted. Basically, what's being said here is people get to complain about other people taking advantage of them because they're stupid, ignorant or uninformed. Maybe they should move back in their parents' basement because obviously the real world is just too much for them.

While I mostly agree with your assessment here, we also need to understand and remember that DIY on technical components often requires not only competence, but patience, which is become more and more rare in the world of instant gratification. Most people have little patience to learn something someone else knows how to do. If they're forced to learn something, it better be quick and easy (hence Apple UI). You can argue that as ignorance, stupidity, laziness, or someone merely wanting to make good use of their time. One thing is certain as an end-result; there are a lot of trained people employed in support positions today.

As far as fools parted with their money, billions are made every year selling hardware that is more fashion than function. A lot of people were parted from common sense long ago.

Re:Overblown

[TheFakeTimCook]

Of course people would be screaming on internet forums. That happens every day no matter what. I'm talking about protracted national news coverage, expensive remedies, public apologies, Senate hearings. Do you think all that would have happened if they'd been transparent about this from before they started doing it? It seems unlikely to me.

You know what they say about Hindsight, right?

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is that Senators are generally the most technologically illiterate people in the entire country

Re:Overblown

[ewibble]

That is because pulling the power cord out, and the computer turning off is not UNEXPECTED for the user.

Re: Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people don't use their mobile device like a fancy Jitterbug phone.

Re: Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had an old phone I would rather be presented with my full options and told an inexpensive battery replacement would forego my phone mysteriously slowing down to molasses to simulate it was 'getting old.' Then I wouldn't trade it in to Apple and buy an unnesessary new phone. With Apple, of course, taking the trade-in phone, putting a new battery into it and flipping it for a big profit since it's again a fully saleable unit.

They had quite a racket going at Apple. Too bad there are smart customers who figure them out.

Re: Overblown

[omnichad]

Ok. A power outage. You're picking completely pointless nits - don't tell me you haven't heard a real world story where someone couldn't figure out why their computer wasn't working during a power outage.

Re:Overblown

[marka63]

They announce the battery program within days of it being reported that older iPhones were running slower in benchmarks on the iOS versions that have the code that restricts the clock frequency.

Yes, it was a coincidence. You are seeing conspiracies where there are none.

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

But not quick enough to avoid 20-some pesky lawsuits.

Re:Overblown

[Pieroxy]

All that you are saying is true. But you should read my post and the post I was replying to. You'll then realise that what you are saying has nothing to do with my point.

Re:Overblown

[zifn4b]

While I mostly agree with your assessment here, we also need to understand and remember that DIY on technical components often requires not only competence, but patience,

Dude, it takes 5 MINUTES to change the damn battery and the kit on Amazon costs like 10 bucks. This is like a VERY minor car repair. I'm not talking about replacing a head gasket or seating a motherboard here. We're talking about a little bit more work than changing a damn furnace filter. Are you suggesting people are THAT incompetent these days? They need to call someone for every little stupid thing? No wonder people are broke.

Let me give you an example of this stupid shit. My car's hood struts went bad. I got a couple of quotes from a couple of places just to see if someone could quickly replace them. They all wanted to charge me $100+ to do that and I already had ball catches and didn't even need to replace those. I said fuck that. Ordered some on Amazon, watched a youtube video and with a friend's help to hold the hood up, I replaced them in 5 minutes. You seriously just take a screw driver and pop these little metal clips off of each of them, they come off and you pop them back on. SUPER EASY.

You're telling me people are SO STUPID that this is considered a VERY INVOLVED procedure that it's unreasonable to expect people to have that level of patience. You let me know when your hood struts go bad, I'll replace them for $100. This is part of the reason our economy is screwed up because people are HELPLESS VICTIMS.

Re:Overblown

[david_thornley]

One advantage of Apple is that it uses expert opinions as to how to set things so people can't mess them up. It's part of "just works". Apple is not, repeat not, going to allow you to set your phone to a mode where it crashes instead of slows down. This isn't just a matter of battery life, it's a matter of avoiding crashes.

Now, you may not want Apple making decisions for you, for very good reasons. In that case, I'd suggest buying something else.

Re: Overblown

[Brockmire]

What fucking outcome were you expecting other than loss of power intentionally pulling the power cord? There's unexpectedly losing power, and there's expectedly losing power. You went from insufficient momentary power delivery to absolute zero power. Semantics, people.

Re: Overblown

[omnichad]

Just semantics. The point was with unexpectedly losing power - and who says that the user is the one pulling the cord?

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Having said that, I really do not see what the issue is here. do not think that the devices are slowed to make them unusable so people would buy new phones. Having a totally dead phone after 8 hours instead of 12 hours is worse, in my opinion.

I take it you don't own an iPhone 6, like I do, then. I went from a phone that had no problems -not even real battery degradation- to one in which doing ANYTHING with the phone is painful and difficult:

1) tap on Podcasts icon
2) Wait 2 seconds
3) Podcasts screen comes up
4) Wait 5 seconds
5) Podcasts start to load
6) Crash
7) Tap on Podcasts
Etc.

It's like this with every single thing I do on the phone. Opening a page in Safari is excruciatingly slow. Checking email is slow. Everything is slow.

Oh, and this is after I reset the phone twice, requiring hours of fucking around with it, because Apple didn't have the courtesy to tell their own user they'd experience the problem and that it was Apple's fault.

The worst part is that for many users, battery life isn't an issue. I'm in an office most of the time, have a charger in my car, and use an external battery.

Apple's the richest company in the world. They can't make two operating systems?

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Play real, some bad programmer left a legacy and it is not constant time, then it keeps propagating throughout EVERYWHERE, every platform. The slowing occurs in all OSs I ve tried. Should NOT be there in android, etc, like it was Windows, eh?

Re:Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Pulling the power cord would be in no way the same as what is happening in apple's case.

The equivalent to what is happening in apple's case would be that you were a cheap ass bastard and didn't get a big enough PSU to support your new video card.

As soon as you fire up a game and the power demand from the GPU makes all the voltage rails sag because the cheap PSU can't deliver the power required, the system crashes.

This is pretty much exactly what is happening. Apple was a cheap ass bastard and didn't use big enough batteries, or let form win over function and choose to go with a slimmer phone that could not contain the appropriate sized battery for the hardware's power demands, over an expected useful time for the hardware. The CPU demand causes a spike in power draw, the aged battery cannot deliver which causes voltage rails to sag, and the system crashes.

I would call 3 years a minimum useful expected life time. Most people get their phones subsidized in contracts of 2 years, or loans of 2 years. A phone should remain 100% functional as the day it was bought during that time period. I add an extra year for margin of error, and the fact that some people may want to go out of contract for some time before purchasing their next device.

If phones cannot last past the point that you pay them off/go out of contract, then there is absolutely no point in actually buying them, you may as well just lease them. It would like like if a particular car manufactuer's car on average always failed right after you finished paying off your 3-5 year car loan. People wouldn't buy them because they know as soon as they pay it off, its going to break. Or they would just lease them and get a new car after the lease is up and let the lessor deal with the car that is about to break.

Senator is pretneding to forget how this works

[elrous0]

The corporations give the orders, the Congressmen follow them. Understood?

Re:Senator is pretneding to forget how this works

[zifn4b]

The corporations give the orders, the Congressmen follow them. Understood?

And they give SJW's lives purpose and meaning...

Important issues

[pak9rabid]

Tackling the important issues I see...

Re:Important issues

[pak9rabid]

Explain to me exactly how throttling back a CPU running on a device with a shitty battery is a shady business practice, when the alternative is to just let it crash & burn at will.

Re: Important issues

[Brockmire]

Are you obtuse? The best alternative is replacing the battery. Holy fuck, do a lot of people just not get basic shit. It's mind boggling.

Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

And ask them why we can't change the batteries - like I can on my Samsung.

Or why for no reason at all why I can't go above iOS 9.3.5 on my iTouch5 or iPad 2. And why I can't get the security updates and why my apps are starting to not work. And many new apps only work on iOS 10+. Sorry, I'm not spending another $500 just because a developer is too lazy.

I expect a $500 device to last more than a couple of years and not have forced obsolescence.

Apple's iOS devices are overpriced crap.

Re:Good!

[GrahamJ]

Why would a Senator ask questions he can easily find answers to on the internet?

I have a slow iPhone 6

[donstenk]

that is nearly unusable. I have been pondering since December on buying the X or Galaxy but now I may just have the battery replaced.

Thereâ(TM)s nothing wrong with a 6 and Iâ(TM)m against upgrading just for the sake of it. Also i am happy with touchid, but would not buy a new phone that looks like the old phone.

As it stands currently the iPhone 5 we have laying around with an old iOS and a dying battery is actually faster than he 6 with current iOS.

Apple has normally been good with keeping stuff going and with this latest move they are hopefully back on track.

I could easily buy the latest and greatest, but I prefer to spend more, buy quality and make it last. The late 2011 15â(TM) MacBook is an ace that with minor upgrades (SSD+Ram) keeps going strong.

Just my 2 pence.

Re: I have a slow iPhone 6

[donstenk]

Fuck, whatâ(TM)s wrong with slashdot on iOS???

Re:I have a slow iPhone 6

[TheFakeTimCook]

[I have an iPhone 6] that is nearly unusable. I have been pondering since December on buying the X or Galaxy but now I may just have the battery replaced.

Prove it.

Publish your GeekBench Scores or STFU.

My iPhone 6, purchased right when they came out in September, 2014, has 93% Battery Health, and has scored ABOVE the Average CPU Scores for the single and multiple-core scores, and only about 100 pts. below the average "Compute" Score (with no effort to stop any background processes before testing).

So, if there are some "bad" batteries, then maybe there are; just like EVERYONE occasionally has (Hello, Samsung?); if so, then Apple is LOSING MONEY on the $29 battery upgrade; so take advantage of it and STILL STFU!!!

And before you EVEN try to say that Apple isn't losing money at $29, then why, oh, why did they have a TEST before "allowing" a Battery Replacement at $50 more??? That would make NO sense, if Apple was making money at $79. So, if they weren't making money at $79, then they REALLY can't be making money at $29, right???

Re: I have a slow iPhone 6

[TheFakeTimCook]

Fuck, whatâ(TM)s wrong with slashdot on iOS???

How long have you been around here?

The Slashdot Mantra is Apple is teh Evilz!

Re: I have a slow iPhone 6

[omnichad]

iOS keyboard substitutes straight quotes for curly quotes. Slashdot handles basic ASCII and that's about it.

Re: I have a slow iPhone 6

[donstenk]

How long have you been around here?

The Slashdot Mantra is Apple is teh Evilz!

Long enough to know these fashions have come and gone. I think i registered in 1998 or so. I don’t post much from iOS.

Re:I have a slow iPhone 6

[donstenk]

I’ll have a look at geek bench for iPhone but I know my phone is underperforming since the latest update. Siri is slow, I have to wait before contacts load and many other small annoyances that are new. Actually I can’t be arsed to deal with it or have this conversation so I’ll stfu and may buy something new tomorrow. I have work to do.

Re: I have a slow iPhone 6

[donstenk]

I know. Wtf, it’s 2018!

Re: I have a slow iPhone 6

[donstenk]

Ok so I have run battery diagnostics and appearently my battery is at 88pct according to Battery Life Doctor.

It would appear my phone is not throttled but that the latest iOS is just too much to handle comfortably for my iPhone 6.

Bought Geekbench just now so here we go, the numbers donâ(TM)t mean anything to me right now:
1547 Single-Core Score
2627 Multi-Core Score
Geekbench 4.2.1 for iOS AArch64
System Information
iOS 11.2.1 on iPhone 6

As I assume I cannot downgrade to iOS 10 Im stuck with a poorly performing phone or will have to buy something new. Changing battery wonâ(TM)t help, so good to know that. Happy i had this conversation, even if it was impolite.

Re: I have a slow iPhone 6

[TheFakeTimCook]

Ok so I have run battery diagnostics and appearently my battery is at 88pct according to Battery Life Doctor.

It would appear my phone is not throttled but that the latest iOS is just too much to handle comfortably for my iPhone 6.

Bought Geekbench just now so here we go, the numbers donâ(TM)t mean anything to me right now:
1547 Single-Core Score
2627 Multi-Core Score
Geekbench 4.2.1 for iOS AArch64
System Information
iOS 11.2.1 on iPhone 6

As I assume I cannot downgrade to iOS 10 Im stuck with a poorly performing phone or will have to buy something new. Changing battery wonâ(TM)t help, so good to know that. Happy i had this conversation, even if it was impolite.

I'm pretty sure the numbers have no real-world "scale"; they're in "GeekBench Units", LOL! But, here is where you can see where your iPhone rates among others of your model:

https://browser.geekbench.com/...

And yes, I am afraid that your slowdowns are probably as a result of "An Upgrade too Far". My iPad 2 has been the same way since upgrading to iOS 9. Most things are ok, including some fairly high-demand Apps, but some Text Entry and most Web Browsing activities are positively PAINFUL!!!

My iPhone 6 has been pestering me to Upgrade to iOS 11 (which I would like to do for the File Manager; but don't want to lose some of the 32 bit Apps I have that haven't been recompiled for 64 bit). Glad that I haven't let it win that argument!

In fact, if you want to know a Class Action Lawsuit against Apple that I might be tempted to join, it would be one for Apple not allowing iOS users to DOWNGRADE their OS versions for some REASONABLE length of time after a new iOS version comes out, like 3 to 6 months. In fact, if you'd like to talk about something that insidiously pushes people to Upgrade their iDevices, then THAT is it!

And there is NO reason they can't leave the signing-keys "active" for "Version - 1". None at all...

Re: I have a slow iPhone 6

[donstenk]

Problem solved.

Moore's Law

[forkfail]

An Aide for the Senator was quoted as saying: "The Senator believes that Moore's Law is an antiquated piece of legislation that no longer has relevance to today's technology. Instead of fostering growth, Moore's Law has become an impediment to innovation. We need to free the marketplace from these cumbersome regulations and government interference. Therefore, the Senator will be introducing legislation to repeal Moore's Law, and ensure that all software, regardless of language, compiler, or hardware affiliations will be free to continue running as fast as the day it was released on any platform, anywhere, at any time."

Re:Moore's Law

[technosaurus]

Is that the same Senator that attempted to get Newton's Laws repealed and replaced?

Re:Moore's Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, who can forget his groundbreaking work on the Laws of Gravity?

Re:Moore's Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Like many Republican Politicians who stick their greasy fingers into technical subjects, this one was a Business Major at a Bible College, a College that holds conferences on "Intelligent Design- We'uns are fer it".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biola_University
Naturally, that qualified Thune as Chairman of the "Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation", because Dinosaurs are what Jesus rode.

Re: Moore's Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs was the one who killed the Newton. Shortly after his company, NeXT bought Apple and he regained control of the company.

Re:Moore's Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind me, what is Moore's Law again? Is that where rich white men can legally date prepubescent girls as long as they get their Mama's premission?

As much as the slowing iPhones annoy me

[rsilvergun]

I think our Senators have much, much better things to worry about. How about Net Neutrality? Work Visa Abuse? Our endless wars? Jeff Session's push to enforce federal marijuana laws in states where it is legal? Heck, I'd rather they weigh in on the loot box controversy than this.

The slowing is a feature ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and a good one under the circumstances.

The "bug" was being hush-hush and not having a way to turn it off. This was both a design flaw and a PR nightmare.

The same goes for having a battery life shorter than we expect from a company like Apple that seems to pride itself on quality and customer service.

The fair thing to to is for Apple to offer to replace all affected batteries at or below its parts-cost plus give affected customers a small credit for their inconvenience. If it's costing Apple $39 in parts for replacement batteries, a $29 replacement is a fair and reasonable fix, at least in my mind.

Re:The slowing is a feature ...

[TheFakeTimCook]

The same goes for having a battery life shorter than we expect from a company like Apple that seems to pride itself on quality and customer service.

My iPhone 6, purchased basically on day one of sale, back in September 2014, just showed 93% battery health when I tested it the other day.

If anything, I think that battery life is LONGER than I expect from a secondary battery over 3 years old.

Re:The slowing is a feature ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Prove it. Otherwise your nothing but a lying apple scum bag

Because SD voters deserve answers!

[bobbied]

And he's not even up for re-election for another 5 years...

Hmmm.. He must think this is important then..

Slowing down PCs by 30% is OK, but iPhones, nope!

[Anonymous Coward]

Slowing down PCs by 30% without user consent is OK, but iPhones, nope!

Perhaps Apple just had a "bug" that they needed to patch by slowing down older-generation iPhones? (you know, kind of like Intel is doing right now?).

Bovine Scat at its finest

[I75BJC]

I have an iPhone that was "throttled". I noticed that the charge would last nearly as long as when it was new. After an update it went back to the time-between-charges as when it was new. I was happy about that. (I hate plugging my iPhone "in" while in my car, etc.) It was slower, the screen would dim, it would "slumber" and take a bit to wake up. But what I considered most important -- making it through my day's activities on one charge -- was the way it was acting. I'm glad Apple installed this change. I appreciate the change. The only fault that I see is that Apple didn't tell us. The fact that they made the change benefited me. I really don't care that they didn't tell me; it just would have been nice.
It is bovine scat that Congress-critters are wasting time about this. There really are more important issues than a stinking smartphone charge IMHO.

Re:Bovine Scat at its finest

[XxtraLarGe]

But what I considered most important -- making it through my day's activities on one charge -- was the way it was acting. I'm glad Apple installed this change. I appreciate the change. The only fault that I see is that Apple didn't tell us. The fact that they made the change benefited me. I really don't care that they didn't tell me; it just would have been nice.

Therein lies the problem. For some people, performance is more important than battery life. Apple could have avoided this entire mess if they had simply made it an option that the users could choose, instead of making the decision for them.

Re:Bovine Scat at its finest

[shess]

It is bovine scat that Congress-critters are wasting time about this. There really are more important issues than a stinking smartphone charge IMHO.

Maybe it's time to constitute a convention to change the rules to add a branch of government in charge of executing specific actions, rather than making broad decisions. Then Congress could step back and say things like "You people over there who work for us, we think it's bad the companies rip people off, please make sure companies don't rip people off", and they could provide money to fund enforcement.

Someday, I guess.

Re:Bovine Scat at its finest

[nasch]

My understanding is that without the change the phone wouldn't just run out of battery sooner, it would completely shut off if the system demanded more voltage than the battery could supply. I doubt many people would prefer that.

Re: Bovine Scat at its finest

[Anonymous Coward]

Aka, the battery died.

If you have a smart flashlight with a "battery ok" screen display that cuts out when you try to turn on the actual flashlight (aka use it), then the battery is dead.

The expression "battery is dead" is not intended to mean the soul has fled the battery and it would otherwise be alive, not does it mean the voltage is absolutely zero. It means shit don't work no more because the battery lacks appropriate juice.

Re:Bovine Scat at its finest

[GrahamJ]

I think it's generally agreed by both sides that it would have been ideal if Apple had explained what was going on and provided a switch. The question here is whether lack of such warrants the government getting involved. I would say no.

Re:Bovine Scat at its finest

[XxtraLarGe]

I think it's generally agreed by both sides that it would have been ideal if Apple had explained what was going on and provided a switch. The question here is whether lack of such warrants the government getting involved. I would say no.

I'm right there with you. The problem is these days everyone seeks a political solution or a legal solution. Acting ethically would have helped to avoid the entire issue.

Re:Bovine Scat at its finest

[omnichad]

The FTC?

Re: Bovine Scat at its finest

[nasch]

Aka, the battery died.

Usually when someone says the battery died they mean it ran out of charge. That isn't what's happening here. It could be fully charged, or at least nowhere near dead, and still unable to provide the voltage needed. When that happens, the phone shuts off. If you turn it on again, it will boot immediately because the battery is still charged. Maybe you have some other definition of "dead battery".

Re: Bovine Scat at its finest

[Anonymous Coward]

I once prototyped a new medical device that Marketing wanted to have an audible alert if a low battery condition ocurred. It was needed fast, and the option I went with was a tiny voice coil speaker about 10 mm in diameter. Unfortunately, the voice coil was so low impedance that the alert would kill the unit immediately. So you would get a quick sad chirp on powerup. Turn it off and the battery would recover enough to start the processor, detect the low battery a bit later, and chirp again. The prototype was asad little squeaky toy with a near dead battery in it.

Re:Bovine Scat at its finest

[AmiMoJo]

You wanted a phone that could last all day, so you bought the super thin super small battery iPhone. The battery is so small in fact that when it ages the phone starts to crash.

Rather than demand this design flaw be fixed, you accept a loss of performance that helps Apple save money by but replacing your battery/phone for free.

Itâ(TM)s NOT the battery

[Anonymous Coward]

My mom went to the Apple store yesterday and reports that they didnâ(TM)t change her battery because it was still good but took it in the back to install a âoespecial patchâ and after installation the iPhone 6 is as fast as when it was new. She said many others at the counter at that time were told the same.

Re:Itâ(TM)s NOT the battery

[TheFakeTimCook]

My mom went to the Apple store yesterday and reports that they didnâ(TM)t change her battery because it was still good but took it in the back to install a âoespecial patchâ and after installation the iPhone 6 is as fast as when it was new. She said many others at the counter at that time were told the same.

Prove it.

Re: Itâ(TM)s NOT the battery

[Anonymous Coward]

A guy called 'Fake' is stridently demanding proof. Over and over.

You don't work at Apple. They would never pay a mindless attack dog.

what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[pikine]

Apple apologized, heavily discounted battery replacement, and promised to modify iOS to show when throttling happens. They also explained they did it for better user experience: the slowdown is to avoid under-powering due to battery age. I would actually have liked to have that feature for my Android that randomly power cycles.

Somehow the congresscritters think they could do better than Apple? These politicians only pretend they do something for the people only to distract people from their own incompetencies.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[drinkypoo]

I would actually have liked to have that feature for my Android that randomly power cycles.

If your Android has an unlockable bootloader, odds are you can get a kernel which will permit you to change maximum CPU speed — something which is simply not possible with Apple. And odds are also good that the developer can cheaply be induced to roll a special version of the kernel which loads up at a lower cpu speed for you.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[hcs_$reboot]

The problem is that Apple made no announcement about that "feature" before it's been revealed by a website. At least two persons I know went to upgrade their iPhone 6 because it got slower, while the battery was still decently usable (you know, after the new models are released and you wonder "should I upgrade?").

If it's such an amazing feature why didn't Apple notify users about it? Why didn't Apple say when iOS 11 was released "look, your device might get slower, but you could replace the battery to fix this".

Not sure if a Senator has to get involved in that story ; but it really looks like Apple did all this intentionally to encourage people to upgrade and buy a new model.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

For sure! They didn't even inform their own support staff that the change had been made. But some people still believe they were'nt trying to hide it and were doing it for a "better user experience".

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

And they actively denied slowing down older devices for years. Until it was proven that they were actually doing that (and it wasn't just newer features, filesystem checks on OS updates, etc.)

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's not iOS11 only? That's my guess. I have a non-iOS11 phone and it suffered the same issues and resolved with the same fix.
 
It sounds like you don't know what you're talking about and just want to jam on Apple by any attack vector that your ill-informed mind can conjure up.
 
Power management is nothing new. The idea that Apple doesn't have options as to how you hand your own power is, at most, short sighted. I don't agree with them 100% but postings like yours try to muddy the water from the real issue at hand.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[swb]

This is the real problem -- if it was a feature, why wasn't it advertised or even made switchable/adjustable?

It's hard not to see it as deliberate obsolescence at worst or just crummy software engineering at best (ie, not producing builds with battery sucking features handled more efficiently in newer hardware).

But when you find it they were slowing phones deliberately, it makes the whole thing seem like excuse making.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's not iOS11 only? That's my guess. I have a non-iOS11 phone and it suffered the same issues and resolved with the same fix.

They introduced it in iOS 10 with the release of the iPhone 7, slowing the iPhone 6 and 6S.

Then, when the iPhone 8 and X came out with iOS 11, they expanded it to target the iPhone 7 for ... some reason that totally doesn't have to do with pushing people to upgrade to the latest phone.

Note that the "feature" DOES NOT EXIST on the iPhone 8 and X. If you have a "bad battery" in those phones, it'll still run at full speed. In case you had any doubt that Apple was full of shit.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

There's some complexity here though.

They aren't slowing down old models deliberately, they are slowing down units with degraded batteries.
Get the battery replaced and your old handset returns to full operating capacity.

That units with degraded batteries are correlated with older models makes it not obvious that there is a difference to the user but it's a pretty big difference to the people who know what they did.

"Did you intentionally slow down my iPhone 4 so i'd buy a new phone?"
"No, we slowed down your phone so the worn out battery would still last you all day on a charge."

What apple actually did was prioritise the "lifetime on a charge" feature over the "runs apps fast" feature when the battery wears out. And they wouln't have thought that was the same thing as slowing down particular models of phone to push upgrades.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd of that actually happening - pretty damned close to zero.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[TheFakeTimCook]

Apple apologized, heavily discounted battery replacement, and promised to modify iOS to show when throttling happens. They also explained they did it for better user experience: the slowdown is to avoid under-powering due to battery age. I would actually have liked to have that feature for my Android that randomly power cycles.

Somehow the congresscritters think they could do better than Apple? These politicians only pretend they do something for the people only to distract people from their own incompetencies.

Exactly!!!

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

There's some complexity here though.

They aren't slowing down old models deliberately, they are slowing down units with degraded batteries.
Get the battery replaced and your old handset returns to full operating capacity.

Nope. Well, maybe. However the "feature" is only active on old phones: it currently only targets the 6, 6S, and 7 (and the Plus versions of those phones). If you have an iPhone 8 or and iPhone X, it doesn't matter how degraded the battery is, the phone will not slow down the processor.

"Did you intentionally slow down my iPhone 4 so i'd buy a new phone?"

The iPhone 4 is too old to receive the updates that intentionally slowed phones down.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

They did NOTHING to fix it long-term. They offered a year-long discount and after that nothing. They did not introduce an option to disable this "feature" going forward. They did not promise to reverse the feature or make changes to the hardware so that batteries wouldn't suddenly die.

Note by the way that laptops used to do this -- if you had a laptop several years old you'd know that if the battery got down to 10-15% or so you were likely to have a sudden shutdown. That's just the way it is. But somehow Apple changed that so that even a relatively old MBP can go all the way down to 1% and you can be sure it won't suddenly die. One thing Apple does for laptops is throttle the CPU AT LOW BATTERY PERCENTAGES not ALL THE TIME as it does with phones.

The bottom line is that when Apple introduced the iPhone the sealed battery was controversial, and they said you'd NEVER NEED TO REPLACE THE BATTERY. Now they are saying, starting end of this year, you can expect to pay $80 every year or so to keep your phone working.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[oh_my_080980980]

By all means, suck Apple's dick....

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[oh_my_080980980]

Tim Cook is that you....

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's such an amazing feature why didn't Apple notify users about it? Why didn't Apple say when iOS 11 was released "look, your device might get slower, but you could replace the battery to fix this"

What other requirements would you like met? Maybe a warning on every harddrive: WARNING THIS LAPTOP HAS AN 80GB HARDDRIVE.

If you do not understand how your shit works - maybe its time to stop using it - this is exactly why most women get taken in a car shop btw

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[omnichad]

And they did all this a couple days after Christmas - after the holiday sales rush. After the iPhone 8 was well-established. A $29 battery replacement does nothing for the person who spent $699 on a new phone when they were otherwise happy with their old one.

A class action lawsuit on the part of people who replaced their phone prematurely is probably better than this, but it's not uncommon for state Attorneys General to get involved in larger claims. I don't really know where Congress fits in - but a Senator asking questions is not the same as trying to pass a law.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked for Apple's support staff, that they didn't tell them isn't anything really new. Front line Apple support staff have just a little bit more information than you the consumer do. Heck the day the first iPhone was released, none of the store employees had even seen, handled or touched one until 2 hours before they opened the doors to the customers. Apple's famous secrecy applies at all levels of the company.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

They released it in iOS 10.2.1, which came out in January 2017. The iPhone 7 and iOS 10 itself was released in Sept 2016. So no, they didn't release it with the release of the iPhone 7 to get people to upgrade. They also said at the time that it was due to the unexpected shutdowns and it involved changes to their power management processes, so this isn't a post facto excuse now they they've been "caught".

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[TheFakeTimCook]

By all means, suck Apple's dick....

By all means, go on being a Hater...

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[pikine]

The battery discount announcement was posted on Dec 28, 2017, well within the 14 day return policy for most Christmas shopping. I think you're being absurd for suggesting that Apple is duping their customers on purpose.

And you can still either keep the old phone as a secondary or you might have traded it in for credit. In any case, the credit for trade-in hasn't changed before and after the battery announcement. I don't understand why someone might be having buyer's remorse over getting a new phone. First world problem?

The class action suit is just some opportunist lawyer's plot to extort money. Most members of the class will get a paltry $5 for their participation (if they are lucky), so they are just willingly getting screwed, except this time by lawyers. I have no sympathy for either the lawyers or the members in the class. These days you can bring on a suit for anything. It doesn't mean it has merit.

A congresscritter can also raise a raucous about anything to boost their profile. It doesn't mean it has merit.

Re: what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[omnichad]

I don't understand why someone might be having buyer's remorse over getting a new phone.

They're excessively expensive. Especially if you don't live in an area with a high cost of living where the relative price is lower.

And even if it's in the return window, most of these phones will have been activated and all the data transferred by then. Not a convenient return by any means - and even with the hardship of the cost, most people would still give up at that point.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[hcs_$reboot]

If you do not understand how your shit works

If you do not understand how Apple works since a couple years ago, keep purchasing whatever they do at whatever the cost.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet you hate the truth.

Re:what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Anonymous Coward]

You conveniently forgot about the people that bought a 7 or 8 because their 6 was slowed down. They still in the return policy?

Re: what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[Brockmire]

Because Apple is lobbying against Right to Repair laws, so this is very much of interest. The government is supposed to work on your behalf in your best interests. Once in a while, that happens.

Re: what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[pikine]

As an old-time and current Android user, let me share with you one reason why I'm seriously considering switching to iPhone, and I'm sure this reason alone is compelling enough to convince current iPhone users that they've made the right choice. It's the service. If you broke your iPhone, sure you'll have to pay to get it fixed, but you can bring it into any Apple store, and you either get it repaired or replaced during your visit. No downtime.

When I broke my Android phone, I had to ship it back to some service center in Texas, and I still had to pay for the repair. Even with 2-day shipping, the round-trip took 3-4 business days. My secondary was a really old phone, and it was excruciating to use. It was a shattered screen so I had no choice but to get it repaired. Now I'm having intermittent battery problems, and getting battery replaced is going to be the same ordeal. If you buy an Android phone, you need to buy at least two of them if you want to enjoy the service level equivalent to one iPhone.

Furthermore, most Android devices stop receiving OS upgrades after only a year. iOS 11 supports iPhone 5s released 4 years ago. iPhones just retain value phenomenally better than Android phones.

I am looking at iPhone users with envy. Please understand how fortunate you are, and don't let some minor inconvenience make you think it's real hardship. It's not!

Re: what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[omnichad]

With Android, you can go to any local shop and have it done same day or even while you wait. And they'll actually fix your own phone and never hand you someone else's refurbished phone.

With Android comes more choice. Sure, most of these same shops repair iPhones too - but if you pick the wrong part to replace, a future software upgrade could brick your phone.

Re: what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[pikine]

Say your Google flagship Pixel phone is broken and you want walk-in repair. You can visit one of those locations. There are fewer of those than Apple stores, so good luck finding a location near you.

The problem with Android is the illusion of choice. You thought you had choice because there are so many phones to choose from when buying, but in reality the ecosystem is so fragmented such that there is no economy of scale to sustain the customer service infrastructure. Using the wrong part for repair is a worse risk for Android because there are too many models.

Furthermore, iFixit repairability score indicates that while scores for 2016 models are comparable between Android and iPhone, several Samsung phones got much worse in 2017.

Let me know what else you are wrong about so I can correct them for you.

Re: what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[omnichad]

You don't have to go to an "authorized" location. You can go to any phone repair shop. Literally any shop. There are 2 in the town I live in. A few more the next town over. Replacement parts aren't locked down with Android vendors.

Re: what an incredible waste of taxpayer money

[pikine]

Anecdotally, the nearest third-party shop from where I live had many glowing 5 star reviews for iPhone repairs. They also got a few 1 star bad reviews, but these never mention iPhone specifically, so they could very well be Android. YMMV, but it looks like that particular third-party shop has more iPhone customers than Android overall, and the iPhone customers are generally very happy.

Anyone could lookup these third-party shops closest to them and decide for themselves.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you people have to get a license to be so Butthurt?

Excessive use of government authority

[mysidia]

Since when did the US SENATE become an escalation contact for internal Customer Service issues between Apple and their customers?

overseeing business issues asked Apple to answer questions about its disclosure that it slowed older iPhones with flagging batteries .... the large volume of consumer criticism leveled against the company in light of its admission suggests that there should have been better transparency.

Sounds like Apple made a design decision to limit their costs: a less-performant or more fragile than originally expected battery will be tolerated and compensated for by the devices, with graceful degradation, and without showing an explicit notification to the user -- instead the end user will have to detect if their device is degraded below what they feel it should be and then contact Apple based on that.

It is the same story for MANY kinds of hardware issues ---- many failures can go undetected for years, Or only cause an occasional crash, and
  the device automatically reboots itself to help reduce the impact of a periodic glitch. If the end user themself cannot identify that there's a problem, then there is no problem.

Apple is a huge technology player, but they're no monopoly on paper.

Although I am personally of the mind that these 5 companies should be broken up: Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Apple, and in that order.

Just because they're large and they therefore upset a LOT of people if they make a mistake, or make a decision that makes customers dissatisfied: does not suddenly mean that it is valid government business to poke into Apple PR and Customer issues.

Re:Excessive use of government authority

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the new FASCISM.

iPhone 4

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is this goes all the way back to the iPhone 4, but they won't admit it.

Battery outta hell

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Couldn't they just replace the battery themselves for $10?"

"No, it must be done at a dealer."

"Why? Is there soldering?"

"No, it's a normal battery plugin, but it is behind a warranty sticker."

"Why?"

"So we could charge a lot more. Android phones do this, too. The real goal is to make people throw up their hands and pay for the overpriced monthly infinite care package."

"What is that?"

"That's where we replace a phone with a returned one from an ever-growing pile of phones we don't know what to do with, as the phones age and people upgrade. But it looks premium to the customer."

Re:Battery outta hell

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"I see. What does this have to do with slowing down the processor?"

"The batteries degrade like it always did, but we hide it by lying about 100%. At some point battery life sucks. But the customer might sue us for providing a crappy battery life with expensive replacement, and we sure as shit don't want to pay for dealer replacement ourselves, so rather than taking a quality black eye, we lie a second time by slowing the processor. It's not lies because we hide it in the fine print, I hope."

Re:Battery outta hell

[david_thornley]

The voices inside your head aren't as tuned into Apple internal communications as you think.

Could that affect iPhone 4 / iOS6?

[eminencja]

I have an ancient iPhone 4 and it has gotten agonisingly slow. I no longer use it to browse the web. I thought that was because web pages got more and more bloated as devices got faster. But sometimes the phone freezes when I try to take a photo. In theory that could be caused by the power surge related to reading GPS coordinates (and then the phone would delay the start of the camera app). Anyone swapped the battery in iPhone4 and noticed a performance boost?

Re:Could that affect iPhone 4 / iOS6?

[omnichad]

That's just the same old rule - don't upgrade to the last major iOS release available for a given device. They introduce enough features to demand more resources, slowing the whole thing down.

Though there's not much cleanup/maintenance available to be performed on iOS. A restore from backup will refresh the OS and clear any caches and any junk left behind. And not reinstalling every app.

Re:Could that affect iPhone 4 / iOS6?

[eminencja]

The latest iOS version available for iPhone 4 was iOS7, I hold on to iOS6 (with nice 3D UI controls and... what was that called...? skeuomorphism)

Re: Could that affect iPhone 4 / iOS6?

[Brockmire]

GPS power usage is minimal, the demand comes from the display, radio PA's/amplifiers, and camera flash. The worse your cell reception, the more power you draw, etc.

What did you just say, faggot?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I want to hear any more shit from you, I will SQUEEZE it out of your fucking head.

Why not....

[Anonymous Coward]

Just have districts based on a 10-25 mile radius hexagon out of the center of the state that ends at the states border, etc. Obviously the radius of the hexagon would have to be the same size across the entire state.

The inquiry itself is interesting

[ErichTheRed]

What I find most interesting about this is that smartphones have become so critical to people's everyday lives in just 10 years, that a Congressional committee is taking steps to grill a major provider of said phones.

I'm an iPhone user and actually do like them. But, I really dislike the system that a duopoly has put in place. First, I can't switch to Android even if I want to without losing all the money I've invested in music, apps, etc. and having to re-buy collections on the other platform. Second, the restrictions Apple has placed on hardware lately are just crazy. Power users don't want throwaway appliances. Users who know what's up don't want to pay insanely inflated prices for flash memory. The planned obsolescence thing is understandable, but why in the world couldn't Apple just stick an SD slot under some Ive-ian waterproof door? They could even give it a dumb consumer-friendly name like "Escape Pod" or something.

The problem is that Apple knows that 90+% of its audience is absolutely brain-dead when it comes to technology and will just do what they tell them. While tech should be easy to use, it's gotten ridiculously easy to use in the smartphone era. Obviously Apple admitted to throttling the CPU, but they could just as easily have said. "Oh, that's because your average consumer-facing website is downloading 2 GB of JavaScript and images from 450 ad providers and tracking services, and executing it all on your 4-year old CPU."

When Congress starts setting up public inquiries about your product, it's no longer a niche thing.

Re:The inquiry itself is interesting

[omnichad]

without losing all the money I've invested in music, apps, etc. and having to re-buy collections on the other platform.

Apple sells their music in a lossless AAC format (and have for about 10 years, I think). Android plays them just fine. I never buy a whole lot of apps, they're not usually worth it. I'm not sure what "collections" you're re-buying.

Re:The inquiry itself is interesting

[omnichad]

That was supposed to read DRM-free, not lossless.

Planes never crashed before they had computers?

[Brannon]

How did the stock market crash during the Great Depression?

Perhaps the software world adopted a common term with similar meaning across many industries (crash == "this thing failed unceremoniously") and now they're lecturing the rest of the world on how to use it.

Re:Planes never crashed before they had computers?

[omnichad]

And if the stock market didn't open one day or trading was temporarily halted - neither would be a crash.

Re:Planes never crashed before they had computers?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the stock market did not regularly open for one or multiple days, it may not crash officially on paper while it is still closed, but it will have crashed in the minds of the people that have money in it, you know as soon as it comes back there will be a huge sell off. People would loose their trust in it, maybe more, maybe less depending on what caused it not to open. Just the thought that the market could not open on a whim and people be locked out of their cash and assets would cause a huge sell off.

Just look what happens on bitcoin exchanges like coinbase when there are availability issues due to technical issues. There have been multiple rallies in the bitcoin market that likely got nipped in the bud because coinbase suddenly became unavailable due to all the demand and people freaked out cause they couldn't access their funds / bitcoin

Click bait

[Anonymous Coward]

This is such a non-story.

All compute devices are throttled when a device is at capacity to save the hardware and extend life. If your processor is working to hard it is throttled, if your phone was in direct sunlight, it will even shut down....

The batteries on the older phones are having issues keeping up... the fix to protect the longevity of the device was when taxed to slow down the device instead of allow product failure... this is smart.

Not gaslighted, at least

[speedlaw]

All of this tells me that I'm not crazy. The phone becoming slow, clunky, and such wasn't "compared to the new one", nor was it "the apps you are running" or is it "the new OS has crazy hardware needs"...no... It was simply they are buggering YOUR phone to make you buy a new one.

Regulate power consumption

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why a 'smart' phone of any kind, can't have power profiles that keep battery use to a minimum. Dimming the screen, turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and all those checking for updates and positional data tracking all cost power.

If the Apollo 13 ground team could do it on the ground and relay it to the men in space, I'm sure a few brains at apple can come up with a way of extending battery life for years.

Aren't people just as likely to stay brand loyal if their old device has a reputation for reliability and longevity?

Apple doesn't see it that way. - Anything to sell more overpriced devices to more people quicker and hide their tax returns. - God bless America and Apple.