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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

Senator is pretneding to forget how this works

[elrous0]

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

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.

Important issues

[pak9rabid]

Tackling the important issues I see...

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.

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."

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

[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: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...

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.