Tim Cook Says Power Management Feature In Older iPhones Will Be Able To Be Turned Off In Future Update (macrumors.com)

In an interview with Rebecca Jarvis of ABC News, Apple CEO Tim Cook touched on the ongoing controversy over power management features in older iPhones. He says that a future update will allow customers to turn off the power management feature that has caused older iPhones to slow down. Mac Rumors reports: According to Cook, when the power management features were first introduced in iOS 10.2.1, Apple did explain what was going on, but following the controversy, he believes Apple should have been clearer. The company did indeed mention that the shutdown issue was caused by uneven power delivery and explained that its power management system had been tweaked, but there was no clear notice that it could cause devices to operate more slowly at times. Cook says Apple "deeply apologizes" to customers who thought the company had other motivations. Apple is introducing better battery monitoring features in a future iOS update, and Cook says Apple will also allow customers to turn off the power management feature, which is new information that the company has not previously shared. The majority of the interview was focused on the announcements that Apple made today. The company plans to contribute $350 billion in the U.S. economy over the next five years, as well as issue employees a bonus of $2,500 of restricted stock units following the introduction of the new U.S. tax law.

Comments

Very useful

[pubwvj]

What Apple did is a very useful feature. I would rather have my iOS device slow down than crash because the battery is over taxed by surging processor power needs. Empowering the user is even better so that people who want their devices to crash can be satisfied too. All for that!

Re:Very useful

[AvitarX]

Even better, have a toggle.

It's a feature I'd love to be able to turn on even on a brand new phone, and turn off on an old one, depending what I'm doing and my charger situation.

Re:Very useful

[Pseudonym]

My mother, who has spent a lot of her life on committees of one form or another, taught me something when I was very young that I have never forgotten: The problem is often not what is done, but the way it is done.

Probably over half of all first world disputes can be traced to this.

Re:Very useful

[hcs_$reboot]

What Apple did is a very useful feature.

Stop that. Please. Apple injected a hidden function that slows down iPhones little by little, over time. To the point the user wonders: that thing is barely usable, maybe it's time to purchase the next newer model. That could have been a "feature" if users were made aware of it, and were able to disable it ; the slowness had side effects (the GPS became less accurate for instance) and the user might have chosen to utilize their device at full speed for a day, rather than a crippled phone for two ; also, people, if they'd know, could have chosen to replace the battery ; since the function was hidden, users didn't even know they could just buy a new battery to basically get a new phone. That's definitely not a feature ; this is an intentional hack to make people think their phone is "too old and needs to be replaced with a new one".

Re:And so it is

[AvitarX]

An example may be I'm in an office with chargers, and I find the snow down irritating. I can keep it in high performance mode (also called performance I thought I'd have when I tried it in the store and purchased it, except maybe it feels less snappy as the newer apps want even more), but also, if I'm out all day, I can put it in low performance mode.

Why would your personal preference of battery over performance only apply to a degraded battery?

This is fantastic news!

[tlambert]

This is fantastic news!

Everyone who is upset about the phone shutting down when it's in danger of simply shutting of on over-current, and destroying their filesystem, rather than showing down, can turn it off.

And then their iPhones, instead of slowing down, will shut off and destroy their filesystems.

And then they won't be able to call anyone to bitch about it, because they will have bricked their iPhones.

Genius!

The hunt for millimeters.

[CptLoRes]

This entire problem pretty much boils down to the obsessive need to make the next slimmest phone on the marked, while still being more powerful then the last model. And while mobile processing technology is improving, we are still using and demanding more and more from the the same decades old Lithium battery technology.

Re:Good grief, settle down.

[MrDozR]

I think you need to vent your frustration at your bank for them developing an app that can't be supported on older OS'.