As a lawyer this lawsuit is on shaky grounds as it stands and I am pretty confident any litigator worth their salt could successfully defend this and probably get it thrown out. While Apple may be guilty of a lack of transparency, they certainly did not do anything to force anybody to "buy a new phone." My iPhone 5S (and iPod Nano for that mater) work fine but the iPod battery is definitely not as strong as it once was but that is only common sense, something that is often lacking in these class action suits.
Nobody and no jury is going to believe this steaming pile of bullshit from Apple, and rightly so. They would be well served to state the truth from here on - rather than keep feeding this bullshit narrative.
They throttled performance to encourage upgrading. They wrote this code as a narrative in case they were ever found out. Never because they wanted to prolong the period of people buying new phones and hurting profits. They deceived everyone because they wanted a better customer experience??? What kind of drooling morons do they take us for?
They are going to get absolutely destroyed in courts all over the globe and in the US congress.
If that were the case than why would performance return to normal after a battery replacement? The only bullshit narrative is the one you are trying so hard to create. The shutting down and battery drain are the same symptoms that the batteries that were replaced under Apple's replacement program showed. My GF's son's iPhone 6 had the same issue recently 79.00 + tax for a new battery and the phone runs like new again. Took an hour we had lunch next door while we waited...
So you are saying that if someone takes their device into the apple store and it is displaying this behavior ( random shut downs and battery drain and shutting down with 30 % etc..) the only fix they offer is to replace the phone? If anything is bullshit it's the belief by yourself and others that are apparently afraid to speak up on an issue when in the Apple store and believe that a device needs to be replaced because the battery has gone bad..
It's nonsense like this that disappoints me with how Apple handled this.. People have been chomping at the bit for years trying to prove the forced obsolescence narrative and they pull this? Apple had to know that this had been a rumor circulating for years prior to this leak coming out.
I recently replaced a screen on an IPhone 6s at a Apple Store. They were professional and helpful. When I walked out, I was thinking “dam this phone looks amazing”. It was in pristine condition and was totally worth the $150!
Now I’m wondering “how’s my battery looking” I know they ran a diagnostics...
If Apple recommended a battery replacement I would have spent the additional $79 without another thought. It might have saved me an additional trip next year (etc.).
My battery is probably fine, but I would have liked know for sure. Apple could have handled this easily, instead they made the absolute worst decision. This was a non issue until Apple made it a big problem.
Tech news sites, infected with mostly trolls these days, run around with their hair on fire with their reporting. Some start to see dollar signs and file lawsuits. In a few days this will all go away and on we will go on to the next trumped up scandal. A few more months or years down the road we will hear the lawsuits were dismissed with prejudice because there was no ‘crime’ committed by Apple. By then no one will care and it will be just a mention in a blog somewhere. You know you’ve seen these scenarios before. Anybody talking about Samsung’s Note 7 scandal these days? Any news on the lawsuits filed over that? What ever happened to the lawsuits filed over Antenna-gate? Will this time be any different? Many are rambling on about Apple’s reputation and transparency and how this is the end,,, finally the end of Apple. Trolls are having wet dreams over this just like Apple fanboys did over the Samsung Note 7 explosions.
I don't think that this will blow over so quickly. Android fans will be bringing it up at the Christmas table this holiday and fan the flames with more people.
Apple has already fallen behind Amazon as the most Trusted Company in America. This is just going to weaken Apple's public standing further. I'm sure Jeff Bezos is thinking about making an Alexa phone right now if it hasn't been already started (as much to compete with Google as Apple).
This won't blow over until Cook appears in front of a Congressional Committee and say's Apple is sorry and will make everyone good.
Tech news sites, infected with mostly trolls these days, run around with their hair on fire with their reporting. Some start to see dollar signs and file lawsuits. In a few days this will all go away and on we will go on to the next trumped up scandal. A few more months or years down the road we will hear the lawsuits were dismissed with prejudice because there was no ‘crime’ committed by Apple. By then no one will care and it will be just a mention in a blog somewhere. You know you’ve seen these scenarios before. Anybody talking about Samsung’s Note 7 scandal these days? Any news on the lawsuits filed over that? What ever happened to the lawsuits filed over Antenna-gate? Will this time be any different? Many are rambling on about Apple’s reputation and transparency and how this is the end,,, finally the end of Apple. Trolls are having wet dreams over this just like Apple fanboys did over the Samsung Note 7 explosions.
Here's how this is going to go:
1) Apple will say "we don't guarantee performance in any way" and the suit will die.
2) Apple will say "replace the battery, and the transient device management situation won't happen" and the suit will die. 3) Apple will say that there is a way to monitor the battery and the battery is a consumable, and the suit will die. 4) Apple will say that a consumer choice to replace a device hasn't been forced, and the suit will die.
(But, regarding the rest, the Note 7 lawsuits really don't have resolution yet. Most have hearings in 2018. I wasn't doing forward-facing reporting at the time on Antenna-gate, but we got bumpers for it)
Here's how I think it will go: Apple will announce guaranteed battery replacement within the first two years for free when Cook has to testify before Congress (or something else to take the heat off him and the company)
I’m seeing this all over my (non-tech) Twitter feed. Good Morning America did a segment on it with Joanna Stern this morning. Apple’s lucky Christmas is in a few days. Still I don’t think this is going away any time soon,
The problem is that we no longer live in a society where facts, reason, or rational explanations matter. Personal beliefs and perceptions, no matter how naive or subjective, are the only reality. Apple can try to explain this with sound engineering, scientific, and customer value principles and logic but it will not change the minds of those who have already decided that this incident fully confirms everything negative they already believe about Apple. There are many commenters who now attribute every perceived performance degradation on their device to be an intentional act by Apple to trick them into buying a new device, regardless of the health of their battery. Unfortunately it all starts at the top and there is no cure in sight.
Here are my facts: My wife iPhone 5S on iOS 7 after 4 years runs as smooth as my iPhone 7 on iOS 10! I was very close to update the software on her 5S recently but glad I didn't. Based on my experience I'm inclined to believe what I suspected of apple for a while: they are shameless lying hypocrites and charlatans like most if not all large corporations!
And you just proved dewme's original point. Even though you suspect that your wife's phone performance would be degraded if the OS was upgraded, it hasn't been and still performs well. Based on this non-event and some unspecified previous experience, you conclude Apple is full of 'shameless lying hypocrites and charlatans'. I suggest that you look in the mirror.
Tech news sites, infected with mostly trolls these days, run around with their hair on fire with their reporting. Some start to see dollar signs and file lawsuits. In a few days this will all go away and on we will go on to the next trumped up scandal. A few more months or years down the road we will hear the lawsuits were dismissed with prejudice because there was no ‘crime’ committed by Apple. By then no one will care and it will be just a mention in a blog somewhere. You know you’ve seen these scenarios before. Anybody talking about Samsung’s Note 7 scandal these days? Any news on the lawsuits filed over that? What ever happened to the lawsuits filed over Antenna-gate? Will this time be any different? Many are rambling on about Apple’s reputation and transparency and how this is the end,,, finally the end of Apple. Trolls are having wet dreams over this just like Apple fanboys did over the Samsung Note 7 explosions.
I don't think that this will blow over so quickly. Android fans will be bringing it up at the Christmas table this holiday and fan the flames with more people.
Apple has already fallen behind Amazon as the most Trusted Company in America. This is just going to weaken Apple's public standing further. I'm sure Jeff Bezos is thinking about making an Alexa phone right now if it hasn't been already started (as much to compete with Google as Apple).
This won't blow over until Cook appears in front of a Congressional Committee and say's Apple is sorry and will make everyone good.
LOL it won’t go that far, but you never know... Congress wastes time on so many baffling things they don’t even bother reading their own ‘tax reform bill’.
Apple handled this like a purely technical problem. If the reboot problem was a result max performance drawing to much power from an aging battery, then reducing performance fixes the problem. That’s true, but also so wrong. I wonder if the battery decision ever made it up to Cooks level. I have to much respect for Cook to assume he’d make such a stupid decision...
When my iPhome 6 was 18 months old and still under AppleCare it started spontaneously dying when the battery remaining was 40% and I did something like shoot a video. Apple wouldn’t replace the battery because I wasn’t on the current OS and because the battery did not “test” out of spec according to the Genius Bar. Sure enough months later when I finally gave up my jailbreak and updated iOS the sudden shutdowns stopped too, but now the phone was slow as heck.... so... I replaced it.
This is the key thing people are missing. Is this isn’t just 4 year old phones. Let’s talk about what an old battery is... in my case it should have been a manufactures defect under warranty replacement at 18 months and wasn’t because the software crippled it instead. .
Phones should operate normally, full power, for at least their warranty duration, don’t you think?
When my iPhome 6 was 18 months old and still under AppleCare it started spontaneously dying when the battery remaining was 40% and I did something like shoot a video. Apple wouldn’t replace the battery because I wasn’t on the current OS and because the battery did not “test” out of spec according to the Genius Bar. Sure enough months later when I finally gave up my jailbreak and updated iOS the sudden shutdowns stopped too, but now the phone was slow as heck.... so... I replaced it.
This is the key thing people are missing. Is this isn’t just 4 year old phones. Let’s talk about what an old battery is... in my case it should have been a manufactures defect under warranty replacement at 18 months and wasn’t because the software crippled it instead. .
Phones should operate normally, full power, for at least their warranty duration, don’t you think?
From the article:
"Batteries are considered consumables, with users responsible for condition of the battery after Apple's one-year warranty expires, or after two years if AppleCare+ is purchased for the device."
Your battery did, for the warranty period -- the year. With AppleCare+ at 18 months (which is legally insurance, and not a warranty extension) the "spontaneously dying" by itself should have earned you a replacement. Why they didn't look at the log when they ran the test, I don't know.
The problem is that we no longer live in a society where facts, reason, or rational explanations matter. Personal beliefs and perceptions, no matter how naive or subjective, are the only reality. Apple can try to explain this with sound engineering, scientific, and customer value principles and logic but it will not change the minds of those who have already decided that this incident fully confirms everything negative they already believe about Apple. There are many commenters who now attribute every perceived performance degradation on their device to be an intentional act by Apple to trick them into buying a new device, regardless of the health of their battery. Unfortunately it all starts at the top and there is no cure in sight.
Here are my facts: My wife iPhone 5S on iOS 7 after 4 years runs as smooth as my iPhone 7 on iOS 10! I was very close to update the software on her 5S recently but glad I didn't. Based on my experience I'm inclined to believe what I suspected of apple for a while: they are shameless lying hypocrites and charlatans like most if not all large corporations!
This response is a perfect example of subjective reality fed by confirmation bias with a little backfire thrown in for good measure. Nothing Apple says or does at this point is going to change the reality embraced by this person or the many others with similarly toned commentary. If Apple removes the wear/aging compensation from iOS 11 and devices crash more often or if Apple puts in a battery health indicator to let uses know when their battery is near death, the same subjectivity will be applied that evil Apple is trying to trick them into buying a new Apple device.
At the end of the day Apple is only one of many vendors selling similar products in the same market category. If you feel as though you're not getting a fair shake from Apple then take your business elsewhere. Can it get any simpler than that? You gotta sleep at night. Think about all the peace, tranquility, and wonder that will ensue when you are unshackled from Apple's oppression. Oops, forgot that all large corporations are out to get us. Maybe consider buying a Raspberry Pi and figuring out how to turn it into a communication device. You can probably fashion a shoulder strap for a motorcycle battery to power it when working mobile. A small form factor bluetooth keyboard with integrated trackpad, a cheap Android tablet as a monitor, and you're all set - wherever you can find a WiFi hotspot you are in like Flynn.
Dude, your response is as subjective as mine in that case. Your subjective reality is based on your beliefs and being a long time apple fan who holds couple of shares in the company. Mine is based on my experience with an old iPhone in real life! I have been using iPhones upgrading them early since 2008 and I understand a thing or two about how they perform. The reason I'm still on iOS 10 on my 7 is to keep my jailbreak and be unshackled from apple oppression as you correctly said. I like the devices, well except the abominable iPhone X with narrow screen and cut out at the top, but not the company and it's abusive practices. How do you feel if next time you take your truck to the dealer, I assume you drive a shiny one, and the dealer locks it for your to drive it in first gear only, and only on certain roads, and forces you to not allow any passengers in your vehicle?
Apple always portray themselves as the humane company. They are not like the others. They treat everyone equally, fight for civil, gay, animal, extraterrestrial, fantastical, irrational, and all kind of rights. They are the green company etc.. In reality is all about money and making huge profits just like most other corporations. They are very good at marketing as we all know and undertaking consumer psychology. The rate of upgrades is not as great as it used to be as the market is saturated and the competition is tight. Sad they have to use such tactics to make people upgrade.
The problem is that we no longer live in a society where facts, reason, or rational explanations matter. Personal beliefs and perceptions, no matter how naive or subjective, are the only reality. Apple can try to explain this with sound engineering, scientific, and customer value principles and logic but it will not change the minds of those who have already decided that this incident fully confirms everything negative they already believe about Apple. There are many commenters who now attribute every perceived performance degradation on their device to be an intentional act by Apple to trick them into buying a new device, regardless of the health of their battery. Unfortunately it all starts at the top and there is no cure in sight.
Here are my facts: My wife iPhone 5S on iOS 7 after 4 years runs as smooth as my iPhone 7 on iOS 10! I was very close to update the software on her 5S recently but glad I didn't. Based on my experience I'm inclined to believe what I suspected of apple for a while: they are shameless lying hypocrites and charlatans like most if not all large corporations!
This response is a perfect example of subjective reality fed by confirmation bias with a little backfire thrown in for good measure. Nothing Apple says or does at this point is going to change the reality embraced by this person or the many others with similarly toned commentary. If Apple removes the wear/aging compensation from iOS 11 and devices crash more often or if Apple puts in a battery health indicator to let uses know when their battery is near death, the same subjectivity will be applied that evil Apple is trying to trick them into buying a new Apple device.
At the end of the day Apple is only one of many vendors selling similar products in the same market category. If you feel as though you're not getting a fair shake from Apple then take your business elsewhere. Can it get any simpler than that? You gotta sleep at night. Think about all the peace, tranquility, and wonder that will ensue when you are unshackled from Apple's oppression. Oops, forgot that all large corporations are out to get us. Maybe consider buying a Raspberry Pi and figuring out how to turn it into a communication device. You can probably fashion a shoulder strap for a motorcycle battery to power it when working mobile. A small form factor bluetooth keyboard with integrated trackpad, a cheap Android tablet as a monitor, and you're all set - wherever you can find a WiFi hotspot you are in like Flynn.
How do you feel if next time you take your truck to the dealer, I assume you drive a shiny one, and the dealer locks it for your to drive it in first gear only, and only on certain roads, and forces you to not allow any passengers in your vehicle?
Limp-home mode in the event of a problem is a better analogy.
This reminds me of the notice in the manual of many cars that recommend using premium gasoline to reduce engine "pings." If you use regular gasoline, they warn, the computer will compensate but will degrade performance. Now obviously that is different in that the consumer gets to decide what type of gas to buy, but the concept is similar. "If your iPhone battery isn't at it's peak the computer may compensate which may degrade performance." Unfortunately, for Apple, they didn't include a sentence like that in the small print anywhere. Now it's perceived as an anti-consumer cover up. (Personally, I believe it's more a part of Apple's philosophy that the end user shouldn't be troubled with this sort of thing and that this battery throttling is part of the 'it just works' goal.)
Lawsuit is rubbish. When the battery performance drops to a certain level the choice for Apple was to let the phone crash under heavy load ( aka artificial benchmarks) or throttle the phone. They made a choice most consumers would agree with. From my understanding a bad battery shows as yellow in settings.
Another very unfortunate aspect of the battery wear compensation workaround is the sudden proclamation by many that ALL system slowdown issues that have ever occurred with an iPhone are now attributable to this specific condition. Therefore, when this wildfire is finally quenched and some sort of workaround to the workaround is deployed by Apple (not sure what exactly will ever fully extinguish all the flamers), some users will absolutely still see occasional and intermittent slowdowns on their devices. What then? More backlash, did Apple lie about the "fix" or are they still engaged in nefarious plots to still trick current users into upgrading to a $1000 phone?
Nobody who's already made up their mind about Apple is going to allow themselves to look at these devices for what they really are. The iPhone is an incredibly complex integration of hardware, firmware, software, chemistry, optics, thermodynamics, physics, electromagnetics, and human factors. In other words, it's an engineered product. The performance of the iPhone at any given instant depends on a very deep stack of engineered design, integration, and trade offs all working together to deliver the greatest utility to the greatest number of users for the longest product lifetime.
When performance slowdowns, i.e., non-peak performance, occur any number of dependent processes, functions, or components anywhere in the engineered stack can be the cause. Overheating, overcooling, battery wear out, solid state memory wear out, excessive background processes/threads, stack/heap/freespace fragmentation, hung processes/threads, hot spinning processes/threads, poor cellular/wifi reception, degraded power components, physical damage, firmware bugs, kernel mode software bugs, user mode software bugs, badly implemented interprocess communication (IPC) strategies (inefficient use of locks, mutexes, semaphores, etc.), reference counting bugs, memory leaks, buffer overruns/underruns, and any one of a plethora of software implementations that is clearly "crap code" while not technically being a bug.
Everyone who contributes to the engineered stack in the iPhone, including Apple, app developers, and component suppliers, has an opportunity to upset the performance apple cart so to speak. When Apple releases a new version of iOS they often make changes in the stack to surface a new feature on the new SOC or to change existing behaviors, for example how apps behave in the background. Apple also exposes new and updated services to app developers that create additional performance related dependencies. Despite the fact that Apple takes a very stringent and engineered approach they don't always foresee every possible consequence and its impact on performance in every conceivable operational and environmental scenario. Oh, and it's a constantly moving target because everyone expects a Big New Wow every September. Plus, performance is not the only quality factor they have to be concerned with. All of the "ilities" like reliability, maintainability, modifiability, field serviceability, portability, and usability matter just as much as performance.
I know, I know, nobody wants to hear about rational technical details and complexity when the only thing that matters is that they've been cruelly and personally victimized by Apple and its evil intentions. If being a victim and seeking justice for their suffering is all that matters then they'd best enjoy the wallowing because it's never going to end. As soon as Apple figures out a way to soothe the dying battery victim's suffering some other Apple induced product flaw will undoubtedly rear its ugly head, a slowdown will occur, and once again convince them that the unrequited perfection they demand in all things and entities, outside of themselves of course, is continuing to make their own lives miserable, and for that, nothing short of a class action suit will suffice. Even if the class action ends in bitter defeat, the communal sharing of cyber grief and phony outrage has brought them all a little closer together in body and spirit, thanks to Apple.
Apple deceived millions into buying new phones when the problem could have been fixed at the Apple store for $79.
All Apple needed to do is inform users with degrading batteries, and give them options.
The coverup at Apple should absolutely result in damages awarded, and whoever ordered this being fired.
That said, the Class Action mentioned isn’t going to succeed. But one that is crafted properly (by someone that understands the situation) likely will.
This isn’t likely to be a big hit to Apple financially, but it is a PR problem.
If I was Apple, I’d admit a mistake was made. Throw someone under the bus for the decision. And give owners something to make them happy.
I suggest a $10 App Store gift card to all owners, and a $10 rebate on a battery replacement is appropriate.
Apple makes back $3 on the gift cards, and it’s unlikely Apple would lose money on the $69 (79-10) battery replacements.
Apple would restore the good will, and probably profit from letting people know that it’s time to replace their batteries.
It would also ensure that when people do upgrade it’s to another Apple device.
Two words for this entire post...Bull shit!
Apple owes customers nothing. If a customer suspects an issue with their phone, all they have to do is take it to a service center to get it looked at. Why is it Apple's responsibility to ask every customer "Hey how is your phone running today"? This isn't an issue with the phone. Its just something that happens naturally over time which is exactly the same thing that happens with ALL batteries. They eventually lose their ability to fully charge and they will also deplete quicker as well.
Why should Apple give out gift cards? I don't get this. Should they have been more transparent about this, yes, but this doesn't mean the customer is owed anything in the end.
Apple’s documentation is noteworthy. For the iPhone the number of charging cycles the battery is designed to accept while keeping 80% charge is 500. For other products, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBooks, it’s 1000 charging cycles. After this, the battery may need replacing.
The iPhone also has a Low Power Mode which can be set by user when the battery has become depleted. The iPad does not. My guess is under certain circumstances, iOS automatically institutes Low Power Mode on its own. Bug in iOS, or battery reaching EOL?
Btw, the iPad Pro raises an alert when the Pencil battery charge drops to 5%.
It would be useful if iOS would display number of charging cycles of battery. This info is available on MacBooks.
Something doesn’t add up here. Surely these are not the first smartphones to use lithium batteries that degrade over time. What changed, causing these to unexpectedly shut down? Sounds like a defect covered up by slowing down the phone instead of a recall. Why issue a recall when you can get users to buy batteries, or, even better, new phones.
What changed? The OS primarily. Newer OSes are doing more with the same hardware with sometimes unexpected results.
This reminds me of the Radeon X1900 (iirc) in the Mac Pros. They were fine until Snow Leopard came out. Then, with the GPU being used all the time drawing the Quartz UI elements the card was already running warm and then would overheat quite quickly if you started stressing it (with a game).
When my iPhome 6 was 18 months old and still under AppleCare it started spontaneously dying when the battery remaining was 40% and I did something like shoot a video. Apple wouldn’t replace the battery because I wasn’t on the current OS and because the battery did not “test” out of spec according to the Genius Bar. Sure enough months later when I finally gave up my jailbreak and updated iOS the sudden shutdowns stopped too, but now the phone was slow as heck.... so... I replaced it.
This is the key thing people are missing. Is this isn’t just 4 year old phones. Let’s talk about what an old battery is... in my case it should have been a manufactures defect under warranty replacement at 18 months and wasn’t because the software crippled it instead. .
Phones should operate normally, full power, for at least their warranty duration, don’t you think?
So my thought on your last question is: my car doesn’t throttle my engine when I am low on gas. To my knowledge, my MacBook doesn’t throttle my chips as the battery is aging. What makes the iPhone so special?
I bought a device that is expected to produce a certain level of preformance, I expect it to continue that level at all times unless otherwise told. Why cover up a failing battery? If it’s a serious problem, I will replace it, as most consumers would once it’s condition is poor. There is no defending Apple on this one.
Not sure how big of a deal this is but the iOS versions here lately have been horrid on my iPhone 7. So bad, I am restarting or hard restarting my phone at least once per day, often multiple times per day. It’s like using a beta iOS or a Samsung. Really annoying. Generally it happens when using built in Apple apps too. Anyone else having a similar experience?
No, but it may have a "limp home" mode in the event of some kind of problem. That's what this is. And, in the case of a depleted battery in at least the white plastic MacBooks, and MacBook Pros before 2010 for sure, and possibly more models, if it isn't capable of delivering enough power, or is not installed, the machine clocks itself down to properly operate.
I'm certainly not defending Apple's lack of response to the situation. However, there are chemical and physical realities associated with batteries, and the throttling in response to a depleted one is fine. Just not the lack of disclosure.
Again, the choices here are a crashing phone that shuts off randomly, or one that is slower and still works.
Where exactly those disclosures should be would be my question. There might be numerous fairly arcane situations that would need to be disclosed, if such disclosure is truly required.
In the previous article, about the first lawsuit, a commenter pointed out that the OS throttles the clock speed to prevent thermal issues. Should that be disclosed? Where, and when?
What about other issues that affect performance? Running 32-bit apps, back before they were culled? Should that have been disclosed at the time of a sale of an iPhone 5S, 6, 6S?
How about the minor difference in processor performance between the Samsung and TMSC A10’s? Should that have been printed on the back of each iPhone, like the P, (Philadelphia), D (Denver) or S (San Francisco) mint marks on old pennies?
Then there’s the Intel versus Qualcomm modem speeds. Again, print that on the back of the iPhone too? Let users make a choice?
The fact is, Apple doesn’t sell their iPhones on those specs. They don’t promise or represent that the CPU will always run at a certain clock speed. They do represent that each new CPU is faster than the previous generations, but that’s a relative comparison. If two generations of CPU are each downclocked under similar conditions (to prevent a thermal issue, for example), then the relative performance claims will remain true. The fact Apple doesn’t make a claim about absolute performance is, in my opinion, why these lawsuits will fail.
Where is it that Apple should be so transparent regarding all these esoteric device management issues?
Dude...esoteric? Get real.This isn't a minor variance in battery or processor performance, as we've seen in the past. This is Apple deliberately slowing down older phones, ostensibly to preserve battery life. They did it without telling anyone until now. This means that people experienced slowdowns and didn't know why. How many people upgraded to a new phone when they may not have needed to?
This is a big deal, and Apple is going to take a real hit from it. Mark my words.
While we're being precise:
This is Apple deliberately slowing down a phone to prevent random shutdown and keep it functional in the case of an expendable component reaching the end of its operational life.
Low-voltage situations happen on Android too. You know what happens? The device crashes.
Yeah, It's a big deal. But, not for the reasons you want it to be.
I don't "want" it to be anything. The point is not that Apple is preserving battery life by throttling older devices. That's a reasonable "feature," if it is transparent. Like it or not, this is a PR debacle. In fact, AI just used that word in the headlines. Apple has long been suspected of slowing down older devices (for which there has not been evidence). Do you honestly think the general public will understand what's actually happening here? To Joe Six Pack, Apple just confirmed what he and many others believe. And they admitted it was deliberate, and secret for a time. Readers here get what they are doing. But readers here are not most people.
When my iPhome 6 was 18 months old and still under AppleCare it started spontaneously dying when the battery remaining was 40% and I did something like shoot a video. Apple wouldn’t replace the battery because I wasn’t on the current OS and because the battery did not “test” out of spec according to the Genius Bar. Sure enough months later when I finally gave up my jailbreak and updated iOS the sudden shutdowns stopped too, but now the phone was slow as heck.... so... I replaced it.
This is the key thing people are missing. Is this isn’t just 4 year old phones. Let’s talk about what an old battery is... in my case it should have been a manufactures defect under warranty replacement at 18 months and wasn’t because the software crippled it instead. .
Phones should operate normally, full power, for at least their warranty duration, don’t you think?
So my thought on your last question is: my car doesn’t throttle my engine when I am low on gas. To my knowledge, my MacBook doesn’t throttle my chips as the battery is aging. What makes the iPhone so special?
I bought a device that is expected to produce a certain level of preformance, I expect it to continue that level at all times unless otherwise told. Why cover up a failing battery? If it’s a serious problem, I will replace it, as most consumers would once it’s condition is poor. There is no defending Apple on this one.
Not sure how big of a deal this is but the iOS versions here lately have been horrid on my iPhone 7. So bad, I am restarting or hard restarting my phone at least once per day, often multiple times per day. It’s like using a beta iOS or a Samsung. Really annoying. Generally it happens when using built in Apple apps too. Anyone else having a similar experience?
No, but it may have a "limp home" mode in the event of some kind of problem. That's what this is. And, in the case of a depleted battery in at least the white plastic MacBooks, and MacBook Pros before 2010 for sure, and possibly more models, if it isn't capable of delivering enough power, or is not installed, the machine clocks itself down to properly operate.
I'm certainly not defending Apple's lack of response to the situation. However, there are chemical and physical realities associated with batteries, and the throttling in response to a depleted one is fine. Just not the lack of disclosure.
Again, the choices here are a crashing phone that shuts off randomly, or one that is slower and still works.
Where exactly those disclosures should be would be my question. There might be numerous fairly arcane situations that would need to be disclosed, if such disclosure is truly required.
In the previous article, about the first lawsuit, a commenter pointed out that the OS throttles the clock speed to prevent thermal issues. Should that be disclosed? Where, and when?
What about other issues that affect performance? Running 32-bit apps, back before they were culled? Should that have been disclosed at the time of a sale of an iPhone 5S, 6, 6S?
How about the minor difference in processor performance between the Samsung and TMSC A10’s? Should that have been printed on the back of each iPhone, like the P, (Philadelphia), D (Denver) or S (San Francisco) mint marks on old pennies?
Then there’s the Intel versus Qualcomm modem speeds. Again, print that on the back of the iPhone too? Let users make a choice?
The fact is, Apple doesn’t sell their iPhones on those specs. They don’t promise or represent that the CPU will always run at a certain clock speed. They do represent that each new CPU is faster than the previous generations, but that’s a relative comparison. If two generations of CPU are each downclocked under similar conditions (to prevent a thermal issue, for example), then the relative performance claims will remain true. The fact Apple doesn’t make a claim about absolute performance is, in my opinion, why these lawsuits will fail.
Where is it that Apple should be so transparent regarding all these esoteric device management issues?
Dude...esoteric? Get real.This isn't a minor variance in battery or processor performance, as we've seen in the past. This is Apple deliberately slowing down older phones, ostensibly to preserve battery life. They did it without telling anyone until now. This means that people experienced slowdowns and didn't know why. How many people upgraded to a new phone when they may not have needed to?
This is a big deal, and Apple is going to take a real hit from it. Mark my words.
While we're being precise:
This is Apple deliberately slowing down a phone to prevent random shutdown and keep it functional in the case of an expendable component reaching the end of its operational life.
Low-voltage situations happen on Android too. You know what happens? The device crashes.
Yeah, It's a big deal. But, not for the reasons you want it to be.
I don't "want" it to be anything. The point is not that Apple is preserving battery life by throttling older devices. That's a reasonable "feature," if it is transparent. Like it or not, this is a PR debacle. In fact, AI just used that word in the headlines. Apple has long been suspected of slowing down older devices (for which there has not been evidence). Do you honestly think the general public will understand what's actually happening here? To Joe Six Pack, Apple just confirmed what he and many others believe. And they admitted it was deliberate, and secret for a time. Readers here get what they are doing. But readers here are not most people.
I have never said that it wasn't a PR issue. But, it's being fueled by other venues catering to a populace who doesn't actually want to be informed about it, with verbatim headlines such as "We knew it! Apple slows down older phones," "Apple admits it slows down old iPhones," and "Apple says slower performance of older iPhones is intentional."
One is a tech-centric venue. One is an Apple-specific site. The other is mainstream media. While none of them are a lie -- the headlines as such lack accuracy and precision and because they do, they fuel fires that shouldn't exist in the first place.
Speaking of Joe Six-Pack, who probably wasn't noticing the issue in the first place, which is worse -- a phone that shuts down seemingly at random, or a phone that might be slower but still works?
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https://www.classaction.com/samsung-galaxy-phones/lawsuit/
Now I’m wondering “how’s my battery looking” I know they ran a diagnostics...
If Apple recommended a battery replacement I would have spent the additional $79 without another thought. It might have saved me an additional trip next year (etc.).
My battery is probably fine, but I would have liked know for sure. Apple could have handled this easily, instead they made the absolute worst decision. This was a non issue until Apple made it a big problem.
I don't think that this will blow over so quickly. Android fans will be bringing it up at the Christmas table this holiday and fan the flames with more people.
Apple has already fallen behind Amazon as the most Trusted Company in America. This is just going to weaken Apple's public standing further. I'm sure Jeff Bezos is thinking about making an Alexa phone right now if it hasn't been already started (as much to compete with Google as Apple).
This won't blow over until Cook appears in front of a Congressional Committee and say's Apple is sorry and will make everyone good.
Apple handled this like a purely technical problem. If the reboot problem was a result max performance drawing to much power from an aging battery, then reducing performance fixes the problem. That’s true, but also so wrong. I wonder if the battery decision ever made it up to Cooks level. I have to much respect for Cook to assume he’d make such a stupid decision...
"Batteries are considered consumables, with users responsible for condition of the battery after Apple's one-year warranty expires, or after two years if AppleCare+ is purchased for the device."
Apple always portray themselves as the humane company. They are not like the others. They treat everyone equally, fight for civil, gay, animal, extraterrestrial, fantastical, irrational, and all kind of rights. They are the green company etc.. In reality is all about money and making huge profits just like most other corporations. They are very good at marketing as we all know and undertaking consumer psychology. The rate of upgrades is not as great as it used to be as the market is saturated and the competition is tight. Sad they have to use such tactics to make people upgrade.
Nobody who's already made up their mind about Apple is going to allow themselves to look at these devices for what they really are. The iPhone is an incredibly complex integration of hardware, firmware, software, chemistry, optics, thermodynamics, physics, electromagnetics, and human factors. In other words, it's an engineered product. The performance of the iPhone at any given instant depends on a very deep stack of engineered design, integration, and trade offs all working together to deliver the greatest utility to the greatest number of users for the longest product lifetime.
When performance slowdowns, i.e., non-peak performance, occur any number of dependent processes, functions, or components anywhere in the engineered stack can be the cause. Overheating, overcooling, battery wear out, solid state memory wear out, excessive background processes/threads, stack/heap/freespace fragmentation, hung processes/threads, hot spinning processes/threads, poor cellular/wifi reception, degraded power components, physical damage, firmware bugs, kernel mode software bugs, user mode software bugs, badly implemented interprocess communication (IPC) strategies (inefficient use of locks, mutexes, semaphores, etc.), reference counting bugs, memory leaks, buffer overruns/underruns, and any one of a plethora of software implementations that is clearly "crap code" while not technically being a bug.
Everyone who contributes to the engineered stack in the iPhone, including Apple, app developers, and component suppliers, has an opportunity to upset the performance apple cart so to speak. When Apple releases a new version of iOS they often make changes in the stack to surface a new feature on the new SOC or to change existing behaviors, for example how apps behave in the background. Apple also exposes new and updated services to app developers that create additional performance related dependencies. Despite the fact that Apple takes a very stringent and engineered approach they don't always foresee every possible consequence and its impact on performance in every conceivable operational and environmental scenario. Oh, and it's a constantly moving target because everyone expects a Big New Wow every September. Plus, performance is not the only quality factor they have to be concerned with. All of the "ilities" like reliability, maintainability, modifiability, field serviceability, portability, and usability matter just as much as performance.
I know, I know, nobody wants to hear about rational technical details and complexity when the only thing that matters is that they've been cruelly and personally victimized by Apple and its evil intentions. If being a victim and seeking justice for their suffering is all that matters then they'd best enjoy the wallowing because it's never going to end. As soon as Apple figures out a way to soothe the dying battery victim's suffering some other Apple induced product flaw will undoubtedly rear its ugly head, a slowdown will occur, and once again convince them that the unrequited perfection they demand in all things and entities, outside of themselves of course, is continuing to make their own lives miserable, and for that, nothing short of a class action suit will suffice. Even if the class action ends in bitter defeat, the communal sharing of cyber grief and phony outrage has brought them all a little closer together in body and spirit, thanks to Apple.
Apple owes customers nothing. If a customer suspects an issue with their phone, all they have to do is take it to a service center to get it looked at. Why is it Apple's responsibility to ask every customer "Hey how is your phone running today"? This isn't an issue with the phone. Its just something that happens naturally over time which is exactly the same thing that happens with ALL batteries. They eventually lose their ability to fully charge and they will also deplete quicker as well.
Why should Apple give out gift cards? I don't get this. Should they have been more transparent about this, yes, but this doesn't mean the customer is owed anything in the end.
Always good to start here.
Apple’s documentation is noteworthy. For the iPhone the number of charging cycles the battery is designed to accept while keeping 80% charge is 500. For other products, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBooks, it’s 1000 charging cycles. After this, the battery may need replacing.
The iPhone also has a Low Power Mode which can be set by user when the battery has become depleted. The iPad does not. My guess is under certain circumstances, iOS automatically institutes Low Power Mode on its own. Bug in iOS, or battery reaching EOL?
Btw, the iPad Pro raises an alert when the Pencil battery charge drops to 5%.
It would be useful if iOS would display number of charging cycles of battery. This info is available on MacBooks.
This reminds me of the Radeon X1900 (iirc) in the Mac Pros. They were fine until Snow Leopard came out. Then, with the GPU being used all the time drawing the Quartz UI elements the card was already running warm and then would overheat quite quickly if you started stressing it (with a game).
I don't "want" it to be anything. The point is not that Apple is preserving battery life by throttling older devices. That's a reasonable "feature," if it is transparent. Like it or not, this is a PR debacle. In fact, AI just used that word in the headlines. Apple has long been suspected of slowing down older devices (for which there has not been evidence). Do you honestly think the general public will understand what's actually happening here? To Joe Six Pack, Apple just confirmed what he and many others believe. And they admitted it was deliberate, and secret for a time. Readers here get what they are doing. But readers here are not most people.
One is a tech-centric venue. One is an Apple-specific site. The other is mainstream media. While none of them are a lie -- the headlines as such lack accuracy and precision and because they do, they fuel fires that shouldn't exist in the first place.