Apple responds to reports of worn batteries forcing iPhone CPU slowdowns

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  • Reply 81 of 172
    r2d2 said:

    The issue here is transparency, not any conspiracy for Apple to get you to buy new hardware. Get a new battery. Problem solved, the phone is back to the same speed it was when it came out of the box.
    The problem is that without giving any notification about the issue, one could argue that they are knowingly misleading you into buying new hardware. They, themselves, are responsible for keeping the "conspiracy" alive.
    They don't mislead you because they don't replace batteries until they are below 80% in life and well over 520 charge cycles.  The notification that you need a new battery is usually when your device shuts off when it shows it has more than 20% battery life. I don't know of any other mobile device that notifies you when your battery is going bad, not counting a Mac. 
    magman1979smiffy31
  • Reply 82 of 172
    cornchip said:
    Wow Business Insider is raking Apple over the coals on this. Ridiculous. I’m really not sure what the big huff is over this. My 5s is On it’s third screen & 2nd battery. Runs great. 

    Anything they can do to catch them “red handed” tho. Acting like Apple is trying screw people into buying new phones by having OS compensate for battery degradation? How big of a stretch can there be? 

    Raise of hands of people here who think Apple is outright lying?
    Anything to get clicks. Plus the author might be trying to short Apple and buy it back cheap. 
    Business insider is an oxymoron. 
    cornchip
  • Reply 83 of 172
    cornchipcornchip Posts: 1,945member
    dysamoria said:
    "It has been conclusively proven that older iPhone hardware with an adequately functioning battery is no slower than it was at launch."
    Stop promoting that PR article. The issue was never whether the CPU was being slowed. The issue was that the performance of the device under newer OS versions was lousy compared to the OS version the phone originally started with. The complaint is that iOS is growing more bloated and that adding questionable features helps sell more phones both by being carrot AND stick. The complaint is that Apple doesn't optimize iOS performance for prior devices (or at all, even, just relying on faster hardware).

    That PR piece defending Apple sets up a straw man to knock down complaints without ever addressing the real issue of iOS being increasingly bloated, version after version.
    Still no. The issue, and bogus conspiracy theory, was that Apple intentionally slowed down the phones processing power to force you to buy a new phone, when that is demonstrably not the case. As before, with a good battery, the phones remain the same speed and power that they were the day that they were bought. The geekbench data from Monday proves yet again, that the phones with a good battery are the same speed that they were at launch.

    The testers cited in the previous article are a third party. They weren't contracted by Apple, and neither are we -- so by definition it isn't a "PR piece."

    What changes over time is the demands that newer software place on the phone, and I have said that all along. I don't disagree with the bloat issue -- but that is an entirely different matter, unrelated to any CPU slowdown.

    The issue here is transparency, not any conspiracy for Apple to get you to buy new hardware. Get a new battery. Problem solved, the phone is back to the same speed it was when it came out of the box.
    Furthermore, when Apple releases new software which introduces features that they feel won’t run sufficiently on older hardware, they strip the code out for those devices as I understand it, so the older devices run as smoothly as possible for as long as possible. For as many older devices as they feel they can handle maintaining the software for.

    WHAT OTHER COMPANY IS DOING THIS? 

    I know the company I work for sure as hell isn't.

    What is all that then? Some kind of elaborate smokescreen so that they can slightly throttle CPU performance as the battery degrades with the hopes that you will become increasingly infuriated with your device to the point that it drives you to buy a new one? 

    Wow. Makes perfect sense.
    edited December 2017 r2d2magman1979smiffy31
  • Reply 84 of 172

    MonicaMT said:
    This respond does not convince me.I can use a power bank If I do not want my iPhone to shut down.
    I recently bought iPhone X just because my iPhone 6 is too slow to use.If this happens again,I would absolutely choose another mobile phone brand.
    Three full years of a chemical process running day in and day out, and you don't expect your battery to die?
    The battery problem is impersonal,it is unstoppable.But the CPU-slowdown is a man-made plot.
  • Reply 85 of 172
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    MonicaMT said:

    MonicaMT said:
    This respond does not convince me.I can use a power bank If I do not want my iPhone to shut down.
    I recently bought iPhone X just because my iPhone 6 is too slow to use.If this happens again,I would absolutely choose another mobile phone brand.
    Three full years of a chemical process running day in and day out, and you don't expect your battery to die?
    The battery problem is impersonal,it is unstoppable.But the CPU-slowdown is a man-made plot.
    It is utterly and absolutely nothing of the sort. The only CPU slowdown you may have is in regards to your battery's chemical depletion, and literally nothing else.
    edited December 2017 magman1979GeorgeBMac
  • Reply 86 of 172
    Well, throttle my device when the battery is insufficient to do its job... but why not give back its full potential when plugged in? That’s the fishy part, isn’t it? 



  • Reply 87 of 172
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    Well, throttle my device when the battery is insufficient to do its job... but why not give back its full potential when plugged in? That’s the fishy part, isn’t it? 



    Well, primarily, because of how the charging circuitry in the phone works. When you're on the adapter, you're charging the battery, and the battery is discharging to the phone.

    If the battery can't discharge with sufficient voltage, then your adapter being plugged in isn't going to help that.
    magman1979netmage
  • Reply 88 of 172
    larryalarrya Posts: 606member
    I object to the phrase, “it has been conclusively proven that Apple isn’t slowing older devices” when the linked article shows this


    r2d2
  • Reply 89 of 172
    r2d2r2d2 Posts: 95member
    r2d2 said:

    The issue here is transparency, not any conspiracy for Apple to get you to buy new hardware. Get a new battery. Problem solved, the phone is back to the same speed it was when it came out of the box.
    The problem is that without giving any notification about the issue, one could argue that they are knowingly misleading you into buying new hardware. They, themselves, are responsible for keeping the "conspiracy" alive.
    They don't mislead you because they don't replace batteries until they are below 80% in life and well over 520 charge cycles.  The notification that you need a new battery is usually when your device shuts off when it shows it has more than 20% battery life. I don't know of any other mobile device that notifies you when your battery is going bad, not counting a Mac. 
    Perhaps I wasn't clear. They "mislead" people by not informing them that the update will slow your system down if your battery is older or defective. Without this knowledge people may upgrade needlessly as several posters have already stated they did because of this issue. Granted, having a phone suddenly shut down is also a problem, they should have been more open and transparent with their disclosures. If they were trying to avoid bad press, it backfired.
    GeorgeBMac
  • Reply 90 of 172
    GG1GG1 Posts: 483member
    So if I slap on an Apple 6s battery case, does this issue go away? I presume so, but I'm curious for confirmation.
  • Reply 91 of 172
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    larrya said:
    I object to the phrase, “it has been conclusively proven that Apple isn’t slowing older devices” when the linked article shows this


    Unless they're running on the same phone with a late sub number, which means someone who has been holding off upgrading for 2 years and then doing straight upgrades first in september 9.3.5 testing performance before upgrade -> 10.3.3 (testing performance after upgrade)  then waiting to upgrade to 11.2.5 (testing performance), this graph means nothing at all.

    The difference in performance between 9 and 9.3.5 and 10 and 10.3.3 and 11 and 11.2.5 is very substantial especially for older devices.
    Same thing with versions all previous IOS versions. Early versions of 4 were abysmal on the 3G and 3GS yet later versions were OK.

    Also, you'd need a proper sampling to make sure you're not getting effects from abuses to the battery that have to be mitigated (like these),
    averaging out usage. Getting this kind of batch of specific old but not upgraded phones in sufficient numbers would be difficult.


    Get me numbers like I just told you and then we'll start to talk.




    edited December 2017 magman1979
  • Reply 92 of 172
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    r2d2 said:
    r2d2 said:

    The issue here is transparency, not any conspiracy for Apple to get you to buy new hardware. Get a new battery. Problem solved, the phone is back to the same speed it was when it came out of the box.
    The problem is that without giving any notification about the issue, one could argue that they are knowingly misleading you into buying new hardware. They, themselves, are responsible for keeping the "conspiracy" alive.
    They don't mislead you because they don't replace batteries until they are below 80% in life and well over 520 charge cycles.  The notification that you need a new battery is usually when your device shuts off when it shows it has more than 20% battery life. I don't know of any other mobile device that notifies you when your battery is going bad, not counting a Mac. 
    Perhaps I wasn't clear. They "mislead" people by not informing them that the update will slow your system down if your battery is older or defective. Without this knowledge people may upgrade needlessly as several posters have already stated they did because of this issue. Granted, having a phone suddenly shut down is also a problem, they should have been more open and transparent with their disclosures. If they were trying to avoid bad press, it backfired.
    Getting phones that shut down all over the place and quickly damaging their battery in theory is worse press for Apple would also be blamed for that.
    Advising people... Well, you know what people do with those popups. They nearly always ignore them.

    It's mostly the internet craphole (reddit, Macrumors, Android batcaves/forums (sic) and the like) that get all hot and bothered at this and amplifiy everything in a loop.
    Then, sometimes, something escapes in the click baity realm of online "news" and mainstream social media were anything with Apple is like catnip. In this place it gets whatever meager truth that originally was there beaten out of it and it makes a few more rounds.

    Eventually, it gets a short mention in the local news in secondary markets and cable news were they get all stampy feet about it to fill their 24h quota for 1-2 days.
    It is then that it eventually peters out (last 50+ times). We're about there now.

    People not being knowledgeable that charging their phones twice a day for 1.5 years because they're using their phones essentially all day long, will wreck their battery and Apple trying to save their phones without advising those techno neophytes instead of throwing text in their face they'll likely ignore is very Apple like.

    I know plenty of people like that who charge their battery many times of day and I'm sure that if I told them their battery will be toast by next year, they'd be very surprised... They expect their phones to last 2-3 years (including the battery) regardless of usage seemingly.

    If Apple would be up front, people would be complaining relentlessly that Apple should do miracles and make those battery last at the same performance level despite that currently being impossible.
    edited December 2017 hammeroftruth
  • Reply 93 of 172
    r2d2 said:
    r2d2 said:

    The issue here is transparency, not any conspiracy for Apple to get you to buy new hardware. Get a new battery. Problem solved, the phone is back to the same speed it was when it came out of the box.
    The problem is that without giving any notification about the issue, one could argue that they are knowingly misleading you into buying new hardware. They, themselves, are responsible for keeping the "conspiracy" alive.
    They don't mislead you because they don't replace batteries until they are below 80% in life and well over 520 charge cycles.  The notification that you need a new battery is usually when your device shuts off when it shows it has more than 20% battery life. I don't know of any other mobile device that notifies you when your battery is going bad, not counting a Mac. 
    Perhaps I wasn't clear. They "mislead" people by not informing them that the update will slow your system down if your battery is older or defective. Without this knowledge people may upgrade needlessly as several posters have already stated they did because of this issue. Granted, having a phone suddenly shut down is also a problem, they should have been more open and transparent with their disclosures. If they were trying to avoid bad press, it backfired.
    I agree that Apple does not really go into detail about what is in a software update. I was really not happy about them not supporting non 64 bit apps in iOS 11 as I have a few security camera apps that were never updated and some developers stated that there was no real reason to abandon them if they were coded correctly. 

    The other issue is that the team who writes the copy of explaining what the update does doesn't always get all of the details from the team writing the update. So super secrecy is a double edged sword.  
  • Reply 94 of 172
    dysamoria said:
    "It has been conclusively proven that older iPhone hardware with an adequately functioning battery is no slower than it was at launch."
    Stop promoting that PR article. The issue was never whether the CPU was being slowed. The issue was that the performance of the device under newer OS versions was lousy compared to the OS version the phone originally started with. The complaint is that iOS is growing more bloated and that adding questionable features helps sell more phones both by being carrot AND stick. The complaint is that Apple doesn't optimize iOS performance for prior devices (or at all, even, just relying on faster hardware).

    That PR piece defending Apple sets up a straw man to knock down complaints without ever addressing the real issue of iOS being increasingly bloated, version after version.
    Apple doesn’t force users to upgrade to the latest version of iOS. Certainly they encourage it, but one can continue running one’s preferred version of iOS. I’d rather Apple continue to introduce new features in new versions of iOS than focus on continued optimization an old OS for older devices. Technology advances very quickly and one should expect device obsolescence to occur sooner as technological advances progress further. Some will despise this fact but that makes it no less true. 
  • Reply 95 of 172
    mj webmj web Posts: 918member
    So, that why my iPhone 6 acted like it was on Quaaludes. I knew something was wrong (just like with the Russian Facebook posts) but couldn't quite put my finger on what. My biggest takeaway is not to leave my iPhone X on its wireless charger unnecessarily, something I tend to do. Charging cycles degenerate LiOn batteries, that's a fact of life. 
  • Reply 96 of 172
    This is a shocking revelation, as the slow down is quite considerable. Lawyers must be sharpening their pencils with glee.
  • Reply 97 of 172
    k2kw said:
    I don't understand how an iPhone 7 could have this problem already-  mine seems fine.  Apple should give the user a notification when they do that and let them know they can get the battery replaced.   Does AppleCare cover they battery replacement?   It should.

    All those android fans with their replaceable batteries will be crowing about this. 
    I have had 5 android phones. None have had replaceable batteries. 
    netmage
  • Reply 98 of 172
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,625member
    The throttling is the best solution to the problem. Anything designed to reduce unexpected shutdowns is preferable to a hard shutdown itself with all its consequences.

    It has been handled poorly from a communication perspective but that has been remedied.

    If Apple explains on its web that lithium batteries can perform worse after a certain amount of time/cycles it should be updated to include a note on how the system handles the situation now.

    It makes no sense that iOS cannot inform the user of basic battery health out of the box if the first thing Apple does in-store is plug the phone in, run a battery diagnostic and show a simple graph of the results to the user. It might not seem like a big deal but if you have to make an appointment, travel in (in my case, 60km) decide if you want to have the battery replaced, then return, it makes for a lot of effort just to see if your battery suspicions are warranted. The software fix is the best option for the problem as is but the user should be able to track battery health from within settings from day one and get a notification when the battery reaches a point where throttling is necessary.

    Explaining the situation was the best way to go but it will probably lead to more prickly questions involving other hardware.

    My wife probably had this problem but as the 'fix' hadn't been implemented, we chose to change the battery and got two protocol quotes. One for changing the battery and another for the cost of a replacement phone if Apple damaged hers while changing the battery. This important detail wasn't communicated as clearly as it should have been either.
    muthuk_vanalingamrogifan_new
  • Reply 99 of 172
    petripetri Posts: 118member
    MonicaMT said:

    MonicaMT said:
    This respond does not convince me.I can use a power bank If I do not want my iPhone to shut down.
    I recently bought iPhone X just because my iPhone 6 is too slow to use.If this happens again,I would absolutely choose another mobile phone brand.
    Three full years of a chemical process running day in and day out, and you don't expect your battery to die?
    The battery problem is impersonal,it is unstoppable.But the CPU-slowdown is a man-made plot.
    It is utterly and absolutely nothing of the sort. The only CPU slowdown you may have is in regards to your battery's chemical depletion, and literally nothing else.
    Your previous article on this when the news broke before Apple admitted this contained a bold statement about this definitely not being anything to do with Apple wanting you to buy a new phone.. I called you on it in the comments and you continued with this line that it was just a coincidence and Apple were just selflessly saving us from ourselves.

    Here’s the thing - when we talk about a battery’s “chemical depletion” we’re not talking about some form of user error or act of god - we’re talkign about ageing.  All batteries have a limited lifespan, and all battery chemistry “depletes” as it’s charged and recharged throughout the life of the device - it’s an inevitability.  Given that these batteries are an integral built-in component of the iPhone, it is a given that as an iPhone ages, so too does its battery - you can pretty much measure the age of an iPhone, or at least the amount of “wear” and use that it’s had, by the chemical depletion of its battery.

    So when Apple implement a feature that slows down the processors of iPhones in relation to the level of their battery’s “chemical depletion” they are pretty much literally slowing down older phones.  

    Now it would behoove any “news” outlet such as yourselves reporting on this, to at least ask the question why.  What is Apple’s motivation here and does it stack up?

    The official version is that without this “feature”, iPhones - apparently any iPhones since they state they’re rolling it out to the whole range - would all spontaneously shut down once their batteries were less than optimal.  I saw this happen with my own 6S, I do know that’s a thing.  The thing is though, when that happened to the 6S, Apple declared it was down to faulty batteries and launched a replacement programme.  So how do we square that with this?

    How is it that countless other manufacturers are able to produce hardware that does not spontaneously shut down when batteries age, without this software feature?  

    Surely this shutdown issue is a hardware problem rather than something to fudge in software by crippling performance?  Isn’t it?

    ASSUMING there is nothing that could have been done in hardware to avoid this, not only in the 6S but the 7, 8 and X too (all of which have or are getting this “feature” in time for their own batteries to age) how do we then explain why Apple would introduce it silently with no indication to the user at all that their battery is now defective and crippling the performance of their phone?  How do we explain why Apple would still have been entirely silent on this issue even now if it hadn’t been for some user comparing notes on Reddit?

    Tell me again about Apple’s motivations here?
    muthuk_vanalingamrogifan_new
  • Reply 100 of 172
    Bacillus3 said:
    Why do GPS dependent apps like Waze perform worse in iOS11 ? I have no time for research / survey's, but wouldn't be surprised with some anti-competitive measure to have been taken "in the interest of he UX" "the customer", "the integration level" and alike objectives
    Nothing to do with Waze, my 6S used to crap-out regularly upon opening the camera or apple-maps apps - both things that fire up the GPS chip. Obviously this caused a power-spike that this update tries to take care of.

    Strangely the 5S was not listed - I've noticed it's significantly slower on iOS11 to open the camera and take a photo compared to iOS10, maybe it is included too?
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