My iPhone 6 likely experienced the throttling due to battery degradation. But I just turned down the screen brightness, a lot, and it’s working fine again. Screen brightness seems to be a good dial users can employ until they have time to get in for a battery replacement. I’m my case, living here in the Philippines with no official Apple stores, I’ve decided to get another month or two out of my three year old 6 and then go get a new iPhone. Haven’t decided between the 8+ or X; both of which are in stock here at the iStores (a local chain that’s really close in design and professionalism to an actual Apple Store).
Oh, and great article.
That makes sense since the screen is the biggest constant power user in the phone, dialing it down leaves more peak power for the rest of the phone's functions. I suppose looking at other background power usage like GPS, background refresh in apps would also make a difference.
My iPhone 6 likely experienced the throttling due to battery degradation. I’m my case, living here in the Philippines with no official Apple stores, I’ve decided to get another month or two out of my three year old 6 and then go get a new iPhone. Haven’t decided between the 8+ or X; both of which are in stock here at the iStores (a local chain that’s really close in design and professionalism to an actual Apple Store).
Oh, and great article.
In the Ph there are many Apple authorized service centers, do not know if "iStores" are, but you should be able find an authorized repair facility. Whether or not said facility can swap out the battery same/day or on-demand while you wait, or you might need to mail in and wait a week? Or you could order the iFixit repair kit.
I would get the $29 replacement from the authorized repair centers, then wait 10mo to get the updated line of iphones...will be worth the wait as they always fix the 'flaws'/missing feature from the newly minted models. Kind of doubt Apple will go OLED across the whole line for a few more yrs.
Seems there are special L shaped 2-level folded batteries in the ipX?, should be putting those in the entire line Fall 2018. Li-Poly in the ipX might not have identical characteristics of standard commercial consumer electronics Li-Ion. The 18650 sized laptop batteries used in electric vehicles would be crappin-out if they used consumer laptop batteries. I read about a decade ago, diff btw electric vehicles & consumer laptop 18650 Li-ion is that consumer laptop 18650's are not designed to last...(can, but not always)loose capacity after a few years< that wouldn't work for e-vehicles which need the batteries to last longer...hence different design parameters.
I'm guessing with millions of cell phones, consumer disposables basically, those Li-ion chemistry are not designed for that many recharge cycles before more rapidly degrading & loosing capacity/min voltage levels. If you look at discharge graphs for RC modeling 18650's, much lower capacity, but can deliver very high instantaneous current discharge capabilities. Not only do they have much higher current discharge capability, under these higher current loads, they maintain less voltage drop in the discharge graphs, have lower internal resistance so heat up less severely than those not designed as such. IMR batteries can do even better, but have even lower capacities as a trade-off.
I'm going to get a Kunercase or similar that is relatively almost as thin as a standard protective case, but is a nearly fully compatible equivalent(full lightning port charging/pass-through in revised/latest version) functionality of Apple's own bulky battery case. double the capacity and greater battery life from the internal battery.
Anyone want to push their iphone model's CPU/GPU without an app...load up several browser tabs with this youtube vid and select 8k resolution!
*www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChOhcHD8fBA
^Load up 8 tabs of above under Firefox(OSX 10.10 or newer, older versions you'll need GoogleChrome to allow 8k resolution selection in YT.) on your 16GB rMBP, see that use up nearly *all* 16GB of RAM(less OS which grabs ~40% of that RAM), without any other apps like video encoding, Adobe PS, etc running.
Sorry Mike, I know that your intention in writing this article is to help Apple to contain damages. But, 1. Apple slows down my iPhone 6 Plus (it) from 1400MHz to 936MHz randomly, while no app was running (besides CPU DasherX with which used to show the CPU speed). It was in room temperature, i.e. not in “extremely cold” temperature, but it was getting hot by itself that trigger me to test it. 2. The iPhone 6 Plus is only 10 months old and the battery condition is 94% as revealed by coconutBattery app when connected to a Mac. 3. Throttling happens too when the iPhone 6 Plus is attached to a 2.1A Apple original charging source. 4. All my family members and many friends with iPhone 6 Plus experience speed throttling more severe than iPhone 6s. So, all of the battery myth told by Apple and you, fail to give an explanation why my iPhone 6 Plus has been throttled!
Being slow isn’t the same as throttling peak power draw.
Dunno DasherX but it sounds like an app.
Accusing Mike of working for Apple PR reveals you to be cluelessly paranoid.
Mike replied and stated that he has no connection to Apple. I trust him at this stage. Being paranoid? Maybe, because I lost the chance of taking good pictures at my daughter's graduation ceremony, coincide that my iPhone 6 Plus was throttled down to unusable! It resumes normal after a few days, after Tim publicly apologised.
Since you are talking particularly about "throttling", it would be better if you can go through the below links which talk about throttling in Android world. Those reviews are for Android devices launched in 2015, a very bad year for Android flagships SoCs. This is NOT a big issue anymore, but no one should assume throttling would go away completely ever in a smartphone SoC.
When should the lithium-ion batteries be recharged to extend battery life? When they reach 2% as Apple alerts, or before?
Given the nature of Li-ion batteries, and the charging regulatory circuitry, it really doesn't matter. Even when plugged in, or on a Qi stand, if the battery doesn't need power, it isn't getting any. The circuitry looks at the curve that we've got in the article to regulate the current provided for a charge or a float.
This is the best article I've read so far. It's nice to get more information. Keep up the good work.
I'm wondering if the "critical voltage" is higher on the iPhones 6 and later (vs. the 5s and earlier) because that's when the issue started. Maybe newer processors, being more powerful, need a higher critical voltage. Also, iPhone batteries tend to be smaller (iPhones being more power efficient) than Android batteries, and bigger batteries are less affected, so I'm wondering if this is less of a problem in the Android world.
Check out Rene Ritchie’s Vector podcast. Just before Christmas he had a round table discussion with a John Poole from Geekbench and a few others to discuss what’s happening and what it means. It was a balanced podcast with facts not outrage or hyperbole.
I listened to that podcast and also just heard John Gruber's episode 210 from Saturday Dec. 30. They're all very informative but in this day and age of binary journalism, right/wrong, left/right, good/bad etc. there is no place for nuances, unfortunately. Many have made their minds up and are using this to confirm their personal bias.
Com'on. Is John Poole helping Apple to sell their stalk of piled up iPhone 6s batteries? Why John Poole didn't reveal the result of other iPhones being throttling down in performance? Many of my friends are using iPhone 6 Plus, same as me, are suffering from our iPhone 6 Plus being slowed down tremendously. Besides being throttling down from 1400 MHz to below 900 MHz, other frequency unrelated throttling happen, e.g. camera, screenshots, swapping from one app to another, while the frequency remains at top. What about the slowed down performance while 100% charged and on a cable and the battery is above 90% of original capacity? John Poole didn't give those info. John Poole has been very much focus ONLY on iPhone 6S!
Apple engineers knew enough about the A8 chip to claim 25% CPU and 50% GPU performance increases over the A7 while needing half the battery power. I can't imagine they ever thought the phones would start unexpectedly shutting down after only a year or two. It was only after the unexpected shutdowns continued to become more prevalent and they introduced specific diagnostic software in iOS 10.2 to try and figure out what was going on that they identified the voltage problem.
I think you're overstating it. Apple has said that the voltage issue that could result in shutdown (outside of a defective battery) is either an old battery (capacity below 80%), battery with low charge (20% or lower seems correct according to that chart in the article), or a cold battery. I don't think those are really "unexpected" per se when it comes to Apple engineering. I'm sure they already knew those scenarios were possible with lithium ion batteries. There's always a possibility that the 6/6s SoCs are a bit more susceptible to those types of issues though...last two A series designs prior to the introduction of the power efficient cores used in the Fusion/Bionic.
The "unexpected" was when a worn out battery showing 30% charge suddenly and unexpectedly shut down due to a dead battery at apparently random moments. That made the phone unreliable and Apple did right to address the situation.
This is the best article I've read so far. It's nice to get more information. Keep up the good work.
I'm wondering if the "critical voltage" is higher on the iPhones 6 and later (vs. the 5s and earlier) because that's when the issue started. Maybe newer processors, being more powerful, need a higher critical voltage. Also, iPhone batteries tend to be smaller (iPhones being more power efficient) than Android batteries, and bigger batteries are less affected, so I'm wondering if this is less of a problem in the Android world.
Check out Rene Ritchie’s Vector podcast. Just before Christmas he had a round table discussion with a John Poole from Geekbench and a few others to discuss what’s happening and what it means. It was a balanced podcast with facts not outrage or hyperbole.
I listened to that podcast and also just heard John Gruber's episode 210 from Saturday Dec. 30. They're all very informative but in this day and age of binary journalism, right/wrong, left/right, good/bad etc. there is no place for nuances, unfortunately. Many have made their minds up and are using this to confirm their personal bias.
Com'on. Is John Poole helping Apple to sell their stalk of piled up iPhone 6s batteries? Why John Poole didn't reveal the result of other iPhones being throttling down in performance? Many of my friends are using iPhone 6 Plus, same as me, are suffering from our iPhone 6 Plus being slowed down tremendously. Besides being throttling down from 1400 MHz to below 900 MHz, other frequency unrelated throttling happen, e.g. camera, screenshots, swapping from one app to another, while the frequency remains at top. What about the slowed down performance while 100% charged and on a cable and the battery is above 90% of original capacity? John Poole didn't give those info. John Poole has been very much focus ONLY on iPhone 6S!
His blog post was about the 6S, because that's what his wife's phone is. He says so in the blog post, and said so in the podcasts that he appeared on. The article also addresses the iPhone 7 as well.
And, as a reminder as I said this yesterday: often, when one says "iPhone 6" in regards to benchmarks, like Poole's, it refers to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus -- as they have the same processor.
I find it remarkable that the troll/conspiracy posts here are almost always from people with very few posts... I assume that they will disappear as soon as this issue is put to bed.
Even in the early days Steve had to deal with Apple haters. People who hate success and have to find ways to knock it down. People who look at one side of the coin and make that their universe -- and then try to spread their blind hate to others.
This is the best article I've read so far. It's nice to get more information. Keep up the good work.
"The best article", in what? I guess it's the best article to contain the damages to Apple. It's the best article to divert your attention that other iPhones, e.g. iPhone 6 Plus, have also been throttled. It's the best article to sell the possible huge battery inventory left in stock and waiting to expire. Perhaps there are too plenty of iPhone 6s replacement batteries and not much of iPhone 6 Plus.
Come on now, I don't question the possible validity of the issues you raise, but the article, "How iPhone batteries work, and how Apple manages performance over time" matched the headline, had good content, was well written. There may be other things to discuss, but the piece was pretty good.
I find it remarkable that the troll/conspiracy posts here are almost always from people with very few posts... I assume that they will disappear as soon as this issue is put to bed.
Even in the early days Steve had to deal with Apple haters. People who hate success and have to find ways to knock it down. People who look at one side of the coin and make that their universe -- and then try to spread their blind hate to others.
One of John Gruber’s latest podcasts he had Jason Snell on. They made a lot of good points. Specifically that Apple needs to do a better job of thinking about an iPhone in year 3-4. From both a hardware & software perspective. Users really should have to wipe and load from backup if their phone is laggy. Is Apple doing enough to optimize iOS for older devices? And from a hardware perspective when they put the minimum amount of RAM in a device for that point in time are they thinking about how that device will run e years from now with updated software. There’s no doubt in my mind some slowness issues with iPhone 6 is due to only having 1GB RAM. Also what are Apple’s decision making points when it comes to battery life? Do they decide on a battery life number they want to hit and design around that or does the thickness of the device rule and they just try to get as much battery life as possible within those constraints. With iPad it seems they’ve decided 9-10 hours is good enough. Are they doing the same with iPhone? One thing Gruber mentioned that Apple absolutely should be doing if it’s not already is having engineers use 2-3 year old hardware during the development of the next OS. So if a 6S gets iOS12 then some iOS engineers should be using a 6S as their daily driver right now.
This is the best article I've read so far. It's nice to get more information. Keep up the good work.
"The best article", in what? I guess it's the best article to contain the damages to Apple. It's the best article to divert your attention that other iPhones, e.g. iPhone 6 Plus, have also been throttled. It's the best article to sell the possible huge battery inventory left in stock and waiting to expire. Perhaps there are too plenty of iPhone 6s replacement batteries and not much of iPhone 6 Plus.
Did you even read the responses to your comment about the nature of mobile processors and how they work in real life? Your unique take on a conspiracy theory doesn't work.
Good response Mike. It's hard to believe we've come this far in forum chats without the routine use of R-T-F-Comments! But I'm sure you won't hold your breath waiting for AI to be an environment where people flock to take part in measured, reasoned debate ;-(
Comments
I suppose looking at other background power usage like GPS, background refresh in apps would also make a difference.
I would get the $29 replacement from the authorized repair centers, then wait 10mo to get the updated line of iphones...will be worth the wait as they always fix the 'flaws'/missing feature from the newly minted models. Kind of doubt Apple will go OLED across the whole line for a few more yrs.
Seems there are special L shaped 2-level folded batteries in the ipX?, should be putting those in the entire line Fall 2018. Li-Poly in the ipX might not have identical characteristics of standard commercial consumer electronics Li-Ion. The 18650 sized laptop batteries used in electric vehicles would be crappin-out if they used consumer laptop batteries. I read about a decade ago, diff btw electric vehicles & consumer laptop 18650 Li-ion is that consumer laptop 18650's are not designed to last...(can, but not always)loose capacity after a few years< that wouldn't work for e-vehicles which need the batteries to last longer...hence different design parameters.
I'm guessing with millions of cell phones, consumer disposables basically, those Li-ion chemistry are not designed for that many recharge cycles before more rapidly degrading & loosing capacity/min voltage levels. If you look at discharge graphs for RC modeling 18650's, much lower capacity, but can deliver very high instantaneous current discharge capabilities. Not only do they have much higher current discharge capability, under these higher current loads, they maintain less voltage drop in the discharge graphs, have lower internal resistance so heat up less severely than those not designed as such. IMR batteries can do even better, but have even lower capacities as a trade-off.
Maybe Tesla will advance newer battery chemistry that might be adapted for consumer electronics?
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/04/11/panasonic-hints-beyond-lithium-technology-ev-battery-improvements/
I'm going to get a Kunercase or similar that is relatively almost as thin as a standard protective case, but is a nearly fully compatible equivalent(full lightning port charging/pass-through in revised/latest version) functionality of Apple's own bulky battery case. double the capacity and greater battery life from the internal battery.
Anyone want to push their iphone model's CPU/GPU without an app...load up several browser tabs with this youtube vid and select 8k resolution!
*www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChOhcHD8fBA
^Load up 8 tabs of above under Firefox(OSX 10.10 or newer, older versions you'll need Google Chrome to allow 8k resolution selection in YT.) on your 16GB rMBP, see that use up nearly *all* 16GB of RAM(less OS which grabs ~40% of that RAM), without any other apps like video encoding, Adobe PS, etc running.
*www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzpxrx7NZBA <<<8k res/60fps
Since you are talking particularly about "throttling", it would be better if you can go through the below links which talk about throttling in Android world. Those reviews are for Android devices launched in 2015, a very bad year for Android flagships SoCs. This is NOT a big issue anymore, but no one should assume throttling would go away completely ever in a smartphone SoC.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/9742/the-google-nexus-5x-review/3
https://www.anandtech.com/show/9828/the-oneplus-2-review/2
https://www.anandtech.com/show/9820/the-google-nexus-6p-review/4
Com'on. Is John Poole helping Apple to sell their stalk of piled up iPhone 6s batteries? Why John Poole didn't reveal the result of other iPhones being throttling down in performance? Many of my friends are using iPhone 6 Plus, same as me, are suffering from our iPhone 6 Plus being slowed down tremendously. Besides being throttling down from 1400 MHz to below 900 MHz, other frequency unrelated throttling happen, e.g. camera, screenshots, swapping from one app to another, while the frequency remains at top. What about the slowed down performance while 100% charged and on a cable and the battery is above 90% of original capacity? John Poole didn't give those info. John Poole has been very much focus ONLY on iPhone 6S!
And, as a reminder as I said this yesterday: often, when one says "iPhone 6" in regards to benchmarks, like Poole's, it refers to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus -- as they have the same processor.
Even in the early days Steve had to deal with Apple haters. People who hate success and have to find ways to knock it down. People who look at one side of the coin and make that their universe -- and then try to spread their blind hate to others.
But I'm sure you won't hold your breath waiting for AI to be an environment where people flock to take part in measured, reasoned debate ;-(