Just goes to show no matter how small the teapot, someone will try to cram a tempest into it.
coconutBattery shows my 5yo 5s' battery is at 37% capacity. I didn't need an app to know that my battery capacity was crap. It discharged ('ran down') very quickly and also charged to 100% very quickly (never a good sign).
One moment it would read 85%, five minutes later it would show 22%. Recently when I took it off the charger it showed 87% for the first half of the day, right up until it dropped to 30%. 87% to 22% in the proverbial blink of an eye.
For the last couple of months and around one of the iOS 11.x updates I noticed the bad battery and slow page changes. A subsequent update helped with the battery draining.
Point being I think Apple made the right call, and that this somehow is a betrayal of iPhone users is ridiculous.
I just changed the battery in my wife’s iPhone 5. Her battery was only lasting a few hours.
A couple of years ago she had some random shutdowns but then that problem went away - so it seems her phone was affected by this.
Now after using the new battery for a few days I ask her if her phone feels faster - she does not notice any difference in the speed.
If her phone had been randomly shutting down for the past two years - we would certainly have bought a new phone by now. So it seems to me that Apple’s policy of slightly slowing the phones with worn batteries is more likely to result in people keeping the device for longer. In our case we got two more years out of the iPhone 5 and will now get yet another year out of it with the new battery. Thank you Apple!
The simple fact is this: The random shutdown problem is far more crippling than a slight slowdown!
Double edged sword. Throttle the device, your not being transparent and are intentionally forcing upgrades. Tell people when the battery is faulty/needs to be replaced and they will claim Apple are intentionally forcing battery replacements or upgrades.
The narrative is always anti-Apple.
People are going to be a lot more pissed spending $700 to $1000 on a phone than $ 79 on a battery.
Maybe. Have you worked in customer service? A lot of people will claim Apple are lying about battery degradation even though this is a natural thing in lithium-ion batteries. Whether it is $79 or $1000, the narrative about why they do this is wrong. They want devices to not turn off under load. People can say ‘be transparent’ but humans will just complain that Apple ships batteries that only last 24months or whatever length fits their personal experiences.
The problem I have is that people are going in to the Genius bar or contacting Apple support and them not recognizing the issue or explaining it to people.
Anyway, the narrative is Apple is intentionally slowing down phones to sell a newer device when that is not the reason.
I just changed the battery in my wife’s iPhone 5. Her battery was only lasting a few hours.
A couple of years ago she had some random shutdowns but then that problem went away - so it seems her phone was affected by this.
Now after using the new battery for a few days I ask her if her phone feels faster - she does not notice any difference in the speed.
If her phone had been randomly shutting down for the past two years - we would certainly have bought a new phone by now. So it seems to me that Apple’s policy of slightly slowing the phones with worn batteries is more likely to result in people keeping the device for longer. In our case we got two more years out of the iPhone 5 and will now get yet another year out of it with the new battery. Thank you Apple!
The simple fact is this: The random shutdown problem is far more crippling than a slight slowdown!
According to Apple your wife’s iPhone 5 never got this software feature - it applies to 6S and newer only. So in actual fact her - and your - experience proves that this intentional processor slowing should never have been necessary.
Just goes to show no matter how small the teapot, someone will try to cram a tempest into it.
coconutBattery shows my 5yo 5s' battery is at 37% capacity. I didn't need an app to know that my battery capacity was crap. It discharged ('ran down') very quickly and also charged to 100% very quickly (never a good sign).
One moment it would read 85%, five minutes later it would show 22%. Recently when I took it off the charger it showed 87% for the first half of the day, right up until it dropped to 30%. 87% to 22% in the proverbial blink of an eye.
For the last couple of months and around one of the iOS 11.x updates I noticed the bad battery and slow page changes. A subsequent update helped with the battery draining.
Point being I think Apple made the right call, and that this somehow is a betrayal of iPhone users is ridiculous.
A couple of points - firstly the 5S never got this processor slowing “feature” according to Apple, so if they fixed it for you they obviously found a better way to do it.
Secondly, you’re talking about a 5 year old phone. This “feature” has been shown to be working on and slowing phones that are a just a year old or less. I suspect if you were aware your year old phone was being deliberately crippled without your knowledge (to quietly solve a problem that could or should have been fixed by a new battery, possibly even under warranty) the contents of your teapot would be pretty rocky too.
Why is everyone assuming that because the battery indicator says 30% (an indicator Apple doesn't enable by default) that means they have 30% battery left? The indicator is restricted by physics and design limitations - it isn't easy to predict how a used up battery will respond under load conditions based on information gathered while idle. Your battery was dead, but iOS couldn't tell, and displays it's best guess as to charge left.
I have a $70 battery tester that has special terminals for testing different size and chemistry batteries, and it uses a microprocessor and loads the battery for microseconds at a time to measure it's charge state. Nothing like that is built-in to the iPhone and I'm not sure it could be while the battery is in use.
Apple rates the battery at 500 charge cycles (BTW, for the person worried about inductive charging, a charge cycle is going from 0 to 100% charge - if you charge your battery from 90% to 100% that is only 10% of a charge cycle and you would have to do that ten times to be a full charge cycle) and that should last over two years for most people, but not everyone uses their phone the same and not everyone uses the same apps with the same load.
Apple was disingenuous here and deserves all the flak.
It's important for me as an iPhone 6S Plus and iPhone 6 user to know whether IOS 11 is slowing down my phone, or an old battery, which then I can make a decision to replace and know my phone will be faster because of it. Apple stands to profit from confusion, as usually is the case with any company.
So, while it might be a good solution, it was not done right.
Also, have the shutdowns affected the previous IOS version? If not, why not? I'm wondering whether more and more people will think twice before upgrading to the latest IOS going forward.
I just changed the battery in my wife’s iPhone 5. Her battery was only lasting a few hours.
A couple of years ago she had some random shutdowns but then that problem went away - so it seems her phone was affected by this.
Now after using the new battery for a few days I ask her if her phone feels faster - she does not notice any difference in the speed.
If her phone had been randomly shutting down for the past two years - we would certainly have bought a new phone by now. So it seems to me that Apple’s policy of slightly slowing the phones with worn batteries is more likely to result in people keeping the device for longer. In our case we got two more years out of the iPhone 5 and will now get yet another year out of it with the new battery. Thank you Apple!
The simple fact is this: The random shutdown problem is far more crippling than a slight slowdown!
According to Apple your wife’s iPhone 5 never got this software feature - it applies to 6S and newer only. So in actual fact her - and your - experience proves that this intentional processor slowing should never have been necessary.
Oh please -- neither you, nor him, nor his wife are qualified to make these assessments or edicts on engineering issues. Apple's hardware engineers work on this shit every day with the express aim of making their devices better, which includes even longer useful lifespans than they already have (the longest of any smartphones, with the highest resale value). They're not twirling their waxed mustaches trying to come up with ways to screw you.
If they say that old, expired batteries were shutting down during peak power draws, and this throttling during said peak power draws prevents the shutdowns and inevitable data loss, then there is no reason to believe they are lying. None. Some guy on a rumors website simply isn't qualified to say they're engineering is uninformed or unnecessary. Unless you work in this field, you simply don't know what you're talking about.
This is disastrous PR for Apple. And it feeds the meme that Apple is an arrogant company.
They will —in fact, they will have to — backtrack on this, and offer a mea culpa.
This explains how they get 90% of the cell phone industry profits though. Sell an original phone with an undersized battery (that makes it cheaper) then update the software to slow down the phones (as opposed to letting the user know to upgrade) . When the user buys a new phone out of frustration with their slow phone, Apple can then pop a $30 battery in and sell it as a refurbished phone in third world countries (like Apple wanted to do with India). Big Profits on both transactions.. did Tim or Angela work as a car salesman in summers in college?
The real question is who approved this in Apple? Did Cook? Or was it one of the recently departed (from the website) apple designers (now that Ive is back).
So if I slap on an Apple 6s battery case, does this issue go away? I presume so, but I'm curious for confirmation.
It does not. The battery case charges the internal battery, but an external power supply be it an AC adapter or a battery, can't solve the battery discharge low voltage situation.
I thought one of the features of Apple’s Smart Battery case was that the phone drew power from the case before the battery thus preserving the battery.
I wonder if this problem is more likely to affect the regular size phone as opposed to the Plus sized phone. Could that be why they made the Smart Battery case for the regular size but not the Plus. (I always wanted the Smart Battery for my Plus phones.)
Someone needs to call it: BATTERYGATE
When the battery case is installed, or an AC adapter is plugged in, it puts the battery on a "float." Meaning, charging and discharging at the same time.
So, yes. While the case is on, the battery remains at 100%. However, it is the one discharging and providing power to the device while getting filled up at the same time. Think like a tank with a drain valve at the bottom and a fill valve at the top all fed by gravity. You can crack open the bottom valve, and as long as the flow in = the flow out, then the tank level remains the same. If the drain valve is stuck at 1/4 because of age, then no amount of fill at the top will help that.
This is disastrous PR for Apple. And it feeds the meme that Apple is an arrogant company.
They will —in fact, they will have to — backtrack on this, and offer a mea culpa.
This explains how they get 90% of the cell phone industry profits though. Sell an original phone with an undersized battery (that makes it cheaper) then update the software to slow down the phones (as opposed to letting the user know to upgrade) . When the user buys a new phone out of frustration with their slow phone, Apple can then pop a $30 battery in and sell it as a refurbished phone in third world countries (like Apple wanted to do with India). Big Profits on both transactions.. did Tim or Angela work as a car salesman in summers in college?
The real question is who approved this in Apple? Did Cook? Or was it one of the recently departed (from the website) apple designers (now that Ive is back).
This is disastrous PR for Apple. And it feeds the meme that Apple is an arrogant company.
They will —in fact, they will have to — backtrack on this, and offer a mea culpa.
This explains how they get 90% of the cell phone industry profits though. Sell an original phone with an undersized battery (that makes it cheaper) then update the software to slow down the phones (as opposed to letting the user know to upgrade) . When the user buys a new phone out of frustration with their slow phone, Apple can then pop a $30 battery in and sell it as a refurbished phone in third world countries (like Apple wanted to do with India). Big Profits on both transactions.. did Tim or Angela work as a car salesman in summers in college?
The real question is who approved this in Apple? Did Cook? Or was it one of the recently departed (from the website) apple designers (now that Ive is back).
That's conspiracy BS. This is clearly Apple maintaining at least one aspect of their system that they promise on their spec sheet—an average battery life—or the greater issue of the device shutting down completely. They don't advertise processor speed so, for instance, they can take a device original running at 2.1GHz and drop it to 2GHz as they see fit.
If there's any issue here it's that at least one of their battery suppliers has been manufacturing batteries that don't have the 1000 charge cycle limit (before reaching 80% capacity) which they may or may not have known about when the iPhone 6 started shipping.
As a customer it sounded bad at first glance because I wasn't looking at like an engineer, but I also would do the same thing if I was in Apple's position.
Double edged sword. Throttle the device, your not being transparent and are intentionally forcing upgrades. Tell people when the battery is faulty/needs to be replaced and they will claim Apple are intentionally forcing battery replacements or upgrades.
The narrative is always anti-Apple.
People are going to be a lot more pissed spending $700 to $1000 on a phone than $ 79 on a battery.
I actually don't think that's true in most cases. Most people (especially those of us who would post here) are getting a new phone every 1-2 years anyway through an upgrade program. If you're buying it upfront/unlocked (cash) that might be different. Even then you have a year until you'll be out of pocket on repair or replacement.
Battery replacements, in my experience, are the second most common repair done in Apple Stores. The most common being display replacements.
The issue continues to not be a Apple-led conspiracy to force users to buy new hardware. Apple is not slowing down older devices to convince users to buy a new one. If it did, the throttling would be permanent, and a new battery would not solve the issue.
I'm going to take issue with that. Apple IS slowing down older devices, ostensibly to prevent shutdowns. The throttling is absolutely permanent as long as the battery is not replaced. I can't think of anyone who is going to replace their battery. Apple may claim it doesn't throttle older hardware to force users to upgrade, but that is the net effect. we know that because they just told us.
There are other comment sections on other sites where people have reported replacing their batteries and the performance throttling has continued. It seems to be permanent.
That's even more interesting. What I don't get is the debate--of course Apple is slowing down older devices. They admitted it. That problem may or may not be fixable with a new battery. But honestly, who is going to do that? If your phone is less than a year old, you're going to be handed a new phone for the most part. If it's more, you're likely on some kind of upgrade program anyway. I have a 7 Plus that is like 14 months old. It's got a few issues. If it had this one (and who knows...sometimes I think it does slow down randomly), I'm sure as hell not going to replace the battery. I'm getting a new phone next month anyway!
Nah... You missed it completely.... Apple isn't slowing down "older devices". They explained clearly what they did and their reasons: They are throttling back devices with worn out weak batteries to stabilize them by preventing unexpected, premature shut down which, by the way, can only be restarted by being put on a charger.
So, if you you're outside in cold weather with a weak battery pull your phone out to make an emergency phone call: would you rather have a slow phone or no phone?
I know people will bitch about this, but I think it makes sense for Apple to do. I'd much rather have more battery life than a faster phone. If you don't have the battery life, then the speed of your phone doesn't matter so much anymore. When your battery starts to crap out, something has to give. So Apple could do nothing about it and just let the phone be the same speed and listen to people complain that their battery dies too quickly, or they can do something about it which is what they did. Either way, Apple is probably gonna catch crap.
Yeh, except: I don't think they did it to "prolong battery life". My experience with it was: My phone would be sitting at 30% charge and within seconds of starting a video the battery would drop to 0% charge and the phone would shut down with a dead battery. As soon as I put it on a charger, the charge jumped right back to 30%. Sitting at home that irritating.
But it could also be dangerous: If I was outside in the cold (say running alone in a remote area) where I depended on my phone to call for help if needed, the phone would also suddenly shut down with a dead battery and become a brick until I could get home to charge it. (Often it would not even restart from my car's charging system). That was beyond irritating and became dangerous.
Apple did the right thing to protect their customers by preventing that from happening.
I’m with you up to a point, I experienced this fault (and I use the word fault advisedly) on my 6S after just a year.
As you say this was not about eking our more battery life from an elderly device - this was a relatively new device which claimed to have perhaps 30-40% charge spontaneously shutting down and refusing to reboot until plugged in. This appears to be the issue that Apple are now “fixing” fixing with this software feature, despite Apple admitting at the time it had a faulty batch of batteries and offering a replacement programme.
At best what seems to have happened is Apple realising that battery issue was much more widespread, balking at the idea of a much wider recall, and quietly implementing this software fix instead - presumably on the basis that owners of older phones are less likely to make a fuss about slower phones than crashing ones.
To swallow the beneficent Apple narrative that they’re simply protecting us all and interested in the “longevity” of our devices, you first have to rationalise the fact that they kept quiet about all this and didn’t take the opportunity to advertise and sell a few battery upgrades, and you also have to accept it as a fact of life that older phones - any older phones - will spontaneously shut down after a year or so of battery life, and that this is a perfectly acceptable and common hardware characteristic . Personally I’m struggling to see any evidence of that.
You are making an assumption with no proof that Apple was covering up a battery problem. I see no reason to believe that claim. Actually, quite the opposite:
Yes, when a battery failed prematurely, they replaced it. But, all batteries weaken at some point. And, unfortunately, those old weak batteries were making the phone unstable and causing it to shut down prematurely and unexpectidly -- which could leave a user in a dangerous situation. They remedied that situation the best way possible -- although as others have pointed out, they should have been more transparent about it.
Just goes to show no matter how small the teapot, someone will try to cram a tempest into it.
coconutBattery shows my 5yo 5s' battery is at 37% capacity. I didn't need an app to know that my battery capacity was crap. It discharged ('ran down') very quickly and also charged to 100% very quickly (never a good sign).
One moment it would read 85%, five minutes later it would show 22%. Recently when I took it off the charger it showed 87% for the first half of the day, right up until it dropped to 30%. 87% to 22% in the proverbial blink of an eye.
For the last couple of months and around one of the iOS 11.x updates I noticed the bad battery and slow page changes. A subsequent update helped with the battery draining.
Point being I think Apple made the right call, and that this somehow is a betrayal of iPhone users is ridiculous.
I saw that on my 5 (and still see it since I gave it to a friend). But that's not what this is about: On the 6 (and others apparently), when the battery was weak a sudden load or drain would destabilize the phone and cause it to shut down prematurely (from 30%) and unexpectedly. And, the phone would not restart until plugged into a charger -- which could leave users in a dangerous situation.
This is disastrous PR for Apple. And it feeds the meme that Apple is an arrogant company.
They will —in fact, they will have to — backtrack on this, and offer a mea culpa.
This explains how they get 90% of the cell phone industry profits though. Sell an original phone with an undersized battery (that makes it cheaper) then update the software to slow down the phones (as opposed to letting the user know to upgrade) . When the user buys a new phone out of frustration with their slow phone, Apple can then pop a $30 battery in and sell it as a refurbished phone in third world countries (like Apple wanted to do with India). Big Profits on both transactions.. did Tim or Angela work as a car salesman in summers in college?
The real question is who approved this in Apple? Did Cook? Or was it one of the recently departed (from the website) apple designers (now that Ive is back).
Nice theory! But bull... ... These are old, worn out (or nearly worn out) batteries. Not undersized batteries.
This is disastrous PR for Apple. And it feeds the meme that Apple is an arrogant company.
They will —in fact, they will have to — backtrack on this, and offer a mea culpa.
This explains how they get 90% of the cell phone industry profits though. Sell an original phone with an undersized battery (that makes it cheaper) then update the software to slow down the phones (as opposed to letting the user know to upgrade) . When the user buys a new phone out of frustration with their slow phone, Apple can then pop a $30 battery in and sell it as a refurbished phone in third world countries (like Apple wanted to do with India). Big Profits on both transactions.. did Tim or Angela work as a car salesman in summers in college?
The real question is who approved this in Apple? Did Cook? Or was it one of the recently departed (from the website) apple designers (now that Ive is back).
Occam's razor applies.
It usually does --- but in this case he misrepresented the facts: The batteries were never undersized, they were just old, worn out (or nearly worn out) batteries. Big difference.
This is disastrous PR for Apple. And it feeds the meme that Apple is an arrogant company.
They will —in fact, they will have to — backtrack on this, and offer a mea culpa.
This explains how they get 90% of the cell phone industry profits though. Sell an original phone with an undersized battery (that makes it cheaper) then update the software to slow down the phones (as opposed to letting the user know to upgrade) . When the user buys a new phone out of frustration with their slow phone, Apple can then pop a $30 battery in and sell it as a refurbished phone in third world countries (like Apple wanted to do with India). Big Profits on both transactions.. did Tim or Angela work as a car salesman in summers in college?
The real question is who approved this in Apple? Did Cook? Or was it one of the recently departed (from the website) apple designers (now that Ive is back).
Nice theory! But bull... ... These are old, worn out (or nearly worn out) batteries. Not undersized batteries.
They were undersized, in order to get those phones just a millimeter thinner. This had the added benefit of making the camera lens stand out and not be flush with the rest of the body, which would have been boring. The phones would have been too thick, and much fewer people would have used them.
Users: My old iPhone is kinda slow now.
APPLE: (silence)
Users: OK, now my 1-year-old iPhone is sluggish as well... this is getting old.
APPLE: (silence) OK...yeah, that's us.
USERS: (silence)
APPLE: Don't worry, we're doing it for you. Old batteries can lose charge faster.
USERS: ...er... yeah, we know.
APPLE: You see, the lithium-ion batteries... (bla bla) ...cold conditions... (bla bla) ...device unexpectedly... (bla bla bla)...electronic components!
USERS: So... you secretly made my iPhone slower and less responsive 100% of the time to avoid a shutdown that could occur maybe 1% of the time?
APPLE: Exactly!
USERS: Because... you're interested in prolonging the life of my device?
APPLE: See! You get it!
USERS: ...and my iPhone feels sluggishly obsolete for 10 hours/day, instead of smooth and quick for 8 hours/day?
APPLE: (silence)
Comments
coconutBattery shows my 5yo 5s' battery is at 37% capacity. I didn't need an app to know that my battery capacity was crap. It discharged ('ran down') very quickly and also charged to 100% very quickly (never a good sign).
One moment it would read 85%, five minutes later it would show 22%. Recently when I took it off the charger it showed 87% for the first half of the day, right up until it dropped to 30%. 87% to 22% in the proverbial blink of an eye.
For the last couple of months and around one of the iOS 11.x updates I noticed the bad battery and slow page changes. A subsequent update helped with the battery draining.
Point being I think Apple made the right call, and that this somehow is a betrayal of iPhone users is ridiculous.
A couple of years ago she had some random shutdowns but then that problem went away - so it seems her phone was affected by this.
Now after using the new battery for a few days I ask her if her phone feels faster - she does not notice any difference in the speed.
If her phone had been randomly shutting down for the past two years - we would certainly have bought a new phone by now. So it seems to me that Apple’s policy of slightly slowing the phones with worn batteries is more likely to result in people keeping the device for longer. In our case we got two more years out of the iPhone 5 and will now get yet another year out of it with the new battery. Thank you Apple!
The simple fact is this:
The random shutdown problem is far more crippling than a slight slowdown!
The problem I have is that people are going in to the Genius bar or contacting Apple support and them not recognizing the issue or explaining it to people.
Anyway, the narrative is Apple is intentionally slowing down phones to sell a newer device when that is not the reason.
according to Apple, so if they fixed it for you they obviously found a better way to do it.
Secondly, you’re talking about a 5 year old phone. This “feature” has been shown to be working on and slowing phones that are a just a year old or less. I suspect if you were aware your year old phone was being deliberately crippled without your knowledge (to quietly solve a problem that could or should have been fixed by a new battery, possibly even under warranty) the contents of your teapot would be pretty rocky too.
I have a $70 battery tester that has special terminals for testing different size and chemistry batteries, and it uses a microprocessor and loads the battery for microseconds at a time to measure it's charge state. Nothing like that is built-in to the iPhone and I'm not sure it could be while the battery is in use.
Apple rates the battery at 500 charge cycles (BTW, for the person worried about inductive charging, a charge cycle is going from 0 to 100% charge - if you charge your battery from 90% to 100% that is only 10% of a charge cycle and you would have to do that ten times to be a full charge cycle) and that should last over two years for most people, but not everyone uses their phone the same and not everyone uses the same apps with the same load.
It's important for me as an iPhone 6S Plus and iPhone 6 user to know whether IOS 11 is slowing down my phone, or an old battery, which then I can make a decision to replace and know my phone will be faster because of it. Apple stands to profit from confusion, as usually is the case with any company.
So, while it might be a good solution, it was not done right.
Also, have the shutdowns affected the previous IOS version? If not, why not? I'm wondering whether more and more people will think twice before upgrading to the latest IOS going forward.
If they say that old, expired batteries were shutting down during peak power draws, and this throttling during said peak power draws prevents the shutdowns and inevitable data loss, then there is no reason to believe they are lying. None. Some guy on a rumors website simply isn't qualified to say they're engineering is uninformed or unnecessary. Unless you work in this field, you simply don't know what you're talking about.
This explains how they get 90% of the cell phone industry profits though. Sell an original phone with an undersized battery (that makes it cheaper) then update the software to slow down the phones (as opposed to letting the user know to upgrade) . When the user buys a new phone out of frustration with their slow phone, Apple can then pop a $30 battery in and sell it as a refurbished phone in third world countries (like Apple wanted to do with India). Big Profits on both transactions.. did Tim or Angela work as a car salesman in summers in college?
The real question is who approved this in Apple? Did Cook? Or was it one of the recently departed (from the website) apple designers (now that Ive is back).
If there's any issue here it's that at least one of their battery suppliers has been manufacturing batteries that don't have the 1000 charge cycle limit (before reaching 80% capacity) which they may or may not have known about when the iPhone 6 started shipping.
As a customer it sounded bad at first glance because I wasn't looking at like an engineer, but I also would do the same thing if I was in Apple's position.
Apple isn't slowing down "older devices". They explained clearly what they did and their reasons: They are throttling back devices with worn out weak batteries to stabilize them by preventing unexpected, premature shut down which, by the way, can only be restarted by being put on a charger.
So, if you you're outside in cold weather with a weak battery pull your phone out to make an emergency phone call: would you rather have a slow phone or no phone?
I see no reason to believe that claim. Actually, quite the opposite:
Yes, when a battery failed prematurely, they replaced it. But, all batteries weaken at some point. And, unfortunately, those old weak batteries were making the phone unstable and causing it to shut down prematurely and unexpectidly -- which could leave a user in a dangerous situation. They remedied that situation the best way possible -- although as others have pointed out, they should have been more transparent about it.
... These are old, worn out (or nearly worn out) batteries. Not undersized batteries.