HN Gopher Feed (2017-12-28) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance
315 points by jayachdee
https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/
___________________________________________________________________
staunch - 26 minutes ago
On the upside, there is now a very easy way to see which "tech
journalists" understand the concept of engineering trade offs.The
tech reporters at NY Times, Linus Techtips, etc have never actually
created products. They are not technical experts. They're
personalities and communicators. And in this case, wacky conspiracy
theorists.
ProfessorLayton - 53 minutes ago
My 6S was affected by the faulty batch of batteries, and it was a
miserable experience to have my phone shut down unexpectedly at 40%
if I was using it outside in ~60F or colder weather.Apple replaced
the battery once they admitted to the faulty batch, and my phone
has been great since, but the way they handle battery issues is
extremely frustrating. Going to an Apple Store and having them to
their standard test, being told everything is fine and there's
nothing they can do is not what I expect from them.
chx - 52 minutes ago
The elephant in the room is, of course, Apple's obsession with
thinness which makes it near impossible these days to get a usable
laptop because PC makers totally copied Apple alas. It also gave us
nonreplaceable batteries and any successful lawsuit that comes out
of it is totally justified.No one asked for this. Lighter,
somewhat, yes but thin to the point where batteries are barely
functional? Samsung's colossal Note failure is just another symptom
of this. I had a Panasonic CF-Y5, a 14" 1.5kg laptop ten years ago
and somehow it managed to be that light without this thinness
craziness.
sand500 - 16 minutes ago
>makes it near impossible these days to get a usable laptop
because PC makers totally copied Apple alas.I'd say that is only
the Ultrabook market which goes for super thin. There are plenty
of other laptops out there that are thick enough to even have a
CD drive. On top of that there are the gaming laptops which are
even thicker.
on_and_off - 43 minutes ago
Is it also why we have these awful keyboards on the new mbp ?I
feel them absolutely awful to type on (I have never complained
about a keyboard before but I just can't stand this one),
although it is subjective, some people are fine with it.What is
unquestionably bad though is that you need to replace the whole
keyboard if one key has an issue (and apparently it happens a
lot). I know several people for which Apple had to reset the
whole laptop after a keyboard issue, but I can't make sense of
it.
yodsanklai - 30 minutes ago
> I feel them absolutely awful to type on (I have never
complained about a keyboard before but I just can't stand this
one), although it is subjective, some people are fine with it.I
don't know why some people hate these keyboards. I don't really
have a strong opinion about them. They feel slightly different
and noisier but I get identical typing speed results compared
to the previous one.
crazygringo - 11 minutes ago
> Apple's obsession with thinnessYou mean the obsession customers
have with buying thin products, which Apple is simply satisfying,
and extremely well, judging from sales.> No one asked for
this.Yes actually, I asked for this, like many other customers
who bought much thinner Apple products instead of thicker,
bulkier, heavier competing products.
yodsanklai - 36 minutes ago
I totally agree with you. I'd rather have a slightly bigger
laptop with the ability to replace the battery easily.I slightly
disagree with this though:> but thin to the point where batteries
are barely functional?My previous MBP (mid-2014) was still very
usable after 3 years of intensive use. Overall, I can't say I
suffered from not being able to change the battery easily. (I
passed the problem to the next owner...).
hendersoon - 52 minutes ago
That's a great response PR-wise, but it doesn't answer the question
of why these batteries are degrading to a point where unexpected
shutdowns are a concern in a single year. The iPhone 7 is only one
year old. That just isn't OK.
askafriend - 34 minutes ago
A uniform answer to that question isn't possible. There are many
different environments that batteries operate in and those
environments produce wildly different results.
JustSomeNobody - 3 minutes ago
Design flaw. They use small batteries so there is absolutely no
slack.
whamlastxmas - 51 minutes ago
The Nexus 6P recently had a big consumer backlash and refund
process bc phones would shut off randomly below 20% charge once
they got older. I would guess the same thing is happening here. I
would have much rather had reduced performance than a phone
unusable under 20%. Luckily I got a free upgrade to the Pixel to
fix it.
marklyon - 50 minutes ago
My wife?s 6+ was incredibly slow after the iOS upgrade.My 6+
drained the battery incredibly quickly. I was told that upgrading
the iOS would fix that problem; it didn?t. Instead it slowed my
phone to the point of being unusable.If I?d have known replacing
the battery would have fixed both of them, I?d have done that.
Instead, I stupidly bought two new, very expensive phones. Since we
were already locked into the Apple ecosystem, we bought
iPhones.This does nothing to compensate or win back the trust of
customers like me.
reaperducer - 43 minutes ago
> This does nothing to compensate or win back the trust of
customers like me.What is it that you want Apple to do to make
you personally feel better?
[deleted]
Game_Ender - 39 minutes ago
They could offer to buy back any functioning iPhone 6S at an
above market rate from anyone who recently purchased a new
phone. Its sort of a crazy idea, but close to what people
want.
blhack - 36 minutes ago
Questions like this always perplex me. People aren't asking
for apple to do something. They're asking for them to not do
something.
unethical_ban - 34 minutes ago
It's a legitimate question. Frankly, the idea of a phone's
performance drastically changing over the course of one(1)
version upgrade should aggrivate someone more than this. How
can it be acceptable for a single release to "slow a phone to a
crawl"?This response makes sense. They screwed up communicating
the issue of battery life to the masses that apparently don't
know batteries wear out. They're fixing it, they're biting into
their revenue with a mea culpa price cut, and they're making
the OS more communicative of this nuance of phone performance.
pishpash - 2 minutes ago
They're not biting into their revenue. They are doing the
minimum possible to maximize their revenue given the news is
out.
slantyyz - 32 minutes ago
How about be more open and acknowledge problems sooner?While
Apple always eventually gets to the right response, they can
sometimes take too long to do so. In the case of these iPhone
batteries, I think Apple's response was relatively timely.But
there have been cases where well known problems took over a
year to acknowledge and remedy (like the early 2011 15" Macbook
Pro GPU problems).
heartbreak - 14 minutes ago
This story broke less than 2 weeks ago. So 10 business days
(minus holidays) to put together a corporate response that
affects hundreds of millions of devices seems pretty damn
quick.
reacharavindh - 34 minutes ago
Well, can you return the two new phones?
bno1 - 33 minutes ago
What does "locked in the Apple ecosystem" imply? Apps that don't
have a satisfactory equivalent on Android, integration between
Apple devices or general usability/user experience?
unethical_ban - 31 minutes ago
Probably having tons of photos, contacts, email and whatnot in
the apple cloud instead of Google or Amazon or local.
mtgx - 20 minutes ago
That's relatively trivial to switch. If anything it would be
the ecosystem of purchased applications that you still intend
to use.Other than that, nothing should really keep you
"locked-in" on iOS. Not even iMessage. You can use WhatsApp
or FB Messenger with friends or family. It's not a big deal.
[deleted]
option - 32 minutes ago
I had a very similar experience with my 6+ but instead of buying
iPhone I finally jumped ship and bought Essential Phone
(Android). (I also changed my Apple Watch 1 to Nokia Steel HR as
a result of ecosystem change)If only I knew that replacing
battery would make my 6+ usable again I would remain iPhone user.
duiker101 - 28 minutes ago
You might not have trust but yet you have 2 new iPhones.
blondie9x - 50 minutes ago
Apple is doing what is best for the user and the battery. This was
poorly reported on by those without technical backgrounds.
kodablah - 49 minutes ago
Eek, I wish I hadn't capitulated so quickly when iOS 11 came out
and my wife complained and complained about performance issues on
her 2-year-old iPhone 6 until we just decided to buy an 8 and be
done with it. It's not like she would be willing to move off Apple,
and we had the money. I doubt my situation is unique. Oh well.
aetherspawn - 21 minutes ago
Just going to throw this one out there.I swapped from an Nexus 5 to
an iPhone 6+. I bought the iPhone 1.5yrs second hand to get a
significant amount off its price. It is dented significantly on the
back, but still serves me like a new phone apart from a noticed
slow-down.On the other hand, the Nexus randomly started shutting
off and the battery only lasted half a day after charging every day
for the following 2 years.The phones are now effectively the same
age and Apples fix has prolonged the apparent age of my phone, I
guess (thanks).But I think people are being harsher because Apple
products have longer expected life but use the same battery
technology. This isn?t really fair, is it?Ftn. I have designed and
manufactured 3 battery assemblies for electric vehicles in a racing
context.
buryat - 1 hours ago
> First and foremost, we have never ? and would never ? do anything
to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade
the user experience to drive customer upgrades.Didn't they degrade
the user experience by slowing down the cpu? I definitely wasn't
enjoying my slow iPhone
[deleted]
l4yao - 1 hours ago
It's choosing the lesser of two evils. The two options are to
have the phone run slower, or have the phone shut down
unexpectedly with shorter battery life.Personally, I agree with
Apple's call on this one.
wslh - 1 hours ago
There is an obvious third option: replacing your battery with a
new one instead of playing this planned obsolescence game.
sigzero - 44 minutes ago
There is no "planned obsolescence game". Just stop.
michaelt - 40 minutes ago
That's a false dichotomy; Apple has many options other than
slowing down the phone and having it randomly restart.For
example, they could have altered the calibration of the battery
indicator so 0% charge corresponds to the charge level where
random restarts/throttling starts to occur.
MBCook - 21 minutes ago
Depending on how bad the battery is that me end up giving
someone 30 to 60 minutes of battery life.That seems almost
useless. Certainly worse than having a slower phone that has
hours of battery life.
Posibyte - 12 minutes ago
But it could prompt them to see an Apple Care Rep and get a
new battery, which would fix the ultimate issue according
to them.
l4yao - 20 minutes ago
What are some other options?Calibrating for a new "0%"
effectively lead to a "shorter battery life".I don't know the
intricacies of these options, but I can make a guess. The
point which a phone resets isn't accurately predicted. Some
user actions may cause larger voltage drops than others. For
which action do you calibrate to 0%? What if you only do that
action once a day? Is this trade off worth sacrificing 1% of
your full capacity? What about 10% or 30%?
[deleted]
curiousgal - 1 hours ago
Make it an option? Plus, having the phone shutdown would force
users to upgrade out of necessity without feeling swindled.
l4yao - 1 hours ago
>Make it an option?Hmm, that could work, but I feel like that
might go against Apple's ethos. Not malicious, they just seem
to like telling the user what's best and surfacing fewer
options. I feel like the average user doesn't want to have to
make this decision>Plus, having the phone shutdown would
force users to upgrade out of necessity without feeling
swindled.I'd disagree, but may be in the minority. I would
hate having to upgrade because my battery life is shot. A
large reason I chose iPhone was the battery life
BoorishBears - 1 hours ago
As the owner of an iPhone 6 that was degraded enough that even
with the mitigation I had the issue, I agree.Any time my phone
was under ~15% battery, it would randomly crash during
demanding tasks. I'd think the battery had died, but turning it
back on would work immediately and my battery wouldn't be at
1%/0%.At that point the battery capacity might as well be 85%
of the already degraded value since the phone stops being
stable.
rconti - 1 hours ago
My 6 would die at 30% with some regularity, even though
supposedly only the 6S was impacted and hence only the 6S got
free repairs.
strictnein - 1 hours ago
The right call is actually targeting performance at a level
that would allow for longer consistent performance state.If
they're having to go to measures this drastic to keep their
phones from shutting down, their batteries are underspec'd and
their processors are overspec'd.
minimaxir - 1 hours ago
The issue only affected the 6/6S generation (EDIT: with
overwatch for the 7); presumably Apple identified and fixed
the issue for the 8 onwards.
mmcnl - 47 minutes ago
Are you sure? I bet the iPhone 7 batteries simply haven't
aged enough.
strictnein - 58 minutes ago
No, that's not what is being stated here.The iPhone 7 came
out a year ago. iPhone 7 users are also being offered the
$29 battery replacement.
minimaxir - 50 minutes ago
Fixed comment with clarity.
l4yao - 55 minutes ago
I agree, and imagine they probably tried. Maybe it's a new
supplier, maybe newer apps are more power hungry than
predicted?
jasonlotito - 1 hours ago
The other option would have been to alert the user this was
going on. This didn't always happen. They were degrading
users phones while showing the battery as fine. That's the
problem, you can't just start degrading performance without
telling people why.When you have people running 3rd party apps
to determine whether their phones are still running fine, and
then going to get battery replacements and finding performance
returning, and nothing the OS told them indicated anything was
wrong, that's a problem.
flamedoge - 5 minutes ago
There is an obvious third option - have the phone run slower
but tell user about it, that it's running in limp mode because
of deteriorated battery.
b4lancesh33t - 1 hours ago
Keep reading the article and you will find out.
nixgeek - 1 hours ago
Rock and a hard place for Apple, after 600 cycles or 2 years
'average usage' (based on reports I've seen in the past) the
battery might only have 50-60% of the design capacity, so their
choice is between reducing battery consumption (via throttling)
or having users whose phones are totally drained in significantly
less than an 'average working day'.
ropiku - 1 hours ago
It's not just battery life, some people might live with 50%
battery but due to chemistry they can't put out the designed
voltage leading to the iPhone suddenly turning off.
jdietrich - 59 minutes ago
If iPhones are really experiencing that rate of degradation,
then Apple are solely to blame for using such an aggressive
battery management profile. If they had given up a millimetre
of thickness, overprovisioned the battery and managed it less
aggressively, they could have easily reduced battery
degradation to <20% after 1,500 cycles. Adding 50% to the
capacity also gives you 50% more current at the same C-rate. I
think this is a clear case of Apple prioritising shelf appeal
over durability; it's the same root cause as the Galaxy S7
battery crisis.
nordsieck - 25 minutes ago
> If iPhones are really experiencing that rate of
degradation, then Apple are solely to blame for using such an
aggressive battery management profile.Consumers are
responsible at least as much as manufacturers for the current
state of phones. Manufacturers may create the designs for
phones, but consumers vote with their wallets for what they
want, and they've consistently voted for thin over longer
battery life.
baddox - 55 minutes ago
Idk if the grandparent comment is correct about the
degradation rate, but I?d need to see more evidence
supporting the claim that Apple is doing something aggressive
relative to the rest of the industry. Overprovisioning the
battery is silly, and would deservedly cause a much bigger
controversy if it were discovered.
jdietrich - 29 minutes ago
>Overprovisioning the battery is silly, and would
deservedly cause a much bigger controversy if it were
discovered.Really? Would there be a strong negative
reaction if Apple said "we've designed the iPhone 9 to give
you all-day battery life for four years"? Would customers
be angry that their device was built to last longer and
perform better? To my mind, it's a marketable feature.All
battery management is a trade-off between capacity and
durability. Manufacturers have an obvious commercial
incentive to sacrifice durability - you get a thinner
device with longer initial battery life.Purchasing habits
are starting to change in the mobile market. Pricing is
moving away from an all-inclusive line rental price to
separate usage charges and device payments. As the market
matures, customers are holding onto their devices for
longer. I think it's inevitable that manufacturers will
have to improve durability as we move away from the lock-
step of 24 month contracts.
baddox - 58 minutes ago
Old batteries draining to zero quickly isn?t even the primary
problem. The primary problem is phone instantly shutting off
during a peak in CPU usage because the battery voltage drops
below a usagable threshold. This can happen with old batteries
long before the battery life meter goes down to zero.
MBCook - 18 minutes ago
I remember experiencing it with my six. I?d be using my
phone and then the phone would just randomly shut down. I
might have noticed the battery indicator saying five percent
or something like that right before it died (even though that
wasn?t true).You?d restart the phone and after a second trip
to the battery indicator would show the correct level (let?s
say 60 to 80 percent).
[deleted]
kevinherron - 1 hours ago
Slowing down the CPU is a better experience than your phone
shutting off or battery lasting half a day...
scarlac - 49 minutes ago
I?m not sure why you got down voted. This is a completely valid
opinion and comment.
mulmen - 1 hours ago
They said they wouldn't degrade the UX to drive upgrades but said
nothing of other reasons to degrade the UX.
scarlac - 52 minutes ago
What other reasons could they have to degrade the UX that they
should have reasonably disputed in this context?
mulmen - 14 minutes ago
They explain it in the article, they think it's a worse UX to
have the device turn off unexpectedly.
jhgg - 1 hours ago
Would you rather have a slightly slower phone, or one that shuts
off at random due to the battery not being able to provide peak
current.I think the only major mistake Apple made here was not
being originally transparent about this. I don't think that Apple
is being 100% noble in its intents either. In addition to driving
users to buy new devices, there's the much less obvious side-
effect which is a lot of people attempting to get their batteries
replaced at roughly the same time as devices age. Which creates a
tremendous support burden at Apple Stores around the world as
people pile in to get their batteries replaced. (Although more
daring consumers may attempt the DIY route, but I expect that to
be a very small minority).
Y-bar - 43 minutes ago
I am affected by this issue. I would rather have a risk of my
phone shutting down at <40% than my phone gas lighting me with
performance degradation.If my phone shut down when it shouldn't
then I know to search out diagnostics about my battery. But if
my phone slows down I have actually done these things:*
complained to developers that their apps are slower, wasting
their time and resources when my battery should have been
changed.* reinstalled my OS. Which did not help when I should
have changed my battery.* searched and searched and searched
resources online. When I should have researched a new battery.*
I also have to mea culpa all friends to whom I have ensured
through the years that Apple never intentionally slows down
their hardware. I have lied to my friends and need to apologise
to them.
BugsJustFindMe - 31 minutes ago
> Would you rather have a slightly slower phone, or one that
shuts off at random due to the battery not being able to
provide peak current.I wish people would stop inventing this
false dichotomy. What people want is a phone that doesn't
degrade horribly after only a year, regardless of whether that
degradation is that it shuts itself off at 40% (which is
fucking ridiculous) or that it gets noticeably slower. When a
phone degrades so noticeably after only a year, people feel
like they've been cheated. Do any other phones turn themselves
off at 40% charge? My android phones certainly don't.
MBCook - 22 minutes ago
It?s not a false dichotomy. That?s what the phone did
before. It was a pre-existing problem.They could choose to
do nothing. They could do what they did. With either of those
they could?ve chosen to be more transparent (which clearly
they should?ve).You?re arguing that given the problem they
saw once the phones have been in the field for years they
should have designed the phone differently originally. That?s
not reasonable.I?d be very curious to know how android phones
handle this. They must, in someway. There?s another comment
in this story that someone had an HTC phone that would tend
to just suddenly die under 20%, that may be the same thing
iPhones were doing before.
BugsJustFindMe - 2 minutes ago
> You?re arguing that given the problem they saw once the
phones have been in the field for years they should have
designed the phone differently originally. That?s not
reasonable.I'm arguing that given that battery degradation
curves are absolutely a known quantity, and have been for
many years, they should have chosen to not put in a CPU
that would, with 100%, certainty fuck itself in the eye
after minimal battery degradation.
mikestew - 1 hours ago
?degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades?
(emphasis mine because you left that important part out)If you
bought a new phone strictly because your old one was slow, you
might have an anecdotal point to make.
fezz - 1 hours ago
Why is it that low power mode is usable but slowed down mode
because of a battery is sometimes almost unusable?
baddox - 54 minutes ago
Probably because low power mode is completely different, and
probably doesn?t do much to reduce the CPU usage peaks that the
old battery protection code protects against.
tanderson92 - 47 minutes ago
It's not clear to me why this doesn't also apply to the 5S. The
same software is in operation on these, no?
Jedd - 45 minutes ago
Lots of people saying that Apple only had two options - make old
handsets slower, or have them randomly shutdown.Might be a
reflection of the culture those commenters are from, but it's
disingenuous to assert.Other options existed -- notably to advise
the user, as part of the update, via mail-out, etc, that this
choice had been made from them, and (optionally) what they could do
about it.
notfried - 45 minutes ago
I'm really infuriated about this. Since mid-2016, my iPhone 6 Plus
started to act "weird". It'd shut down sporadically, would reach
40% and then suddenly deplete, and started to get slow. But the
problems were not consistent. I went to the Apple Store, and the
phone passed all their diagnosis checks, even the battery.A few
months later, after my AppleCare+ expired, the problems
intensified. And I spent most of 2017 with a very slow and
unreliable phone. I honestly thought it was iOS 10. Had I known it
was the battery, I'd have paid to replace it. Or I'd have forced
them to upgrade it for me for free when I had AppleCare+.I upgraded
to an iPhone X, thinking the 6 Plus had reached its EOL, but now I
think I've been lied to!
akvadrako - 22 minutes ago
Your issue isn't this "scandal" though. This is about preventing
sporadic shutdowns by throttling, so if your phone was shutting
down it was an undiagnosed bad battery, which is a legit
complaint.
bobbles - 1 hours ago
What theyre doing to fix it:"Apple is reducing the price of an out-
of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 ? from $79 to $29 ?
for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be
replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through
December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com.Early in
2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that
give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone?s
battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is
affecting performance."
nixgeek - 1 hours ago
This basically means they're giving you the battery for free.
Takes 30-45 minutes of semi-skilled labor to replace it, loaded
cost of the employee for even 30 minutes has got to be pretty
close to the $29 they're charging.Wonder if this means we'll see
12-24 month phones popping up on eBay with battery health
reports, or receipts showing the owner(s) had them changed out
just prior to sale.
oblio - 1 hours ago
They wouldn't have to give anything for free if, like for many
other phones, the owner could replace the battery in 1 minute
flat with no special tools...
on_and_off - 39 minutes ago
I would love HN to force people to explain why they are
downvoting something.Batteries fail after a while, it has
been a constant for a while.What has changed is that in many
recent phones it is a pain to replace it yourself.
oblio - 20 minutes ago
My guess is that the downvote was a sort of "offtopic" one:
"yeah, we can't change the battery ourselves, c'est la vie,
it's Apple, get over it, let's discuss the issue at hand".
gnicholas - 59 minutes ago
Apple is rolling out machines to make this process faster:
https://consumerist.com/2017/06/07/apple-putting-screen-
repl...To your second point, I'm curious to see if Apple only
offers this to original owners, or if a subsequent purchaser
can get it swapped at this price also.
erikpukinskis - 58 minutes ago
Really? 45 minutes for an Apple tech to do a battery swap?
gnicholas - 1 hours ago
This is great, and it's going to really hurt some independent
shops that offer battery replacements.Also, I wonder what percent
of people will walk into an Apple Store intending to get their
battery replaced and will end up walking out with a shiny new
iPhone. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple offered incentives to
folks who want to just trade in and be done with the old device.
At the very least, they've got you hanging out in their store for
15 mins.
degenerate - 54 minutes ago
Yup, they took some bad press and made it good for themselves
and their customers. This announcement should be used as an
example for other big companies. Be sympathetic, truthful, and
human. I don't own a single apple product but I respect how
they handled this.
JustSomeNobody - 44 minutes ago
1. You're still trying to fix a design flaw with software.2. Good
move on lowering cost of a replacement, because it sure seemed like
you were trying to extend the battery to a point where Apple care
ran out. However,some people are reporting throttling at 89%
battery capacity as reported by coconut battery. This is absurd!
Why? Because you won't replace batteries until at least the 80%
mark!Thanks for the clarity, but you need to stop using tiny
batteries.
jlian - 44 minutes ago
One thing that Apple hasn't addressed is if the Geekbench results
[1] over-represents or exaggerates the the throttling effect. Since
Geekbench pushes the iPhone to its limits for the duration of the
benchmark, iOS needs to throttle performance to prevent shutdown
while being tested. This results in lower-than-expected test scores
every time. But how much does this map to real-life, visible
performance drop?Edit: Another question I have is how do other
devices handle battery degradation? Do Android phones just let
devices shutdown unexpectedly or is there also performance
throttling? Or is the problem non-existent on non-Apple devices
somehow?[1] https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-
performance-an...
tschwimmer - 43 minutes ago
I think this is a good response, and I think a lot of the outrage
over this issue is overblown. At the end of the day there's a
fundamental tradeoff that Apple needs to make on behalf of their
customers: performance or stability. They chose stability, and I
think they have a convincing argument as to why: "It should go
without saying that we think sudden, unexpected shutdowns are
unacceptable. We don?t want any of our users to lose a call, miss
taking a picture or have any other part of their iPhone experience
interrupted if we can avoid it."I have two concerns:1) They still
haven't fully eliminated the sudden shutdown behavior. My old 5S
would shut down randomly under 20% without warning. Sometimes it
would make it all the way to 1-2%, but most of the time it was
between 5-15%. You'd think they'd scale performance throttling
untilt this wasn't an issue.2) I think their messaging with respect
to battery health and the battery being a consumable is pretty
poor. As far as I can tell there's no built-in battery health
indicator in iOS. Sure there are those dodgy "Super Battery Health
Plus Pro" apps, but it seems like a diagnostic menu in settings
would go a long way. Even more puzzling is that techs at the Apple
Store have access to some sort of diagnostic that does this
already. Last time I went to get another issue fixed the guy said
that my battery was at 70% capacity and the voltage was pretty low.
Why wait until '2018' to ship a self-serve version of this?
mtgx - 23 minutes ago
It still sounds like a false dilemma to me. I've never had
reboots on my Android phones because of battery problems.Maybe
Apple just needs to buy better quality batteries? And perhaps
higher capacity that are also capable of more charges before they
lose too much of their original capacity?
cjensen - 14 minutes ago
Upthread at the moment there is a Samsung owner who does have
shutdowns from battery problems.Part of it has to do with how
the battery has been treated. Wild swings in charge daily cause
damage. Hot temperatures cause damage. I'd guess most iPhone
owners have little to no damage. But for those who do, slowing
the phone and giving a warning is a good alternative to
shutting down.
bytecodes - 8 minutes ago
The parent post actually mentions this happening on the 5S, a
phone which did not get a software update choosing stability
over performance. The 6 can slow down and run with a 20%
battery while the 5S runs fast and must shut down due to the
voltage drop.
benashford - 8 minutes ago
I don't think Apple ever applied throttling to devices prior to
the iPhone 6. As you say, old 5Ses would shutdown at 20% (or
lower), but it was with the iPhone 6 and later where devices
would occasionally stop at 50%, so became a much bigger issue.
Presumably this was due to the A8 CPU having a wider-range of
power consumption (this is a guess, if anyone actually knows why
I would be interested to know).For point 2, there is Coconut
Battery on MacOS. This is telling me my old iPhone 6 has 90%
capacity after 400 odd cycles, which is probably par for the
course, but I have no idea if that's bad enough for the
performance throttling to kick in or not. Hopefully the new
screen is going to be detailed enough to say how much throttling
has been applied.
phonon - 36 minutes ago
> My old 5S would shut down randomly under 20% without warning.
Sometimes it would make it all the way to 1-2%, but most of the
time it was between 5-15%."avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone
6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE[...]we
recently extended the same support for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7
Plus"They did not apply the change to the 5S.
rajacombinator - 9 minutes ago
The change definitely didn?t fully solve the problem in the
effected models either. (Can?t comment on if it was partially
effective.) Recently had a sudden shutdown from 50%->0% on a
6S.It?s a decent response by Apple, although would have been
better if they didn?t require a scandal to reduce their absurd
markup on batteries.
RayVR - 33 minutes ago
The outrage doesn't seem overblown to me. For years I knew that
my iphones were becoming obsolete not entirely from the passage
of time but instead from upgrading the OS. Apple insisted they
were not slowing down devices. Now they claim that they started
this in iOS 10.2, without notification.My experience has been
that upgrading the OS results in degraded performance 100% of the
time. Whether intentional or not Apple would not acknowledge the
issue. The phone shutting down at X% charge has always started
after an OS upgrade.
enraged_camel - 23 minutes ago
>>My experience has been that upgrading the OS results in
degraded performance 100% of the time.Well yeah, since more
features mean slower performance.I saw a noticeable performance
decrease when I went from Windows 7 to Windows 8. That doesn't
mean Microsoft started throttling the CPU.
[deleted]
Karunamon - 23 minutes ago
Does this include running the new OS after a factory reset?I
find that even on Android, you drop some performance after a
full system upgrade and it doesn't come back until a full reset
is performed with the new OS.It's stupid that this is required,
but that can be explained as a technical problem rather than
planned obsolescence.On top of that, there's the variable of
increased system resources to consider, which will account for
some of it, and is a no-win scenario from the manufacturer
standpoint no matter what they choose.
jsz0 - moments ago
> For years I knew that my iphones were becoming obsoleteThe
clock down feature is new so your past experiences are very
likely unrelated.
lddemi - 1 hours ago
Coincidence that they waited till after Christmas to release this?
luigi23 - 1 hours ago
Everyone was having fun, eating and singing Mariah Carey.
Christmas is over and moods are worse, so here's the good Santa
Apple Claus is bringing you a gift. That's the logic behind this,
I guess... ;)
erikpukinskis - 1 hours ago
What would the non-coincidence reason be?
chx - 53 minutes ago
https://www.thelocal.fr/20171228/french-lawsuit-launched-aga...
lddemi - 52 minutes ago
The news could have slowed upgrades to iPhone 8/X ahead of the
holidays if buyers thought adding a battery could speed up
their device.
erikpukinskis - 50 minutes ago
But they already admitted such before Christmas:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/12/21/572538593...
simpsond - 1 hours ago
Hopefully they chose to wait, so employees could spend time with
family.
lddemi - 50 minutes ago
They could have begun the battery replacement plan/prices in
the new year.
leadingthenet - 1 hours ago
Reducing the battery replacement by $50 is a great move. While I
think this is a completely manufactured scandal, this will
definitely take away the last argument people have against them.I'm
sure some people will still hate them for something, though.
blensor - 21 minutes ago
I could not care less about which company did this, it could have
just as easily been Samsung, LG,
here>BUT, what I do very much care about is that the company who
did this does not get away with it without losing some feathers,
because they did intentionally hide something from the user that
did affect them quite noticeably and if they would not have been
called out could have had even more serious effects in the long
run.Imagine the following scenario. The battery of your phone is
happily degrading and the manufacturer of your phone puts in some
serious effort to develop a strategy so you as the user don't
notice it. You keep using your phone thinking everything is fine,
all the while your battery keeps degrading faster and faster.
Then some day you actually need the power (in terms of processing
power and in terms of stored energy) because, let's say you are
taking a longer high quality video of a wedding. But since your
phone is now running on full throttle your battery keeps
discharging uncharacteristically fast because it is already in a
bad state, or the software can't keep up with the data
compression and has to start dropping frames and the video of the
event you wanted to keep in good memory now looks awful.Sure,
this is only a very benign scenario but it still illustrates that
the manufacturer should not try to hide such important
information from the user. And as I have mentioned in another
thread, no one can tell me that not a single Apple engineer
during this whole process has stepped up and said "Hey maybe it's
also a good idea to tell the user that we are throttling the
whole system so it may live a few months longer"
jsnk - 45 minutes ago
How is this a "completely manufactured scandal"?Tens of millions
of old iPhone users were left in the dark why all of a sudden the
phone was slowing down to the point where it was becoming
unusable. Millions of people probably spent hundreds of dollars
otherwise they wouldn't need to spend if they know this was
something they can fix with a new battery.I personally have been
using iPhone 6 for 3 years until this CPU-Battery disaster
struck. So I ended up buying an Android phone. I love my Android
phone now, but it's still money I wouldn't have had to spend.This
is a huge scandal. I like the response by Apple, but it's too
late and millions of people already spent money they could've
avoided spending. Good bye iPhone. I won't be coming back.
enraged_camel - 20 minutes ago
>>Tens of millions of old iPhone users were left in the dark
why all of a sudden the phone was slowing down to the point
where it was becoming unusable.Enough with the hyperbole
already. Yes, a few (rather outspoken) users had this issue.
For everyone else, slowdowns were noticeable, but they barely
made the phones "unusable".That's why this is a manufactured
scandal. Yes, Apple could have (and should have) been more
transparent. But their decision to throttle the CPU was based
on sound engineering principles, rather than a nefarious
attempt to get people to upgrade.
MBCook - 41 minutes ago
If Apple hadn?t made this change those phones would have
randomly turned off instead. Those people probably would?ve
gone and bought either a new were iPhone or switch to android
like you did.On the whole I don?t think this would have caused
anyone to spend money they wouldn?t have otherwise. Perhaps
they would have stayed with their phone longer.It?s hard to
tell, and this is certainly worse than if they had just told
people about the battery in the first place (although I imagine
THAT would?ve become a scandal two).
krutzger - 33 minutes ago
>If Apple hadn?t made this change those phones would have
randomly turned off instead.Why is apple the only company
with this problem?
yen223 - 24 minutes ago
Plenty of non-Apple phones suffer from random shutdowns and
restarts due to faulty batteries.
hk__2 - 7 minutes ago
> Why is apple the only company with this problem?It?s the
only one people care about enough. Apple gets a major
"scandal" almost each year about something that affects
every single smartphone company on the planet. Think of the
antenna-gate or the bending issues. Lots of non-Apple
phones have shown these issues, and the random shutdowns
are no exception [1].[1]:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/12/20/some-nexus-6ps-
have-...(updated to add a link)
DSMan195276 - 31 minutes ago
You completely missed his point. If Apple had made the issue
clear, he could have just paid for a battery replacement
instead of a completely new phone. And they clearly knew the
battery was the problem.
legulere - 36 minutes ago
>the phone was slowing down to the point where it was becoming
unusable.Were the phones really slowed down by that much?
ricardobeat - 26 minutes ago
I have a 6S and the difference is night and day. Random hangs
everywhere, even just typing. My original iPod Touch with iOS
3 runs smoother than this (and has its original battery in
it).
jsnk - 33 minutes ago
Yes, from typing to opening apps, I would say anywhere from
500ms to 5s latencies were added to regular things I do.
Opening games and such, forget it, I gave up playing games on
it.
pacala - 45 minutes ago
Props to Apple for doing the right thing. Sad that it took a
manufactured scandal for iOS to provide elementary transparency
into the behavior of known-to-degrade battery component.> Early
in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features
that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone?s
battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is
affecting performance.
greggarious - 1 hours ago
Personally I think this is great news. I like my 6s. I like my
headphone port. I don't do anything CPU intensive on the phone.
As long as security updates continue to be issued, I don't see a
need to upgrade.I got lucky and wasn't affected by the battery
shutdown issue even though my serial # was eligible for a free
battery replacement, so I was able to put off the free battery
replacement for a couple years and get a new one free. In another
2 years I'll probably swap it again for 25 bucks :D
bluedino - 1 hours ago
Same here. I already had my battery replaced under that
replacement plan, and for $25 why not get it replaced at some
point this coming year and hopefully get another year out it.
jwineinger - 43 minutes ago
> for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to
be replacedI'm guessing they'll have some criteria on that
mewse - 15 minutes ago
Apple has criteria for whether or not they'll replace your
phone's battery at all. I assume that eligibility for the
lower battery replacement price will be identical to the
eligibility test they're already doing for the battery
replacement service.When you take your phone in, they'll do
a test on the battery's current capacity and status, using
a custom app. If the battery has reported errors, or if
the reported capacity is low enough (below 80% capacity
remaining, as I recall), then they'll agree to replace the
battery. Takes a couple minutes to run the test, and then
about an hour to swap the battery.(Caveat: I was last
through this process on my old iPhone 5, about six months
ago. I assume that the procedure and policies are
basically the same for newer iPhones, and haven't changed
substantively since then. My battery's remaining capacity
was below 40%, and was reporting errors, when I had it
replaced.)
caio1982 - 58 minutes ago
I understand the promotional cost of swapping it is valid until
December 2018 as per the article (though I am not a native
speaker of english so perhaps I got it wrong).
TheCapn - 17 minutes ago
You are correct in how you understood the article. But I get
the impression from the parent poster that he will use a
"DIY" solution which costs $25 to get the same result.
mtgx - 1 hours ago
If this is an issue that affects every iPhone say past 2 years
(although I think I've heard reports of the issue affecting much
newer iPhones), then wouldn't a much better solution (for the
future) be to make iPhones with user-replaceable batteries? Why
do people have to come in to the Apple Store to replace their
batteries? Is Apple just counting on the fact that not too many
will take them up on it?
reaperducer - 45 minutes ago
> Why do people have to come in to the Apple Store to replace
their batteries?You don't. Thousands of people replace their
own iPhone batteries every week. Even I've done it, and I'm
not especially dexterous.Just go to Amazon or Google and search
for a $20 replacement kit. Or, if you're not a DIY person,
where I live there are places on every other streetcorner that
will replace your battery for you.
MBCook - 37 minutes ago
> Why do people have to come in to the Apple Store to replace
their batteries?That?s how Apple tends to handle almost all
warranty issues. Either that or you can mail it in.iPhones are
not exactly designed to be easily opened and messed with by
normal people. It?s part of how they get them so thin (insert
various other theories that may or may not apply here).
[deleted]
dilap - 1 hours ago
I don't think it's a completely manufactured scandal, although
most of the reporting was deceptive (as is, I'm starting to
suspect, most reporting, full stop).I think the non-manufactured
part of the scandal is having your phone throttle itself w/o
telling you it's doing that is pretty annoying.You're left
wondering, is my phone running slower or is my mind playing
tricks on me?I think Apple's response here is great.
baddox - 50 minutes ago
I?m curious whether anyone who was organically affected by this
power management feature actually could notice the peak CPU
throttling, and especially if the throttling would be anywhere
near as noticeable as the gradual increase in random shutdowns.
Of course it will show up in synthetic benchmarks, but I
haven?t heard any analysis of whether people?s perception that
their old phones are getting slow had anything to do with this
power management code.
matt_wulfeck - 45 minutes ago
Yes I was noticing it. I was really noticeable compared to my
wife?s iPhone that?s newer but of the same model. The time it
takes for search to return was the biggest thing that was
bugging me.A $50 battery replacement for 2.5 years of service
is totally reasonable.
MBCook - 43 minutes ago
Small note, it?s not $50. That?s the price REDUCTION. So
now it?s only $30.I made the same mistake, which someone
else pointed out to me.There are a lot of companies that
make their money fixing iPhone batteries for $30. If this
isn?t a limited time offer they?re in deep trouble.
MBCook - 44 minutes ago
Yes.It may depend on various factors, but I know someone
with an iPhone 6+ that is ridiculously slow. At times it
can?t keep up with typing terribly well. Or you?ll go to
open a simple app and it will take a couple of seconds.And
iPhone 6 that one of their relatives purchased on the same
exact day does not exhibit this behavior. At least not to a
noticeable degree.The phone is three years old and has had a
hard life. It gets discharged down to 10% pretty often.As
soon as the articles about this started to come out it fit
perfectly. We?ll find out when they try and replace the
battery, but I suspect this is the issue.However this is also
probably one of the worst cases. I mean if my phone was
throttled 10 or 15% I?m not sure I would really notice. If
things get bad and it starts being 40%+ I can see how it
would be noticeable.
baddox - 33 minutes ago
I?m assuming this slowness started immediately when
upgrading to the iOS version that introduced the
throttling?
andrei_says_ - 44 minutes ago
No, my mind is not playing tricks on me. My 6 slowed down to a
barely usable pace after an iOS upgrade. This happened
suddently, and not gradually, right at the time Apple was
releasing new devices.It is normal to be suspicious. My battery
did not wear out overnight.
cornholio - 32 minutes ago
> I think Apple's response here is great.I have bought a device
of a certain performance, fully expecting that the battery will
degrade and hold a smaller and smaller charge, but NOT
expecting the performance of the device to suffer. I was given
absolutely no warning that, come a certain age or use-pattern,
the performance of the device will degrade. Apple went behind
my back and installed software that prevented device lockup,
and gave me no info about it.What if I was entitled to a
warranty replacement of the battery, but the software hid that
from me by devaluing my purchase? This is not 'great', it's
sleazy. Apple is essentially getting away with installing lower
performance batteries and/or reducing it's warranty costs
compared to competitors. The behavior itself is good from an
engineering point of view, the communication was deceptive and
fraudulent; the feature should be made optional, enabled at the
user's discretion to extend the life of terminals that are
outside of warranty and start to lock up, or the customer
should be thoroughly informed at the time of purchase that the
performance of the terminal will significantly degrade.
matt4077 - 55 minutes ago
> (as is, I'm starting to suspect, most reporting, full
stop).Don't hate on all journalism (or anything, really) just
because of some bad apples. Even if it were true (which it
isn't), it takes away all motivation for people in that
industry to do the right thing. Why bother spending time on
well-researched reporting, if all you get back is "fake news"
or "all journalists are corrupt and produce clickbait"-hate on
Twitter?More specifically, here's a Q&A, and a previous
article, discounting Apple conspiracy theories by The New York
Times:"Is Apple Slowing Down Old iPhones? Questions and
Answers": https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/technology/iphone-
battery..."A New Phone Comes Out. Yours Slows Down. A
Conspiracy? No.":
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/technology/personaltech/n...
reaperducer - 50 minutes ago
> Don't hate on all journalism (or anything, really) just
because of some bad applesUnfortunately, since these days
anyone with a smartphone can call themselves a "journalist,"
it's become like the lawyer situation ? the 90% bad ones give
the 10% good ones a bad name.
tomcam - 28 minutes ago
?Bad apples.? hehe
netsharc - 58 minutes ago
I like this comment referring to someone else's (Linus Sebastian
of Linus Tech Tips) opinion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16013565How is it
"completely manufactured"? Apple programmed (and hid) the
slowdown because it knows the batteries it is shipping with its
phones won't last more than a year. Linus compared it to a car
performing worse after 1 year of usage..
MBCook - 48 minutes ago
> because it knows the batteries it is shipping with its phones
won't last more than a year.There is no evidence for this.
Plenty of people use iPhones for two or three years and don?t
have an issue, and didn?t before any of the iOS changes that
?hid? them.Some people are just really hard on phone batteries.
I have a few relatives that way. I?m not sure I?ve ever had
an issue using the phone for 2+ years but I don?t tend to drain
it down near the bottom much.
reaperducer - 48 minutes ago
> Linus compared it to a car performing worse after 1 year of
usageI hate to break it to him, but a one-year-old car will
perform worse than a brand new car. A car is a hugely more
robust piece of machinery than a telephone, so the degradation
is less noticeable, but it's there. Why do you think the car
depreciates the second you drive it off the lot?
viraptor - 40 minutes ago
Good point until:> Why do you think the car depreciates the
second you drive it off the lot?Because of the dealership and
"new car" markup. There's next to no difference between the
car that left the parking lot and a "new" one. If you don't
care about this silly game, you can save a lot by buying an
ex-display model with a few hundred/thousand km done.
reaperducer - 47 minutes ago
> because it knows the batteries it is shipping with its phones
won't last more than a yearActually, it's an 8% decrease
starting after the first year. But go ahead and keep on
spreading the FUD. Your HTC stock should catch up soon.
emn13 - 37 minutes ago
It depends on lots of factors; but the degradation can be a
lot more than that if you really abuse your battery. And
unfortunately most devices don't make it easy to avoid being
hard on your battery - you just kind of need to know what not
to do, and play a guessing game. Apple specifically isn't
one to burden the user with unnecessary mental load - so
battery-health management is unsurprisingly something I've
never seen on any apple device (but it's pretty rare anyhow).
netsharc - moments ago
> Your HTC stock should catch up soon.Because stock price is
an indicator of how well a company's products are
engineered!Meanwhile until a month ago; username: root,
password: none (no password, not the word "none"). Try it
twice, get administrator access!
puzzle - 42 minutes ago
I am no Apple fan, but part of what they sell you is an
experience where details like that are hidden from you. Before
everybody got a Mac, didn't techies complain about Apple
dumbing down computers?
jmull - 40 minutes ago
> Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery
replacement by $50 ? from $79 to $29...> Early in 2018, we will
issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more
visibility into the health of their iPhone?s battery, so they can
see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.There
we go.It took too much trouble and too long for it to happen, but
Apple is stepping up and doing the right thing.Actually, the cost
of battery replacement is now excellent. If they hadn't screwed
this up by not communicating what was going on, I think they could
have easily justified $49 - $59.So I take the drop to $29 as a
tangible apology, which I appreciate. (Well, personally, I've
already replaced my battery using a $25 kit from Amazon, but
obviously that's not viable for the great majority of iPhone
owners.)
jhack - 25 minutes ago
> It took too much trouble and too long for it to happen, but
Apple is stepping up and doing the right thing.The right thing
would have been for Apple to either stop this behaviour or give
users the option (retain performance or retain battery life).
They're doing neither.
askafriend - 21 minutes ago
I disagree. I think they're doing the right thing here.Most
users shouldn't need to manage their battery performance
actively at all. What's next? Users should manage their own RAM
usage? Absolutely not.They're giving away batteries for free,
and giving users more visibility into the health of their
battery in an upcoming update. That's the right thing.
PacketPaul - 19 minutes ago
The batteries are not free. How about a user replaceable
battery design?
austenallred - 16 minutes ago
The trade-offs that come with that would completely destroy
everything that makes iPhones great.
jhack - 13 minutes ago
Maybe if they made their iPhones that fraction of a
millimetre thicker, they'd have the courage to bring back
a headphone jack into their $1000 phones.
ceejayoz - 7 minutes ago
Wasn't the point to have better waterproofing? IIRC the
keynote mentioned it being the main spot for water
intrusion.
austenallred - 2 minutes ago
I know it's not common for people to say this out loud,
but I spent $1200 on an iPhone last month, anda. I don't
care about a headphone jack, at all; I use Airpods and
the experience is phenomenalb. Consider me crazy, but I
actually like my phones getting smaller and lighterWhat
if Apple is just making a phone for people like me?
megaman22 - 5 minutes ago
It was pretty fantastic on the Samsung hardware that was
contemporaneous with many iPhone designs.Sadly the
Galaxies have jumped on that bandwagon.
austenallred - 3 minutes ago
Do you ever wonder if there's a reason why that's the
case?
looiid - 14 minutes ago
The battery is user replaceable. If a minimum wage earner
in the mall can do it with a few basic tools it isn?t that
difficult.
blensor - 18 minutes ago
So you think a Popup"Hey you're battery is going bad. Do you
want to [keep the performance] or [save the battery
life]?"Would be too much??
JoeAltmaier - 13 minutes ago
Or maybe "How long do you want your battery to last?"
Choose 6 hours, or 8, or 12.
mikeash - 12 minutes ago
?How often do you want your phone to suddenly shut off
without warning?? [Never] [Sometimes] [Often]
mikeash - 13 minutes ago
It?s not about battery life. It?s about not pulling so much
current that it suddenly shuts down the entire device. Why
do so many people think this is just about making a charge
last longer?
ihuman - 19 minutes ago
I don't think Apple would ever introduce a switch that could
allow the phone to randomly power down.
bytecodes - 12 minutes ago
Well, there is a button that turns the phone off. The angry
users could use that and experience the same thing.
wodenokoto - 18 minutes ago
So the right thing is to have phones crash as the battery
age?This is not a question about battery life in terms of how
many hours the phone can run. This is a question about the
phones ability to draw high amounts of power for short
intervals.
sjrd - 18 minutes ago
Ah, so you prefer your phone just shutting down unexpectedly
when you open your picture-taking app, update the public
transportation app to buy a ticket because they updated the
server, or exit the metro into the freezing cold of winter?
Right.Not an Apple customer (never was, probably never will), I
use a Samsung Android, and I wish my phone were doing that
performance limitation thing, because I do feel the issues
caused by unexpected shutdowns on a daily basis. I constantly
carry an extra battery to be able to reboot my phone when that
happens.
Woofles - 2 minutes ago
Anecdotal evidence, but my 6s (which I had the battery
replaced a year ago under the iPhone 6s battery replacement
program) was shutting down just last week when I would walk
outside, even if it was at or above 50%.I'm really interested
as to where this issue came from, because before I had the
unexpected shutdowns with my 6s that Apple came out and
admitted was the battery's fault, I had never had this
problem with a previous iPhone (or even in the first 6-9
months that I owned the 6s).
LoSboccacc - 14 minutes ago
The rigt thing would have been a model recall changing the
battery with something that has enough voltage margin to keep
the cpu running after the usual degradation for at least the
500 cycles it?s rated forThis is an engineering issue on
evaluating margins properly repackaged as ?we?re improving
battery life? to hide stability issue caused by bad assumptions
on cpu stability across voltage ranges.
pishpash - 7 minutes ago
Exactly, this does nothing to prevent Apple from shoving a
dinky battery in future phones and selling $99 annual battery
replacements (after 2018). Battery itself costs nothing. $29
may be at-cost for labor. $99 is a large margin.
evilduck - 11 minutes ago
Correction, it's "retain performance and experience random
shutdowns or, reduce performance and avoid random shutdowns".
You can't choose performance 100% of the time without
compromise on battery power. That goes for literally any
device.After they figured out that it's a current draw issue
with old batteries that caused it, they would _never_ give you
a checkbox option to allow unexpected shutdowns.
PacketPaul - 20 minutes ago
What about those of us that already paid to have the battery
replaced? I was having the automatic shut down issue and Apple
was telling me the battery was just fine. Since they refused to
warrantee the battery I just ended up paying for another
battery.This was before the issue was really well-known. They
were acting as if I was making it up. But yeah, anytime the phone
was below 50% battery life I was in danger of having the phone
immediately turn off. In my line of work this is not acceptable.
Above anything else I need a working reliable phone.
colejohnson66 - 2 minutes ago
> What about those of us that already paid to have the battery
replaced?Devil?s advocate: one doesn?t complain if they buy
something the day before it goes on sale at a store. It?s just
bad luck
djsumdog - 19 minutes ago
This isn't the first time this has happened to Apple. They use to
not sell replacement batteries for the original iPods, and when
people called in to complain, they were often told to buy an
entire new iPod. This was settled in a
lawsuit:http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments
/apples-ip...Another important note is this battery replacement
cost only cover the iPhone6 and up. That's only the 2015 release.
That's still lubricious. If we had devices as powerful as today's
cellphones that cost $500+ in the early-90s, losing support after
2~3 years would be lubricious.In 2012 I remember seeing someone
with the first generation iPhone EDGE (pre-3G). That's right; the
thing was like 6? 7 years old? He really only used it on Wi-Fi.
EDGE data was painful, but it was still his primary/only phone
for another year.The throwaway economy saddens me, and this move
doesn't really do enough to prevent the continuing pileup of
e-waste being shipped on boats to China and Africa.
lytedev - 15 minutes ago
Hahaha "lubricous" - what a fantastic typo!
lytedev - 15 minutes ago
I can't read.
russh - 6 minutes ago
Had to look that one up, it was worth the effort.
samb1729 - 15 minutes ago
I think you mean ludicrous instead of lubricious, just fyi.
spondyl - 5 minutes ago
Apparently it's a real word!Here's the excerpt from
dictionary.com------lubricious [loo-brish-uh?s] adjective
arousing or expressive of sexual desire; lustful; lecherous
------It kinda defeats the purpose of using the word if no
one else understands what it means :)
B1FF_PSUVM - 3 minutes ago
> no one else understandsI understand fine.
chrisballinger - 6 minutes ago
The iPhone 6 was released September 9, 2014, which is about 3.3
years ago.
jsz0 - 2 minutes ago
There's a huge second hand market for iPhones so I'm guessing
the majority of devices get trade/sold or at least held onto as
spares until they are no longer viable.
TheOtherHobbes - 8 minutes ago
Isn't this a time-limited offer? I understood it was valid for a
year only.
dr1337 - 11 minutes ago
It's very interesting to see the cognitive dissonance of all these
posts complaining about how Apple has lost their trust etc. yet
still wanting to cling onto the brand. There wouldn't be this
pseudo-Stockholm syndrome if people just became more rational and
voted with their wallet. Go buy a phone that you mostly own instead
of buying the right to use and iPhone from Apple.
RayVR - 39 minutes ago
It wasn't until I upgraded to ios 11 that my iphone 6 began
shutting down at 30% battery. This coincided with the phone being
completely unusable. I could not launch apps, using the message
application was nearly enough to make me quit apple.
IBM - 1 hours ago
I still think Apple should sue some publications for defamation for
the manifestly bad reporting about this story [1]. Here's John
Siracusa about it [2].[1]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15995018[2]
https://overcast.fm/+CdQP59ws/56:00
joselreyes - 53 minutes ago
This would be a bad PR move. A giant insanely-rich company suing
news publications?Apple has dealt with overblown controversies
before (Antennagate, etc.) and the best way to deal with them is
to do what they're doing: communicate better, improve their
software, make repairs or returns more affordable.
on_and_off - 52 minutes ago
don't they already snub publications that they don't like
anyway ?
joselreyes - 48 minutes ago
Yes, if they want to be petty about bad publicity, there's
other effective strategies like denying access to the
publication as they did to Gizmodo back in 2010.
IBM - 46 minutes ago
I don't think it's an either/or. They should do what they
announced today and sue for defamation. When they announce the
suit they could state that they intend to donate any awarded
damages/settlement to charity to counter the "Big Company sues
blogger" stories. But I think the reputation damage is very
real and it would give Apple the opportunity to testify under
oath (if it went to trial).
wils1245 - 26 minutes ago
I think you?re both overstating how widely known this
controversy is and understating how bad suing a tech blogger
would look (see: Streisand Effect). I?m a techie and have
barely heard about this. People who went and bought new
phones will be pissed, but the majority of users won?t
care.This response owns the responsibility of countering
misconceptions. The huge majority of Apple users won?t
remember this in a month.
joselreyes - 35 minutes ago
Even if they took publications to court, the public opinion
would not change for the better because people stop paying
attention to any story within two weeks of when it's
revealed. The damage has already been done. The only
potential reasonable argument to do something like this is
for Apple to scare off other publications from publishing
damaging headlines in the future. But the benefit of this
strategy would be little when balanced by the negative PR hit
it would take by every other news publication writing
articles and OpEds on Rich Big Corp vs small, struggling,
important-for-democracy news organizations. There's no faster
way to torpedo your public approval than to go after news
publications.
JeremyBanks - 52 minutes ago
I had to turn off that episode after Casey opened the segment by
condescendingly dismissing any concerns about the behaviour.
Quite rude and annoying.Marco doesn't see the value in tracking
podcast listeners, but I'd think he'd benefit to know what causes
people to stop when listening to their show.
MBCook - 31 minutes ago
> opened the segment by condescendingly dismissing any concerns
about the behaviour.Really? I thought that was perfectly fair.
Apple made it so people?s phones don?t randomly shut off all
the time if the battery is old and people are complaining about
it because it fits into a different false narrative.I honestly
do think this whole thing is very overblown. I?m glad they?re
fixing iOS to inform users it?s going on (that was certainly an
issue) and dropping the price of battery replacements is a
great move.But I don?t think this is the giant scandal that the
tech press is trying to make it. I thought Casey?s assessment
was quite fair.
eddieh - 47 minutes ago
Unfortunately, this is just how Apple is treated by much of the
industry. People love to hate Apple, so there will always be:
"Fingerprint Scanner: how Apple is stealing your identity and
eroding your privacy", "Thin phones: how your phone will break in
half", "WiFi On/Off: Apple & NSA tracking you even when you think
your WiFi is off" articles, etc. This battery thing is just the
latest Apple FUD and panic with a perfectly reasonable
explanation.I work with a guy that doesn't use Apple products at
all, yet _always_ forwards this stuff to me. I don't even argue
about it or defend Apple?it isn't worth my time and it isn't
worth Apple's time either.Maybe they have a defamation case, but
really who cares?(edit grammar)
pishpash - moments ago
Corporations don't have feelings, no need to be so personally
attached. Who cares if Apple gets hate?
Joeri - 38 minutes ago
John sort of skated by the point that these phones were designed
to have this problem. Spontaneous shutdowns with aging batteries
are not a standard feature of all smartphones. Apple made a
trade-off in the phone design that caused this hardware problem
and then used software to try to workaround it but didn?t tell
people that this would slow down their phones. My wife has an
iphone 6 with this problem and was considering a new iphone to
fix her performance problem. Whether apple meant to or not, their
lack of full disclosure caused people to needlessly replace their
phones. To say apple did nothing wrong is fanboyism.Was the
reporting bad? Sure. Was apple in the right? Definitely not.
MBCook - 34 minutes ago
Apple is right that this is a fundamental battery issue. Other
phones must have SOME way of dealing with it.Does anyone know
how Samsung phones (for example) deal with low battery voltage
issues? Do they simply adjust the battery meter so that it
reports zero percent by the time you might start having these
issues? Does it slow the phone down The way Apple did? Does it
issue some sort of warning that your battery is getting bad?Or
does it just shut down if you overtax things?It must be
possible to figure out how other vendors solved this issue.
emn13 - 19 minutes ago
If by "fundamental battery issue" you mean that all phones
have this issue or some comparably severe tradeoff, then no,
this is not a fundamental issue. Batteries don't all degrade
at the same rate, and even given a specific battery tech, the
way it's implemented in the device can have a dramatic impact
on the longevity. Temperature, rate of charging, the degree
(i.e. voltage) up to which it is charged, the degree (i.e.
voltage) at which it is considered empty are all factors that
are primarily in the device manufacturers hands.Even a few
percent overprovisioning can extend life expectency by a lot;
and aggressive temperature-related charging (and discharging)
throttling can trade peak (benchmark) performance and
predictable charging speeds for longevity. I bet apple could
make a phone with at least double the battery longevity with
1% price, mass, and size increases, and perf and battery life
decreases -- if they wanted to. Of course, those factors are
easily quantifiable, and battery longevity less so...So sure:
battery degradation is a fundamental issue in the sense that
all batteries degrade - but how they do and what tradeoffs
the device makes to minimize that are largely up to the
manufacturer, and unfortunately also poorly documented,
poorly benchmarkable, and I'm not sure how clearly a warranty
would apply - so yeah, the it's a factor that manufacturers
are bound to skimp on.(I wouldn't particularly expect apple
to be any worse than the rest of the pack, though).
nofilter - 10 minutes ago
Back when I was still an Android user, I had a Nexus 4. After
a year of use, it also started shutting down at random points
if battery was below 20%. Before that I had HTC Desire (the
first one), which did the same, at reaching 10% of battery,
after about a year of use.
philipbjorge - 29 minutes ago
Spontaneous shutdowns at 20-30% battery was a feature of my
Nexus 6P.http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/12/20/some-nexus-
6ps-have-...
Marazan - 34 minutes ago
Reportage: Apple secretly slows down your phone.Reality: Apple
secretly slowed down people's phones.
decebalus1 - 38 minutes ago
> First and foremost, we have never ? and would never ? do anything
to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade
the user experience to drive customer upgrades.Yeah, intentionally
or not, it does happen. In light of the latest Apple 'innovations'
I would also look at Grey's law (just look at what a piece of shit
ITunes is). There have been numerous class action lawsuits in the
past years, which I agree, don't prove anything except for the fact
that consumers do notice that their older devices often degrade to
not being usable.Anecdotally this is how I lost my 2012 MacBook
Pro. The hardware was excellent but software upgrades made it
almost unusable. Browsing was ok-ish but I ended up using it mainly
in 'terminal mode'. I couldn't find a Linux distribution that ran
properly on it so one day I decided to go with El Capitan because
of it's focus on 'performance' and that it's hardware requirements
were compatible - MacBook Pro Mid/Late 2007 or newer. It worked
fine but two days later I fried my video card while reading a PDF
in Preview. I'm not saying the upgrade fried my computer but I was
really frustrated I only got 3 years of use out of a superb (and
expensive) piece of hardware.And yes, after using an Asus for a few
(awful) years, I bought another Macbook on which I'm writing this
now.
octasimo - 1 hours ago
This smells like a direct response to latest lawsuit from France
[0].[0] - https://www.thelocal.fr/20171228/french-lawsuit-launched-
aga...
ringaroundthetx - 59 minutes ago
This is a good smell though. It likely will adversely affect the
efficacy of the lawsuit.Company internal investigation followed
by public facing change is pretty much the death knell in a
civil/monetary lawsuit.
MBCook - 28 minutes ago
I kind of doubt it. This is been going on for what, a week or
two? I?m guessing they?ve been working on this response that
entire time, not just in the last 24 to 48 hours.
strictnein - 1 hours ago
Apple is in this situation because they've very invested in having
the fastest mobile processor on paper. So you get a high performing
part when your phone is new, and all the reviews and benchmarks are
done with the high performing part, but after a while the battery
can't handle it, so they're forced into these shenanigans.
MBCook - 29 minutes ago
It?s not like android phones are purposefully running with multi
year old chips to avoid this issue. The high-end found they are
all rush to have the newest chips as well.I?ll ignore the ?on
paper? comment. It was totally unnecessary.
mtgx - 14 minutes ago
His point was that Apple's latest chips promise something like
2x the performance of the best Qualcomm or Samsung chip.If that
gain is indeed real, or mostly real, then the difference may be
explained by the fact that Apple makes some compromises that
other chip makers don't - such as increasing the boost
performance of the chip more than the battery and the heat
management can handle.As for the "on paper" claim, I think it's
justified, because largely we only know the Apple chips are "so
much faster" from synthetic benchmarks. But in real world tests
it doesn't seem to make much of a difference.
lev99 - 56 minutes ago
Simple solution. Replace your battery once a year.
mmcnl - 1 hours ago
This is a great response imho. It doesn't fully tackle the issues
I'm having with the approach Apple is taking, but at least Apple
acknowledges its customers in a human way. This is almost un-Apple.
netsharc - 56 minutes ago
How many times have Apple written "We apologize" in press
releases this year?I think I read one during the whole disk
encryption fiasco a few months ago..Edit: no, that was the
username: root, password: (blank) fiasco. And literally less than
a month ago.
tzs - 6 minutes ago
I'm curious about how much slimness people would be willing to give
up for easy, cheap battery replacements for phones.One could design
a phone the thickness of the original iPhone that would be able to
take AAA batteries.8 AAA Eneloops have about the same energy as the
batteries in iPhone 6s or iPhone 8, and just shy of an iPhone 7.If
one would accept a phone about 40% thicker than the original
iPhone, 3 or 4 AA Eneloops would do it.I was comfortable with the
thickness of my original iPhone, so I would be willing to consider
an AAA powered phone. I'd probably even be OK with AA--it would
still be thinner than my wallet, which I have no problem with.
kayhi - 34 minutes ago
How long has this been happening?I upgraded from iPhone 4 to the 6S
due to the declining performance.
caio1982 - 1 hours ago
At least now they are finally making it very clear what they were
caught doing behind the curtains (from the new support page on
battery performance, linked in the press release):In cases that
require more extreme forms of this power management, the user may
notice effects such as:Longer app launch timesLower frame rates
while scrollingBacklight dimming (which can be overridden in
Control Center)Lower speaker volume by up to -3dBGradual frame rate
reductions in some appsDuring the most extreme cases, the camera
flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UIApps refreshing
in background may require reloading upon launchMany key areas are
not impacted by this power management feature. Some of these
include:Cellular call quality and networking throughput
performanceCaptured photo and video qualityGPS performanceLocation
accuracySensors like gyroscope, accelerometer, barometerApple Pay
gallerdude - 1 hours ago
This was a Half-Life 3 kind of issue. They kind of got backed into
a corner where they could never really talk about what the truth
was. Would it have been better to go out and announce: "we're not
working on Half Life 3"? Tough to say.
fnovd - 33 minutes ago
All Apple would have had to do is enable a "Battery Saver" mode in
some deep nested menu and turned it on by default, and this would
have never been an issue in the first place. The fact that they hid
it and denied it is going to cost them. It signals a deliberate
misleading of consumers, and is a legitimate scandal.You can't hide
the bad intentions in good ones and call it a wash. "Extending the
battery life for consumers" isn't a good enough reason to do what
they did. A menu option ticked by default would have given the 80%
who didn't mind this the same exact experience and the 20% that did
the freedom to run their battery to the ground. However, doing so
would have forced them to admit that the battery life was going to
degrade over time given normal usage.
[deleted]
ajoseps - 33 minutes ago
man... i literally just got my battery replaced. Wish I saw this an
hour earlier
satysin - 59 minutes ago
To be fair that is a pretty decent response. The reality is
batteries do degrade over time and they have to manage that. They
should have been transparent about what they were doing and I'm not
sure giving the user control over it is all that sensible.Are there
any battery experts who can chime in with their opinion on this?
ClassyJacket - 55 minutes ago
I'm not a battery expert, but it needs to be pointed out that
other smartphone manufacturers do not have this problem. It was
Apple specific - it's not as if every device with a lithium
battery shuts off at 40%. So it still feels like they're doing it
to mitigate a fault with the device, and should've been more
transparent about that in the first place.
stock_toaster - 50 minutes ago
Yeah, some other manufactureres phones just carch fire instead.
parasubvert - 22 minutes ago
It?s been pointed out in many places that other manufacturers
absolutely do have the same battery problems.https://support.go
ogle.com/pixelphone/forum/AAAAb4-OgUsQiGBJ...https://us.communi
ty.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-Note-Phones/Note-...
baddox - 49 minutes ago
Is there any evidence that, all else being equal, Apple?s
batteries degrade faster or degraded iPhones shut off during
peak usage more than other smartphones?
akvadrako - 19 minutes ago
Of course there is no evidence of that - because then people
would have a legitimate (though different) complaint.
reaperducer - 16 minutes ago
> it's not as if every device with a lithium battery shuts off
at 40%Nexus 6P.
tjtrapp - 43 minutes ago
> It was Apple specificMaybe these symptoms are Apple specific
but Samsung had fire and
explosions:http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-
note-7-battery-...
banachtarski - 40 minutes ago
> op: [request for a battery expert to chime in with
professional opinion]> response: [non-battery expert with
subjective opinion]sums up why I hate HN comments sometimes.
emn13 - 32 minutes ago
To be fair: the OP didn't merely ask, he also gave a
subjective opinion on the matter; and it looks like the
response was to that, and not related to the battery
expertise bit.But hey; in an online forum things get off
topic... kind of like this ;-)!
Improvotter - 32 minutes ago
I really hope this price drop is also available in Europe. It's
currently 99 EUR at Premium Resellers, but it should also be 29
EUR.
nikisweeting - 59 minutes ago
This whole battery scandal is ridiculous. It's literally the
opposite of planned obsolescence, they're prolonging the usable
life of these phones by underclocking them enough to stay
functional for a full day, when otherwise they'd be shutting off
randomly. I wish I could underclock even with a fresh battery in
order to have solid 2-day battery life.
chowyuncat - 54 minutes ago
No, the consumer doesn't have enough information in this case.
They are more than likely going to buy a new phone rather than a
new battery.
MBCook - 27 minutes ago
Under the old software, where the phone would randomly turn
off on you, what do you think they would?ve done? Probably the
same thing. Buy a new phone.
singhrac - 18 minutes ago
I think the argument is that one would notice that the
battery drains very quickly, and starts shutting off at a
certain percent. Then they could know the battery is a
problem, and pay $79 to get that replaced, instead of
upgrading.
MBCook - 15 minutes ago
That makes sense.So I question the question is would users
be happier having their phone slow down or having the
battery appear to drain extremely fast?I guess my answer to
that would depend on how bad the average ?slowdown? is. I
think you?re right if the issue is serious, but if most
people only take a 10% hit when your phone is old then the
slowdown may be a better option.
ricardobeat - 22 minutes ago
Do you own an affected phone? Ridiculous is my $800 year-old
device stuttering like it was Android 1.5.
Game_Ender - 44 minutes ago
Apple knows what typical usage patterns will do to the battery.
If most customers hit an issue that degrades their phone
performance before 1 year, then Apple made that conscious
decision when doing system design (multiple phones have this
issue). It?s fully within their power to spec a battery that
lasts a bit longer.
yoodenvranx - 10 minutes ago
> It's literally the opposite of planned obsolescenceHaving a too
small battery is the exact definition of planned obsolescence!If
they hadn't tried to make the phones as small as possible and
used a battery with 20% more capacity the problems would not be
as severe.
kingnothing - 34 minutes ago
They always release a new OS when a new phone comes out, which
puts more strain on the old phones, causing them to perform worse
because they have old batteries. It's pretty similar to planned
obsolescence that has a good technical explanation.
azhenley - 58 minutes ago
> Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new
features that give users more visibility into the health of their
iPhone?s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition
is affecting performance.Thank you! I've always thought phones
should provide info about battery health.
vizzah - 3 minutes ago
How could iOS (definitely) detect if a battery is chemically
degraded? If they slow down performance based on the "expectation"
that device is old and it's battery _must have_ degraded, then it
is obviously a slowdown for many unsuspecting users, whose
batteries might be in fact absolutely fine. I have SE and never had
any shutdowns; fortunately staying on 9.3.3, without any need nor
desire to upgrade. I'd be utterly disappointed if next software
update started to "manage" performance for me, suspecting old
battery.
[deleted]
pookieinc - 57 minutes ago
> To address our customers? concerns, to recognize their loyalty
and to regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apple?s
intentions, we?ve decided to take the following steps:> Apple is
reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement
by $50 ? from $79 to $29 ? for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later
whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and
available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided
soon on apple.com.> Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software
update with new features that give users more visibility into the
health of their iPhone?s battery, so they can see for themselves if
its condition is affecting performance.> As always, our team is
working on ways to make the user experience even better, including
improving how we manage performance and avoid unexpected shutdowns
as batteries age.I cannot think of a better move from Apple than
these three options. Bring awareness to the user by displaying
battery performance and if updating the battery would resolve their
power issues, you have a (now even cheaper) method of fixing it. As
I understand it, the only way to tell if one needs to update their
battery is by downloading some third party app (that costs money)
and then praying that it helps in some way.Also wanted to point out
that by going deeper into the issue with this article shows (at
least to me) some sense of transparency and should be really
encouraged. While I disagree that they needed a scandal to bring
clarity and it should've been brought up a while back, it's still
great they did it nonetheless. This has been a conspiracy for some
time, glad to see Apple has shed some light on it.
ValentineC - 30 minutes ago
I like the idea of first-party battery replacements, but I have
chipped the glass on the side of my iPhone 6S screen from a drop ?
I wonder if Apple would still charge me the $29 battery replacement
fee, or ask me to pony up the full amount.
myrandomcomment - 56 minutes ago
I need to see the word iPad here. Need to replace a battery in an
iPad Air and would love the reduced cost.
xuki - 48 minutes ago
Because iPads were not affected by this.
ilamont - 28 minutes ago
So how long will getting a replacement battery take? Is this
something that can be done in an Apple Store in a few minutes, or
is it a matter of leaving/sending the phone away for a few days?
avar - 27 minutes ago
They've either been grossly overcharging consumers for these
battery replacements for years, and are now just listing a "normal"
price, or they're taking a loss on it for PR purposes and folding
the price decrease into other products.I don't see how either of
those builds customer trust.