I don't buy this story. Apple is trying to force you to buy to a new iPhone, each time it releases new one.
I's called planned obsolescence.
Maybe it was purposeful unplanned obsolescence. Either Way looks real bad. I expect there to be an FEATURE/EDITORIAL this weekend from DED saying what apple did was the absolute best thing and of course better than android especially Samsung.
Yes, what Apple did was reasonable - extend the lifespan of a device with an expired, used up battery.
only haters have a problem with it.
No, it wasn't reasonable. People know that batteries degrade
with time, and it's normal that a +2 year device won't last as long as
before, and that even may shut down. So they have to decide between
replace the battery or get a new device. But Apple decided for the customer, throttle the CPU, and now
customers had no idea that the phone slow down was caused by a "software
update", and that replacing the battery fix the issue. Even AI people felt for it, and published an article with "proof" that the slowness was caused by old apps, or because "psychological" reasons.
No
one knew about this, until Apple admission. BTW, I don't think people who bring the lawsuit are haters Remember, they are Apple customers too.
No one knew this because the number of folks actually impacted seems to be quite small given the Futuremark dataset or evidence of throttling would have been apparent in their data.
If someone really cares they can go through the Geekbench dataset to see what percentage of iPhone 6 and 6S are being throttled among the population of geekbench statistics.
I’m going to guess it’s low or it would have jumped out at folks. I have geekbench and my iPhone 6 with 20% wear is benching pretty close to average.
I'm think neither Futuremark or AI knew that Apple was throttling CPU's until they release the news. But still, what the article tried to prove went down with Apple admission of that they are doing with CPU's.
I don't buy this story. Apple is trying to force you to buy to a new iPhone, each time it releases new one.
I's called planned obsolescence.
Maybe it was purposeful unplanned obsolescence. Either Way looks real bad. I expect there to be an FEATURE/EDITORIAL this weekend from DED saying what apple did was the absolute best thing and of course better than android especially Samsung.
Yes, what Apple did was reasonable - extend the lifespan of a device with an expired, used up battery.
only haters have a problem with it.
No, it wasn't reasonable. People know that batteries degrade
with time, and it's normal that a +2 year device won't last as long as
before, and that even may shut down. So they have to decide between
replace the battery or get a new device. But Apple decided for the customer, throttle the CPU, and now
customers had no idea that the phone slow down was caused by a "software
update", and that replacing the battery fix the issue. Even AI people felt for it, and published an article with "proof" that the slowness was caused by old apps, or because "psychological" reasons.
No
one knew about this, until Apple admission. BTW, I don't think people who bring the lawsuit are haters Remember, they are Apple customers too.
No one knew this because the number of folks actually impacted seems to be quite small given the Futuremark dataset or evidence of throttling would have been apparent in their data.
If someone really cares they can go through the Geekbench dataset to see what percentage of iPhone 6 and 6S are being throttled among the population of geekbench statistics.
I’m going to guess it’s low or it would have jumped out at folks. I have geekbench and my iPhone 6 with 20% wear is benching pretty close to average.
I'm think neither Futuremark or AI knew that Apple was throttling CPU's until they release the news. But still, what the article tried to prove went down with Apple admission of that they are doing with CPU's.
No. If what you state is true then it would have been widespread and obvious in the performance data. The fact that Futuremark and Geekbench statistics don’t show a slowdown in their datasets is an indicator that throttling impacted very few of the general population of iPhones.
The article and the data proves that Apple doesn’t throttle older iPhones deliberately. Just older iPhones that are in poor battery condition which is a relatively small segment of phones or it would appear in the data.
Apple went about fixing the issue the complete wrong way. If the root cause is the battery dying, they should replace the battery of your device. Forcing an involuntary performance hit that doesn't inform the user why their device is slowing down to compensate for the dying battery is a terrible solution to the problem.
Yes, but they have a bean counter in Charge.
Stupid comment. This is an engineering choice and has nothing to do with bottom line. Not preventing expired batteries from shutting down would drive more replacements so your entire point is a dead end.
Apple hide from customers, including you, the CPU throttling "update". Now, how do you know they didn't do it with the purpose of selling more devices? Do you still trust them as before? Based in what I'm reading in different sites, that trust is taking a big hit right now, even with Apple fans.
So we have two scenarios:
One is Apple doing nothing about devices long out of warranty with well-worn batteries that will shutdown your device on heavy work loads so when you call them up or bring them into an Apple Store they recommend a $129(?) battery replacement or buying a new device.
The second option are the engineers finding a clever way to keep the device from shutting down so that the user isn't forced to buy a new battery and have it installed, or buy a new iPhone. They even list in Settings » Battery that the battery is degraded.
According to your comments, the first option would be more ideal despite it clearly being a much greater money maker for Apple, and yet Apple found a way to extend the usability of the device and help keep as close to the one numerically based spec they list for new devices (i.e.: battery life), which means they make less money from keeping devices working even longer.
Despite these two options you've somehow jumped onto a conspiracy even though Apple is offering OS updates much longer than their competitors and doing what they can to keep their devices running longer with the user needing to update is Apple trying to nickel-and-dime the consumer instead of trying to do right by the customer by lowering their TCO.
There is a 3rd scenario, Apple notify users on how the iOS update will throttle users with battery issues, and suggest them to replace the battery. Isn't this a better option than the other two? But that didn't happened. They kept it hidden, users had performance issues with iPhones, and no one, including Apple technical staff, knew that replacing the battery solved the issue. What are the options to have their performance back, considering they didn't knew about the CPU throttling? Replace the phone.
That bring the conspiracy thing. My opinion on this? There is no proof of it. But there was no proof either of Apple throttling CPU's, but in reality it was happening. So I can't blame people thinking that Apple took advantage of it to sell more phones.
BTW, how throttling CPU's in iPhone helps with TCO? On the contrary, I can imagine people calling help desk with performance issues after the "update", with no option to roll back because Apple forces you to keep the latest version. Only with this issue, TCO had to go up.
1) Whether they let the user know or not, it's still the second option if they do it without offering the user a choice.
2) TCO is an acronym that stands for total cost of ownership. If your 4 year iPhone shutdown every time you open certain apps you may end up buying a new device or getting the battery replaced, if you know that it's the cause. That means the total cost of the device ends right there if they get a new one, which you can divide by time in which you had it, not to mention the cost of your time for getting a new device, the potential lost time from a device that doesn't work because of constant shutdowns, and activation fees from carriers for a new device -or- the cost of getting a new battery for a long out of warranty iPhone plus several of the aforementioned costs previously mentions, sans the carrier activation fee for a new device.
By having the device stay in working order without sudden shutdowns and a battery life that's closer to the original estimates Apple is allowing customers to save money and giving them the option to get a new battery if they so desire as noted by the message in Settings » Battery. As previously stated, Apple's only fault is not having enough transparency, not some bullshit conspiracy theory that they're trying to force customers to buy new iPhones by slowing them down for no good reason when it would be more effective simply to not update old devices with the latest OSes.
I don't buy this story. Apple is trying to force you to buy to a new iPhone, each time it releases new one.
I's called planned obsolescence.
Maybe it was purposeful unplanned obsolescence. Either Way looks real bad. I expect there to be an FEATURE/EDITORIAL this weekend from DED saying what apple did was the absolute best thing and of course better than android especially Samsung.
Yes, what Apple did was reasonable - extend the lifespan of a device with an expired, used up battery.
only haters have a problem with it.
No, it wasn't reasonable. People know that batteries degrade
with time, and it's normal that a +2 year device won't last as long as
before, and that even may shut down. So they have to decide between
replace the battery or get a new device. But Apple decided for the customer, throttle the CPU, and now
customers had no idea that the phone slow down was caused by a "software
update", and that replacing the battery fix the issue. Even AI people felt for it, and published an article with "proof" that the slowness was caused by old apps, or because "psychological" reasons.
No
one knew about this, until Apple admission. BTW, I don't think people who bring the lawsuit are haters Remember, they are Apple customers too.
No one knew this because the number of folks actually impacted seems to be quite small given the Futuremark dataset or evidence of throttling would have been apparent in their data.
If someone really cares they can go through the Geekbench dataset to see what percentage of iPhone 6 and 6S are being throttled among the population of geekbench statistics.
I’m going to guess it’s low or it would have jumped out at folks. I have geekbench and my iPhone 6 with 20% wear is benching pretty close to average.
I'm think neither Futuremark or AI knew that Apple was throttling CPU's until they release the news. But still, what the article tried to prove went down with Apple admission of that they are doing with CPU's.
No. If what you state is true then it would have been widespread and obvious in the performance data. The fact that Futuremark and Geekbench statistics don’t show a slowdown in their datasets is an indicator that throttling impacted very few of the general population of iPhones.
The article and the data proves that Apple doesn’t throttle older iPhones deliberately. Just older iPhones that are in poor battery condition which is a relatively small segment of phones or it would appear in the data.
If it's widespread or not, is a different matter. You'll need more stats to get to a conclusion, and you neither do I have those details. By own Apple admission, they are deliberately throttling CPUs of iPhones with battery issues, and no one knew about it, including AI editors. That's the reason you saw the article trying to prove that Apple didn't throttle CPU's in iPhones.
Apple went about fixing the issue the complete wrong way. If the root cause is the battery dying, they should replace the battery of your device. Forcing an involuntary performance hit that doesn't inform the user why their device is slowing down to compensate for the dying battery is a terrible solution to the problem.
Yes, but they have a bean counter in Charge.
Stupid comment. This is an engineering choice and has nothing to do with bottom line. Not preventing expired batteries from shutting down would drive more replacements so your entire point is a dead end.
Apple hide from customers, including you, the CPU throttling "update". Now, how do you know they didn't do it with the purpose of selling more devices? Do you still trust them as before? Based in what I'm reading in different sites, that trust is taking a big hit right now, even with Apple fans.
So we have two scenarios:
One is Apple doing nothing about devices long out of warranty with well-worn batteries that will shutdown your device on heavy work loads so when you call them up or bring them into an Apple Store they recommend a $129(?) battery replacement or buying a new device.
The second option are the engineers finding a clever way to keep the device from shutting down so that the user isn't forced to buy a new battery and have it installed, or buy a new iPhone. They even list in Settings » Battery that the battery is degraded.
According to your comments, the first option would be more ideal despite it clearly being a much greater money maker for Apple, and yet Apple found a way to extend the usability of the device and help keep as close to the one numerically based spec they list for new devices (i.e.: battery life), which means they make less money from keeping devices working even longer.
Despite these two options you've somehow jumped onto a conspiracy even though Apple is offering OS updates much longer than their competitors and doing what they can to keep their devices running longer with the user needing to update is Apple trying to nickel-and-dime the consumer instead of trying to do right by the customer by lowering their TCO.
There is a 3rd scenario, Apple notify users on how the iOS update will throttle users with battery issues, and suggest them to replace the battery. Isn't this a better option than the other two? But that didn't happened. They kept it hidden, users had performance issues with iPhones, and no one, including Apple technical staff, knew that replacing the battery solved the issue. What are the options to have their performance back, considering they didn't knew about the CPU throttling? Replace the phone.
That bring the conspiracy thing. My opinion on this? There is no proof of it. But there was no proof either of Apple throttling CPU's, but in reality it was happening. So I can't blame people thinking that Apple took advantage of it to sell more phones.
BTW, how throttling CPU's in iPhone helps with TCO? On the contrary, I can imagine people calling help desk with performance issues after the "update", with no option to roll back because Apple forces you to keep the latest version. Only with this issue, TCO had to go up.
1) Whether they let the user know or not, it's still the second option if they do it without offering the user a choice.
The second option didn't made sense before Apple admission. People didn't knew Apple was throttling CPUs of iPhones w/ battery issues. They just saw how an update slowed down their phones without the possibility of rolling back. So in their mind, the only option to recover the performance was to replace the device.
2) TCO is an acronym that stands for total cost of ownership. If
your 4 year iPhone shutdown every time you open certain apps you may end
up buying a new device or getting the battery replaced, if you know
that it's the cause. That means the total cost of the device ends right
there if they get a new one, which you can divide by time in which you
had it, not to mention the cost of your time for getting a new device,
the potential lost time from a device that doesn't work because of
constant shutdowns, and activation fees from carriers for a new device
-or- the cost of getting a new battery for a long out of warranty iPhone
plus several of the aforementioned costs previously mentions, sans the
carrier activation fee for a new device.
By having the device
stay in working order without sudden shutdowns and a battery life that's
closer to the original estimates Apple is allowing customers to save
money and giving them the option to get a new battery if they so desire
as noted by the message in Settings » Battery. As previously stated,
Apple's only fault is not having enough transparency, not some bullshit
conspiracy theory that they're trying to force customers to buy new
iPhones by slowing them down for no good reason when it would be more
effective simply to not update old devices with the latest OSes.
I know what TCO is, and don't agree with your post. Help desk may expect devices with +2 years to shutdown because battery issues. They didn't expect iPhones battery issues make iPhone's slow down. Technically, a bad battery have no relation to the CPU performance. What they see is an issue caused by an iOS "update". During this time, TCO increases since nobody know how to fix the performance issue. So they decide to acquire a new device, since you have no option to roll back to the previous version of iOS. Now the story is different, since Apple admitted the CPU throttling, and we all know that replacing the battery fixes the performance issues.
Regarding the conspiracy theory, I'll make no comments. You neither do I were are the meetings where the CPU throttling was discussed. What I can tell you is that many Apple fans denied that Apple was throttling CPU's, maybe you included, and at the end all were wrong.
I am sure it is not as reliable as something Apple themselves would do, but could it help users determine if an effect like throttling could be occurring on their phones?
For most of us this is not the first iPhone. Batteries always lasted at least 2 full years. I noticed a huge decline in battery performance right after upgrading to iOS 11.x and my iPhone 7plus is only a year old. I could show you my messages to my friends a couple of days after the upgrade. I don’t wanna start any conspiracy theory but this is very suspicious and the fact that Apple admitted there was a problem and it was easier to slow down older phones rather than fixing the issue speaks loud and clear. I would not mind downgrading to the previous iOS 10 to test if the battery issue gets resolved.
At best this shows very bad decision making upon Apple's part. Unfortunately its not the only decision that Apple has had to admit to recently with respect to software decisions.
If any of that was true then they WOULDN"'T ALLOW OLDER DEVICES TO GET THE LATEST OSES AND FEATURES AT ALL! This means less work for Apple and more feature envy for customers with older devices. Do you people ever think before you post?
Did you think before posting this?! Less work for Apple?!! It would mean less money for Apple. Pay attention - this has been and is happening whether you like it of not. What do you mean, "they wouldn't allow" that to happen - they have and didn't say a word about it to clue people in. Deal with the reality of the situation.
Apple spends many millions of dollars in adopting, testing and supporting iOS for older devices… but you think this is at no charge for Apple. Apple now has older iPhones going back up to 5 years that have new features which keeps customers using older devices… but you think that users being stuck on an antiquated OS would hinder a desire to get new iPhones with new HW and SW features.
Instead. you create a conspiracy theory that Apple gives users new features and then makes devices not work so that myopic dipshits like you believe that an old device with an old battery is somehow purposely and maliciously hindered in SW so you're forced to buy a new device despite your claims that it's just driving you to drop Apple entirely. What a reasonable comment¡
Okay, going back a bit.
Let’s forget about the technical stuff because we’re in the wrong place for that. Let’s have a look at management of this.
People have been claiming that their phones have been slowing down. Clever, knowledgeable folk have been saying “Nope, you’re imagining it”, and during this time, Apple KNEW that a possible cause was this policy of preventing the phone from cutting out. Regardless of the technical reasons, why not just be honest about what you’re doing? “We didn’t want the phone to crash while you were on your way to your highest Hitman Sniper score so we throttle the phone during peak cycles because of a depleted battery cannot cope with it.”
They screwed up, and that is going give them merry hell from “myopic dipshits” for years to come. Now they’re in a position of having to explain a cover-up. Good luck with that.
While I think Apple should have been more transparent about the aging, worn out battery issues, to call it a "cover-up" has no basis in reality.
Apple adjusts and tweaks their OS in countless ways and for countless reasons. They do that to improve the user experience. This was one of those times -- because an unreliable phone is not an option for most users. Apple fixed that very serious problem with a trade off in performance. That was a good decision with the best interests of users in mind. Not a "cover up".
Whether you or I think it’s a cover up doesn’t matter. What matters is what it looks like.
So, if it LOOK LIKE you robbed a bank, the cops should put you in jail? I guess that's how it works in today's post-factual world. So sad...
This is a significant point that seems to have been lost in the inevitably gleeful hysteria. The slowdown is not permanent. It only occurs if that battery is old AND there is danger that the phone is going to shut down. If the phone is constantly drawing power then you need to check to make sure that you haven't got a rogue app that is constantly talking to the internet or trying to get your location.
The other popular meme amongst the uniformed is that this slowdown is designed to fix a problem with the phone.
I don't think so.
A quick search of the web reveals that phones shutting down randomly has been a problem since before phones got smart. And when someone asks about it on a forum, the first reply is 'have you tried getting a new battery?'
So, Apple is not trying to hide a design fault with the phone, they're trying to come up with a way of stopping the phone doing something it is always going to do. In much the same way, a car battery can no longer hold its charge, then the car will become increasingly unreliable.
And this is not just a quick hack to hide some problem; this is part of the same invisible AI initiative that Apple talked about earlier this year:
In an interview with MIT Technology Review conducted a few hours after the meeting with Picard, Cook ticks off a list: image recognition in our photos, for example, or the way Apple Music learns from what we have been listening to and adjusts its recommendations accordingly. Even the iPhone battery lasts longer now because the phone’s power management system uses machine learning to study our usage and adjust accordingly, he says.
Well, will you look at that. They don't just made adjustments when the battery is old; they do it all the time.
So I think I'm going to ignore the folk who say I should boycott Apple products; this is exactly what I want my devices to do. I want them to use AI to make sure that I don't lose work for whatever reason. And I would prefer a slowdown (which I probably wouldn't notice) to having the phone switch off (which I definitely would).
Now, just imagine how much hassle Apple could have saved themselves if they'd mentioned this in the MIT Technology Review:
In an interview with MIT Technology Review conducted a few hours after the meeting with Picard, Cook ticks off a list: image recognition in our photos, for example, or the way Apple Music learns from what we have been listening to and adjusts its recommendations accordingly. Even the iPhone battery lasts longer now because the phone’s power management system uses machine learning to study our usage and condition of the battery, and adjust accordingly, he says.
One of Apple's increasingly common forehead slapping moments I'm afraid.
Apple, themselves, said that this is something they implemented last year (iOS 10.2.1) for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6S and iPhone SE and now extended that feature to iPhone 7 and 7 Plus with iOS 11.2. It is not something that they've done all along but was recently developed to cover up a different issue that was happening. So yes, it was "designed to fix a problem".
Everything else you posted is a distraction from the fact that Apple implemented this change without telling anyone. Especially in the face of long held rumors that they slowed older phones down in order to get more sales. They played right into the hands of those rumors.
Personally, I think three things happened (my 2 cents):
1) They tried to fix a shut down problem in phones with older / defective batteries. 2) They didn't disclose this to avoid bad PR 3) They didn't disclose because some people will opt for the upgrade.
A win, win, win - at least on paper.
A distraction? You mean aside from the last paragraph where I said it was a forehead-slapping moment that Apple had chosen to keep this quiet, and even provided them with a bit of copy on what they should have said?
Your first point:
I don’t get why the time of implementation really makes a difference, because the problem is inherent with lithium-ion batteries. Like any other company, the come up with ways to improve stuff and then implement it. This management of processor speeds is something they’ve always done. This mysterious shutting down of phones is something that has always happened. What I suspect happened is that the problem became more pronounced as they demanded more functionality on the same hardware. When you’re dealing with a problem inherent in the technology then improvements are sacrificial in nature and ongoing. What else could they have done?
Make the battery bigger: that would mean making the phone bigger.
Make the batter user-replaceable: leads to exploding phones and dangerous batteries being dumped everywhere as people who were happy to pay top dollar for a phone then become irrationally tight-fisted when it comes to replacing the battery.
Last solution is a PR nightmare on its own: limit OS upgrades to only recent models. Yes, there’s your forced upgrade right there.
Google it: it happens on iPhones and every other model of phone, and why it happens is explained by folk who know quite a bit about these things here:
This is well worth reading by the way. One engineer points out that he owned a car that did the same thing:
If I can make an analogy to some other industries, I used to own a fairly high-end luxury car. Being the geek I am, I would read the manual and find out things about the car that I think a lot of people don't realize. One of the things I discovered is that under some conditions the onboard computer can detect a fault, which basically suggests that there's something wrong with the car or some part is aged out of lifetime or whatever, and it goes into limp home mode. Limp home mode is one that doesn't let you go over, I think, 30 or 35 miles an hour. It's probably in kilometers. Basically, it cripples your car and puts it in the state where the only thing you can do is drive it to get it repaired.
Now why do you think this buried in the car manual and not mentioned in the sales brochure? I have no idea because I think this is a feature. But then I think like that because my own experiences lead me to think of these problems in a certain way. I used to write aircraft flight control systems (not on my own obviously). Two teams are given the same spec (which is so detailed that it indicates how long, in milliseconds, a process should take to execute). They write two systems, separate teams test them independently), then both systems are run simultaneously on the aircraft. They constantly check each other to make sure they’re both giving the same answers. As soon as the answers don’t match, the pilot is instructed to land the plane. This is graceful degradation. It is not something that should be hidden. It is a feature.
Mmm. I’ve wandered off again. This failure stuff is quite fascinating because it comes up so much.
Anyway, I agree with your second point: Apple chose not to mention it because they thought it was bad PR. They were wrong: bad PR is what they’re looking at right now, and I don’t think that they would need hindsight to see it.
I’m not sure about your third point. If they wanted to trick people into upgrading the phone then they wouldn’t include a battery condition test that would lead people to simply change the battery instead:
(On the iMore interview, the engineers reckon that not many people with a battery problem have seen this message. One of them pulls out his iPhone – and it’s telling him his battery needs servicing).
One of the engineers on iMore laments that Apple’s poor handling of this means that a function designed to preserve the useful life of a phone, without a battery change, has instead given the impression that they’re trying to force upgrades, but from the same interview, concerning iOS upgrades:
But if you get them, sometimes it does impact at least initially performance. When you first upgrade, there's a lot of...Spotlight is reindexing. A bunch of libraries are being moved around. There's a lot of overhead. It gets hot because all the radios are firing to update bit code for different...All sorts of things can happen. There's a whole bunch of reasons why a person, if they don't really explore it deeply, can think Apple is slowing down my phone. But the idea of built in obsolescence, and John Gruber spoke to this well, has always seemed weird to me because Apple's one and only goal is to sell iPhones. You've already bought this iPhone. They want you to buy the next one.
I don't buy this story. Apple is trying to force you to buy to a new iPhone, each time it releases new one.
I's called planned obsolescence.
Maybe it was purposeful unplanned obsolescence. Either Way looks real bad. I expect there to be an FEATURE/EDITORIAL this weekend from DED saying what apple did was the absolute best thing and of course better than android especially Samsung.
Yes, what Apple did was reasonable - extend the lifespan of a device with an expired, used up battery.
only haters have a problem with it.
Fanbois really do have their head in the sand... the engineering solution was reasonable... not indicating it (I was one with issues and the Genuis Bar told me the device/battery was fine... it's due to me being a iOS dev )...
they should have been transparent on this issue... however, transparency isn't in their DNA... secrecy and covering up is (hell even back to the days of the stuck RW arms on hard drives on the Mac back in the 80's)
On this one they need to be spanked... and a good price hit on the stock so fanbois might realize they need to hold the company they have a share in into account rather than treating it like the Church.
I don't buy this story. Apple is trying to force you to buy to a new iPhone, each time it releases new one.
I's called planned obsolescence.
Maybe it was purposeful unplanned obsolescence. Either Way looks real bad. I expect there to be an FEATURE/EDITORIAL this weekend from DED saying what apple did was the absolute best thing and of course better than android especially Samsung.
Yes, what Apple did was reasonable - extend the lifespan of a device with an expired, used up battery.
only haters have a problem with it.
No, it wasn't reasonable. People know that batteries degrade
with time, and it's normal that a +2 year device won't last as long as
before, and that even may shut down. So they have to decide between
replace the battery or get a new device. But Apple decided for the customer, throttle the CPU, and now
customers had no idea that the phone slow down was caused by a "software
update", and that replacing the battery fix the issue. Even AI people felt for it, and published an article with "proof" that the slowness was caused by old apps, or because "psychological" reasons.
No
one knew about this, until Apple admission. BTW, I don't think people who bring the lawsuit are haters Remember, they are Apple customers too.
No one knew this because the number of folks actually impacted seems to be quite small given the Futuremark dataset or evidence of throttling would have been apparent in their data.
If someone really cares they can go through the Geekbench dataset to see what percentage of iPhone 6 and 6S are being throttled among the population of geekbench statistics.
I’m going to guess it’s low or it would have jumped out at folks. I have geekbench and my iPhone 6 with 20% wear is benching pretty close to average.
I'm think neither Futuremark or AI knew that Apple was throttling CPU's until they release the news. But still, what the article tried to prove went down with Apple admission of that they are doing with CPU's.
No. If what you state is true then it would have been widespread and obvious in the performance data. The fact that Futuremark and Geekbench statistics don’t show a slowdown in their datasets is an indicator that throttling impacted very few of the general population of iPhones.
The article and the data proves that Apple doesn’t throttle older iPhones deliberately. Just older iPhones that are in poor battery condition which is a relatively small segment of phones or it would appear in the data.
If it's widespread or not, is a different matter. You'll need more stats to get to a conclusion, and you neither do I have those details. By own Apple admission, they are deliberately throttling CPUs of iPhones with battery issues, and no one knew about it, including AI editors. That's the reason you saw the article trying to prove that Apple didn't throttle CPU's in iPhones.
False. While the Geekbench stats are non-random it provides sufficient insight to be able to state that it wasn’t widespread enough to show up among the large pool of technically astute iPhone users, that are also likely heavy users, that would perceive performance issues and know how to check it out.
We have details, you simply choose to ignore them...despite the fact that the pool of users you wish to ignore are in fact the ones that showed that the slowdown exists.
The reason you saw the article that shows that Apple wasn’t deliberately slowing down older iPhones to make you buy a newer phone is because the data now and then supports that position.
Apple is deliberately capping performance of older iPhones with much higher than average battery wear so they don’t simply shut down. That’s a different issue you are deliberately conflating with a conspiracy theory. So you’re just trolling at this point.
I don't buy this story. Apple is trying to force you to buy to a new iPhone, each time it releases new one.
I's called planned obsolescence.
Maybe it was purposeful unplanned obsolescence. Either Way looks real bad. I expect there to be an FEATURE/EDITORIAL this weekend from DED saying what apple did was the absolute best thing and of course better than android especially Samsung.
Yes, what Apple did was reasonable - extend the lifespan of a device with an expired, used up battery.
only haters have a problem with it.
Fanbois really do have their head in the sand... the engineering solution was reasonable... not indicating it (I was one with issues and the Genuis Bar told me the device/battery was fine... it's due to me being a iOS dev )...
they should have been transparent on this issue... however, transparency isn't in their DNA... secrecy and covering up is (hell even back to the days of the stuck RW arms on hard drives on the Mac back in the 80's)
On this one they need to be spanked... and a good price hit on the stock so fanbois might realize they need to hold the company they have a share in into account rather than treating it like the Church.
I agree with your reply, but I would like to make it clear that the Genuises at Apple weren't likely hiding anything from customers. As part of Apple's lack of transparency status quo they tend to know less than those of us that frequent technical forums.
The only new trick I can remember learning from a Genius is that your iDevice can work over Ethernet with the adapters Apple sells. It's a bit of a kludge since there's no single Lightning-to-Ethernet adapter, but it works fine and can help re-setup an iDevice quickly if you have the adapters.
I don't buy this story. Apple is trying to force you to buy to a new iPhone, each time it releases new one.
I's called planned obsolescence.
Maybe it was purposeful unplanned obsolescence. Either Way looks real bad. I expect there to be an FEATURE/EDITORIAL this weekend from DED saying what apple did was the absolute best thing and of course better than android especially Samsung.
Yes, what Apple did was reasonable - extend the lifespan of a device with an expired, used up battery.
only haters have a problem with it.
Fanbois really do have their head in the sand... the engineering solution was reasonable... not indicating it (I was one with issues and the Genuis Bar told me the device/battery was fine... it's due to me being a iOS dev )...
they should have been transparent on this issue... however, transparency isn't in their DNA... secrecy and covering up is (hell even back to the days of the stuck RW arms on hard drives on the Mac back in the 80's)
On this one they need to be spanked... and a good price hit on the stock so fanbois might realize they need to hold the company they have a share in into account rather than treating it like the Church.
This debate has nothing to do with "fanbois" who "have their head in the sand". I resent that insult. I'll explain some things about big tech companies. 1. All major tech companies are to some extent not transparent to the customer. From my personal experience, with lack of transparency, Apple has had the least negative impact towards me. 2. Tech companies sometimes hide or deny information. - Google; I previously brought up the Google Pixel 2 XL screen and how there have been several reports of a quick burnin problem. Google denies this is an issue. I'm sure Google tech support would say the same thing. - Samsung; With the Samsung Note 7; we have to stretch our minds that Samsung knew nothing about the tendency of Note 7s to ignite before its release. Then as Samsung fumbled with the issue, do you think that Samsung tech support would understand the total problem? Later Samsung said there was a battery fix for the Note 7 and the company released those replacement batteries. But the replacements didn't fix the issue. So, for the second time we are to believe that Samsung had no clue about the Note 7 QA. Whether Samsung engineers were like Volkswagen engineers (who did know about the performance of their product) or not is up to speculation. What I do know is that Samsung tech support would not have given an accurate assessment of the Note 7's battery performance until the tech media extensively reported on the problem and there was the total recall of that phone. 3. Tech support is limited; Maybe some people here don't realize it. It is often better to research a problem on the web. There are techies on the web who go over every detail of Apple products. If there is a problem, it would be found and discussed. - Apple's support imo is top notch compared with the rest of the tech industry. But several times over the years contacting Apple's tech support, they could not figure things out for me and I found the answer using my own research. 4. Finally as I wrote previously, I have an iPhone 6 which has slowed down since upgrading to 10.3.3. I did not run to call Apple support with a problem like this because I assumed it was complicated and as I mentioned, tech support has limitations. Instead I took my time and researched the issue on my own including looking at what was said online. And now after lots of comparative testing, we know the answer. And I will be getting a battery replacement.
They’re getting closer to getting the lawsuit to stick...
But the most perplexing thing is Apple doesn’t see to realize they’ve done anything wrong.
Lawyering-up isn’t going to solve their PR problem.
I think the lawsuits could win under the Lemon Law (implied warranties).
There are two types of warranties for product purchases, express warranties and implied warranties. Express warranties make specific promises about product repair, and are usually made in writing. An express warranty may be provided by the manufacturers in owner's manuals and other written sales or marketing materials. Implied warranties arise from a manufacturer's duty to meet certain minimum standards of quality whereby the product is fit for use for the purpose intended. An implied warranty arises from the sale itself, and need not be in writing. In each type the manufacturer assumes the liability and responsibility to correct the defect and, in the event that they cannot meet that duty, may be required to repurchase or replace the product.
Why would a lawsuit be any closer to sticking? You can throw dozens of suits--or initial filings--at an entity and not be guaranteed that any of them would ever see a courtroom. Besides, battery management issues can be well testified by battery engineers. The most they can get Apple on is failure to disclose (IMO only for what that's worth). What harm was done, and how do you quantify it--not "press release quantify" as in "trillions of dollars", but actual damages. OK so a phone is marginally slower, how are you harmed? Next, prove it.
BTW, the phrase is "expressed" warranty, not "express" as in something faster than another form of warranty.
I don't buy this story. Apple is trying to force you to buy to a new iPhone, each time it releases new one.
I's called planned obsolescence.
Maybe it was purposeful unplanned obsolescence. Either Way looks real bad. I expect there to be an FEATURE/EDITORIAL this weekend from DED saying what apple did was the absolute best thing and of course better than android especially Samsung.
Yes, what Apple did was reasonable - extend the lifespan of a device with an expired, used up battery.
only haters have a problem with it.
No, it wasn't reasonable. People know that batteries degrade
with time, and it's normal that a +2 year device won't last as long as
before, and that even may shut down. So they have to decide between
replace the battery or get a new device. But Apple decided for the customer, throttle the CPU, and now
customers had no idea that the phone slow down was caused by a "software
update", and that replacing the battery fix the issue. Even AI people felt for it, and published an article with "proof" that the slowness was caused by old apps, or because "psychological" reasons.
No
one knew about this, until Apple admission. BTW, I don't think people who bring the lawsuit are haters Remember, they are Apple customers too.
No one knew this because the number of folks actually impacted seems to be quite small given the Futuremark dataset or evidence of throttling would have been apparent in their data.
If someone really cares they can go through the Geekbench dataset to see what percentage of iPhone 6 and 6S are being throttled among the population of geekbench statistics.
I’m going to guess it’s low or it would have jumped out at folks. I have geekbench and my iPhone 6 with 20% wear is benching pretty close to average.
I'm think neither Futuremark or AI knew that Apple was throttling CPU's until they release the news. But still, what the article tried to prove went down with Apple admission of that they are doing with CPU's.
No. If what you state is true then it would have been widespread and obvious in the performance data. The fact that Futuremark and Geekbench statistics don’t show a slowdown in their datasets is an indicator that throttling impacted very few of the general population of iPhones.
The article and the data proves that Apple doesn’t throttle older iPhones deliberately. Just older iPhones that are in poor battery condition which is a relatively small segment of phones or it would appear in the data.
If it's widespread or not, is a different matter. You'll need more stats to get to a conclusion, and you neither do I have those details. By own Apple admission, they are deliberately throttling CPUs of iPhones with battery issues, and no one knew about it, including AI editors. That's the reason you saw the article trying to prove that Apple didn't throttle CPU's in iPhones.
False. While the Geekbench stats are non-random it provides sufficient insight to be able to state that it wasn’t widespread enough to show up among the large pool of technically astute iPhone users, that are also likely heavy users, that would perceive performance issues and know how to check it out.
We have details, you simply choose to ignore them...despite the fact that the pool of users you wish to ignore are in fact the ones that showed that the slowdown exists.
The reason you saw the article that shows that Apple wasn’t deliberately
slowing down older iPhones to make you buy a newer phone is because the
data now and then supports that position.
Since you mentioned Geekbench, I went to their blog, and found the article. Here is a line from it,
I would prefer to have some additional details, like how many devices were part of the research. But based in their article and users feedback, looks like the issue is very common. And whatever was mentioned in other articles trying to "prove" that Apple wasn't throttling CPU's, now is worthless with they admit doing it.
Apple is
deliberately capping performance of older iPhones with much higher than
average battery wear so they don’t simply shut down. That’s a different
issue you are deliberately conflating with a conspiracy theory. So
you’re just trolling at this point.
There are people who believe Apple statement regarding the CPU throttling (looks like you are one of them), and there are other who not, including Apple fans and customers, who maybe are part of the suit. At the end neither you neither do I were part of the meeting where this issue was discussed, so maybe we'll never know the whole story. But remember there were many people saying that Apple would never do something like throttling the CPU, and look how it went.
These lawsuits are total BS and AppleInsider should stop giving them such prominence. Especially with comments from people who think Apple should be producing a flip phone with a pop-out battery.
Users are unlikely to notice slowdowns - but artificial benchmarks will show issues and only with phones will degraded batteries. I would MUCH rather my phone slowed down bit than suddenly "quit".
This issue is they never told anyone they were doing this, and appear to only be doing so now because of concrete proof that has spread. It's like when someone apologizes after they got caught...there is hell to pay.
So yeah, they may be doing this for good reason but the APPEARANCE is that they got caught slowing down phones to increase new sales. That's going to be a problem, where if they had said from day 1 that they plan on throttling older devices to increase longevity then people would have knowingly gone along with that (or only have themselves to blame).
Apple went about fixing the issue the complete wrong way. If the root cause is the battery dying, they should replace the battery of your device. Forcing an involuntary performance hit that doesn't inform the user why their device is slowing down to compensate for the dying battery is a terrible solution to the problem.
Yes, but they have a bean counter in Charge.
Stupid comment. This is an engineering choice and has nothing to do with bottom line. Not preventing expired batteries from shutting down would drive more replacements so your entire point is a dead end.
Apple hide from customers, including you, the CPU throttling "update". Now, how do you know they didn't do it with the purpose of selling more devices? Do you still trust them as before? Based in what I'm reading in different sites, that trust is taking a big hit right now, even with Apple fans.
So we have two scenarios:
One is Apple doing nothing about devices long out of warranty with well-worn batteries that will shutdown your device on heavy work loads so when you call them up or bring them into an Apple Store they recommend a $129(?) battery replacement or buying a new device.
The second option are the engineers finding a clever way to keep the device from shutting down so that the user isn't forced to buy a new battery and have it installed, or buy a new iPhone. They even list in Settings » Battery that the battery is degraded.
According to your comments, the first option would be more ideal despite it clearly being a much greater money maker for Apple, and yet Apple found a way to extend the usability of the device and help keep as close to the one numerically based spec they list for new devices (i.e.: battery life), which means they make less money from keeping devices working even longer.
Despite these two options you've somehow jumped onto a conspiracy even though Apple is offering OS updates much longer than their competitors and doing what they can to keep their devices running longer with the user needing to update is Apple trying to nickel-and-dime the consumer instead of trying to do right by the customer by lowering their TCO.
There is a 3rd scenario, Apple notify users on how the iOS update will throttle users with battery issues, and suggest them to replace the battery. Isn't this a better option than the other two? But that didn't happened. They kept it hidden, users had performance issues with iPhones, and no one, including Apple technical staff, knew that replacing the battery solved the issue. What are the options to have their performance back, considering they didn't knew about the CPU throttling? Replace the phone.
That bring the conspiracy thing. My opinion on this? There is no proof of it. But there was no proof either of Apple throttling CPU's, but in reality it was happening. So I can't blame people thinking that Apple took advantage of it to sell more phones.
BTW, how throttling CPU's in iPhone helps with TCO? On the contrary, I can imagine people calling help desk with performance issues after the "update", with no option to roll back because Apple forces you to keep the latest version. Only with this issue, TCO had to go up.
1) Whether they let the user know or not, it's still the second option if they do it without offering the user a choice.
2) TCO is an acronym that stands for total cost of ownership. If your 4 year iPhone shutdown every time you open certain apps you may end up buying a new device or getting the battery replaced, if you know that it's the cause. That means the total cost of the device ends right there if they get a new one, which you can divide by time in which you had it, not to mention the cost of your time for getting a new device, the potential lost time from a device that doesn't work because of constant shutdowns, and activation fees from carriers for a new device -or- the cost of getting a new battery for a long out of warranty iPhone plus several of the aforementioned costs previously mentions, sans the carrier activation fee for a new device.
By having the device stay in working order without sudden shutdowns and a battery life that's closer to the original estimates Apple is allowing customers to save money and giving them the option to get a new battery if they so desire as noted by the message in Settings » Battery. As previously stated, Apple's only fault is not having enough transparency, not some bullshit conspiracy theory that they're trying to force customers to buy new iPhones by slowing them down for no good reason when it would be more effective simply to not update old devices with the latest OSes.
I completely agree with you, Soli. A very fair assessment. I would be very interested to find the frequency of occurrence of this effect. Warning, anecdotal evidence to follow:
This has not happened to me on any of my Apple products and I have an iPhone 6, iPhone 6s Plus, 2 iPad Minis and an iPad 2, all in very regular use. Nor has this happened with any of my family members’ Apple products or friends’ or friends’ family’s, following conversations with my friends and family. At least, not to any noticeable degree that would justify a multi-billion dollar lawsuit.
Anyone I have spoken to that has upgraded their Apple devices recently did so because they wanted the features of the new one, or just because of normal wear and tear after several years of use, not because they were dissatisfied with their older ones.
My thoughts here are that there is a type of placebo effect occurring. “Oh, Apple did this, then yeah this is happening to me too,” similar to how many people “knew” someone who’s iPhone 6 was bent, even though the frequency of anyone actually seeing one bend accidentally was so minute it barely deserved to be blown up to the degree that it was.
Again, I do apologize for the non-scientific anecdotal evidence. And to be clear, I am in no way supporting Apple’s decision to be so non-transparent (although I wonder if this was detailed in the notes of an OS upgrade that everyone just hits “Agree” to without reading). Surely we have the right to know this was happening and I imagine Apple will have some reparations to make, but could it be that this has been blown out of proportion a little?
I'm not sure how much Apple tests their latest iOS versions in old devices. In my personal experience, "upgrading" a +3 years old device is not necessarily for the better. The performance hit is noticeable, and many times it would be better if I had it left with the previos versions. But since Apple force users to keep the latest iOS version, the only option you have to recover the performance is replacing the device. And this experience applies to iPhone and iPads.
It would be great if Apple actually patched older versions (lets say 1-2 major releases atleast). This would be much better for the users. I really dont get why they have different policies for mac os and IOS regarding vulnerabilities and such. MOST software (OS) vendors update atleast some older versions... But I see it as a councious choise to drive old users mad and force them to get a new phone witch might not give them much features that they actually need/want. Some will, some definately wont use them anyway. So no other options than to look elsewhere if you dont like it. It took a couple of years to appreciate android after Iphone (my first android), but now I don´t think I would go back anymore even if some things are better on the Apple side of the fence (battery-life was the last straw for me)... But atleast Ipad (pro) is moving along UI/use-wise a bit more in a new direction.
Your understanding would be exactly what a normal consumer would expect, but it appears Apple is actually doing something different.
There are two battery test algorithms, one done by the phone to determine when to throttle and a second one to determine the 80% capacity done at an Apple store for warranty replacement. The results of the internal test are hidden from the user; the phone simply starts throttling with no notice. The internal threshold for instituting throttling is apparently quite a bit easier to trigger than the 80% Genius Bar test. There have been numerous complaints of people with slow phones that were either under warranty or AppleCare who went into an Apple store and had their battery test fine, yet when they paid for a replacement battery from a third party their phone performance returned to normal.
That is basically the foundation of the lawsuit. Apple is throttling devices that should be fixed under warranty to cover up for a hardware defect. Customers are told the battery is good after an in-store test, yet the phone itself thinks otherwise and cuts peak performance by up to 50%. The 6 and the 6s are still being sold new, so if the throttling algorithm is kicking in on devices that are in-warranty then the consumer needs to be informed so they can get a replacement at Apple's expense. It will be up to the courts to decide if there is enough evidence to support the claim Apple was covering this up deliberately.
My personal guess is battery capacity isn't a factor in the internal throttling test at all. I think the phone looks at instantaneous battery output voltage and when it falls below a preset limit it cuts the CPU power regardless of how well the battery otherwise performs.
EDIT: For the record I greatly approve of Apple's fix to avoid crashing on phones with out of spec batteries. I've got a three-year-old iPhone 6 and would much rather have it clip the power rather than crash. That said, it is out of warranty and on my dime to fix. I thank Apple for implementing a method that allows my phone to function when it would have been crashing. However, Apple should notify the consumer the battery is bad. It is that lack of transparency that makes people believe Apple knew it was happening on in-warranty devices and deliberately kept it a secret.
Yes, the facts look like the smoking gun that they needed for the class action suit.
* I'm able to make comparisons between companies. - Google with the Pixel 2XL knowingly sold a defective screen which quickly has burnin issues. Google denies there is a problem.
- Apple does not sell phones which have screen burnin after a few days.
Also, Apple is addressing the issue of wear and tear on the iPhone 6. They offer a low cost battery replacement option. Apple is trying to fix the shutdown problem in software.
- From my view, I prefer dealing with Apple over Google.
Why do people always drag other companies into the question if something is wrong or not when considering another company. OK, it might be a BITrelevant but mostly its just an OBSERVATION, and nothing else. Its like saying that because "my neighbour wont sort his garbage", or "Chinese polute so much" that I dont need to be better at what I´m doing.
Comments
The article and the data proves that Apple doesn’t throttle older iPhones deliberately. Just older iPhones that are in poor battery condition which is a relatively small segment of phones or it would appear in the data.
2) TCO is an acronym that stands for total cost of ownership. If your 4 year iPhone shutdown every time you open certain apps you may end up buying a new device or getting the battery replaced, if you know that it's the cause. That means the total cost of the device ends right there if they get a new one, which you can divide by time in which you had it, not to mention the cost of your time for getting a new device, the potential lost time from a device that doesn't work because of constant shutdowns, and activation fees from carriers for a new device -or- the cost of getting a new battery for a long out of warranty iPhone plus several of the aforementioned costs previously mentions, sans the carrier activation fee for a new device.
By having the device stay in working order without sudden shutdowns and a battery life that's closer to the original estimates Apple is allowing customers to save money and giving them the option to get a new battery if they so desire as noted by the message in Settings » Battery. As previously stated, Apple's only fault is not having enough transparency, not some bullshit conspiracy theory that they're trying to force customers to buy new iPhones by slowing them down for no good reason when it would be more effective simply to not update old devices with the latest OSes.
I know what TCO is, and don't agree with your post. Help desk may expect devices with +2 years to shutdown because battery issues. They didn't expect iPhones battery issues make iPhone's slow down. Technically, a bad battery have no relation to the CPU performance. What they see is an issue caused by an iOS "update". During this time, TCO increases since nobody know how to fix the performance issue. So they decide to acquire a new device, since you have no option to roll back to the previous version of iOS. Now the story is different, since Apple admitted the CPU throttling, and we all know that replacing the battery fixes the performance issues.
Regarding the conspiracy theory, I'll make no comments. You neither do I were are the meetings where the CPU throttling was discussed. What I can tell you is that many Apple fans denied that Apple was throttling CPU's, maybe you included, and at the end all were wrong.
Battery Life App health 200 for iPhone & iPad by Women for best free Apps - iPhone and iPad Edition https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/battery-life-app-health-200-for-iphone-ipad/id1182385439?mt=8
I am sure it is not as reliable as something Apple themselves would do, but could it help users determine if an effect like throttling could be occurring on their phones?
http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/10/05/apple-allowed-uber-use-of-api-to-record-iphone-screens-feature-to-be-removed
I guess that's how it works in today's post-factual world. So sad...
Your first point:
I don’t get why the time of implementation really makes a difference, because the problem is inherent with lithium-ion batteries. Like any other company, the come up with ways to improve stuff and then implement it. This management of processor speeds is something they’ve always done. This mysterious shutting down of phones is something that has always happened. What I suspect happened is that the problem became more pronounced as they demanded more functionality on the same hardware. When you’re dealing with a problem inherent in the technology then improvements are sacrificial in nature and ongoing. What else could they have done?
Make the battery bigger: that would mean making the phone bigger.
Make the batter user-replaceable: leads to exploding phones and dangerous batteries being dumped everywhere as people who were happy to pay top dollar for a phone then become irrationally tight-fisted when it comes to replacing the battery.
Last solution is a PR nightmare on its own: limit OS upgrades to only recent models. Yes, there’s your forced upgrade right there.
Google it: it happens on iPhones and every other model of phone, and why it happens is explained by folk who know quite a bit about these things here:
https://www.imore.com/iphoneslow-what-analysts-and-experts-have-say
This is well worth reading by the way. One engineer points out that he owned a car that did the same thing:
Now why do you think this buried in the car manual and not mentioned in the sales brochure? I have no idea because I think this is a feature. But then I think like that because my own experiences lead me to think of these problems in a certain way. I used to write aircraft flight control systems (not on my own obviously). Two teams are given the same spec (which is so detailed that it indicates how long, in milliseconds, a process should take to execute). They write two systems, separate teams test them independently), then both systems are run simultaneously on the aircraft. They constantly check each other to make sure they’re both giving the same answers. As soon as the answers don’t match, the pilot is instructed to land the plane. This is graceful degradation. It is not something that should be hidden. It is a feature.
Mmm. I’ve wandered off again. This failure stuff is quite fascinating because it comes up so much.
Anyway, I agree with your second point: Apple chose not to mention it because they thought it was bad PR. They were wrong: bad PR is what they’re looking at right now, and I don’t think that they would need hindsight to see it.
I’m not sure about your third point. If they wanted to trick people into upgrading the phone then they wouldn’t include a battery condition test that would lead people to simply change the battery instead:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207453
(On the iMore interview, the engineers reckon that not many people with a battery problem have seen this message. One of them pulls out his iPhone – and it’s telling him his battery needs servicing).
One of the engineers on iMore laments that Apple’s poor handling of this means that a function designed to preserve the useful life of a phone, without a battery change, has instead given the impression that they’re trying to force upgrades, but from the same interview, concerning iOS upgrades:
We have details, you simply choose to ignore them...despite the fact that the pool of users you wish to ignore are in fact the ones that showed that the slowdown exists.
The reason you saw the article that shows that Apple wasn’t deliberately slowing down older iPhones to make you buy a newer phone is because the data now and then supports that position.
Apple is deliberately capping performance of older iPhones with much higher than average battery wear so they don’t simply shut down. That’s a different issue you are deliberately conflating with a conspiracy theory. So you’re just trolling at this point.
The only new trick I can remember learning from a Genius is that your iDevice can work over Ethernet with the adapters Apple sells. It's a bit of a kludge since there's no single Lightning-to-Ethernet adapter, but it works fine and can help re-setup an iDevice quickly if you have the adapters.
I'll explain some things about big tech companies.
1. All major tech companies are to some extent not transparent to the customer.
From my personal experience, with lack of transparency, Apple has had the least negative impact towards me.
2. Tech companies sometimes hide or deny information.
- Google; I previously brought up the Google Pixel 2 XL screen and how there have been several reports of a quick burnin problem.
Google denies this is an issue. I'm sure Google tech support would say the same thing.
- Samsung; With the Samsung Note 7; we have to stretch our minds that Samsung knew nothing about the tendency of Note 7s to ignite before its release. Then as Samsung fumbled with the issue, do you think that Samsung tech support would understand the total problem?
Later Samsung said there was a battery fix for the Note 7 and the company released those replacement batteries. But the replacements didn't fix the issue. So, for the second time we are to believe that Samsung had no clue about the Note 7 QA.
Whether Samsung engineers were like Volkswagen engineers (who did know about the performance of their product) or not is up to speculation.
What I do know is that Samsung tech support would not have given an accurate assessment of the Note 7's battery performance until the tech media extensively reported on the problem and there was the total recall of that phone.
3. Tech support is limited; Maybe some people here don't realize it.
It is often better to research a problem on the web.
There are techies on the web who go over every detail of Apple products.
If there is a problem, it would be found and discussed.
- Apple's support imo is top notch compared with the rest of the tech industry.
But several times over the years contacting Apple's tech support, they could not figure things out for me and I found the answer using my own research.
4. Finally as I wrote previously, I have an iPhone 6 which has slowed down since upgrading to 10.3.3.
I did not run to call Apple support with a problem like this because I assumed it was complicated and as I mentioned, tech support has limitations.
Instead I took my time and researched the issue on my own including looking at what was said online.
And now after lots of comparative testing, we know the answer. And I will be getting a battery replacement.
BTW, the phrase is "expressed" warranty, not "express" as in something faster than another form of warranty.
"First, it appears the problem is widespread, and will only get worse as phones (and their batteries) continue to age."
https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-and-battery-age/
I would prefer to have some additional details, like how many devices were part of the research. But based in their article and users feedback, looks like the issue is very common. And whatever was mentioned in other articles trying to "prove" that Apple wasn't throttling CPU's, now is worthless with they admit doing it.
There are people who believe Apple statement regarding the CPU throttling (looks like you are one of them), and there are other who not, including Apple fans and customers, who maybe are part of the suit. At the end neither you neither do I were part of the meeting where this issue was discussed, so maybe we'll never know the whole story. But remember there were many people saying that Apple would never do something like throttling the CPU, and look how it went.
So yeah, they may be doing this for good reason but the APPEARANCE is that they got caught slowing down phones to increase new sales. That's going to be a problem, where if they had said from day 1 that they plan on throttling older devices to increase longevity then people would have knowingly gone along with that (or only have themselves to blame).
I completely agree with you, Soli. A very fair assessment. I would be very interested to find the frequency of occurrence of this effect. Warning, anecdotal evidence to follow:
This has not happened to me on any of my Apple products and I have an iPhone 6, iPhone 6s Plus, 2 iPad Minis and an iPad 2, all in very regular use. Nor has this happened with any of my family members’ Apple products or friends’ or friends’ family’s, following conversations with my friends and family. At least, not to any noticeable degree that would justify a multi-billion dollar lawsuit.
Anyone I have spoken to that has upgraded their Apple devices recently did so because they wanted the features of the new one, or just because of normal wear and tear after several years of use, not because they were dissatisfied with their older ones.
My thoughts here are that there is a type of placebo effect occurring. “Oh, Apple did this, then yeah this is happening to me too,” similar to how many people “knew” someone who’s iPhone 6 was bent, even though the frequency of anyone actually seeing one bend accidentally was so minute it barely deserved to be blown up to the degree that it was.
Again, I do apologize for the non-scientific anecdotal evidence. And to be clear, I am in no way supporting Apple’s decision to be so non-transparent (although I wonder if this was detailed in the notes of an OS upgrade that everyone just hits “Agree” to without reading). Surely we have the right to know this was happening and I imagine Apple will have some reparations to make, but could it be that this has been blown out of proportion a little?