iPhone depleted battery throttling controversy investigations expand to Israel
Israel's Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority has launched an investigation into Apple's throttling of iPhones with chemically depleted or otherwise damaged batteries, suggesting the company could be at fault for not properly informing customers.
The agency has already questioned the head of Apple Israel, Rony Friedman, according to Reuters. A spokesman said the Authority could potentially level fines, but that it's still too early to discuss the possibility in Apple's case.
Following a wave of anecdotal evidence, Apple in December admitted that iOS slows down iPhones with poorly functioning batteries, nominally to prevent sudden shutdowns. While the company later apologized and offered concessions -- specifically $29 battery replacements and new options in iOS 11.3 -- it was soon hit with a bevy of lawsuits, as well as probes by governments around the world.
Countries looking into Apple's practices include Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, South Korea, and the U.S.
Some critics and lawsuits have accused Apple of planned obsolescence -- intentionally capping the performance of older iPhones to encourage people to buy new ones. Arguably, a phone that doesn't crash when under high power demand is a more reliable device than one that does, but as consumers shift more everyday functions to the device beyond communications, a crash-free device may be a secondary concern to speed.
Battery replacements have always been available to customers, which would have returned the as-new performance to the device. However, the option wasn't generally presented clearly to consumers.
Following the replacement of a chemically depleted battery, iPhone benchmarks return to what they were with a fresh battery.
Customers have complained that new versions of iOS can make iPhones slower, but in recent years Apple has worked to better optimize performance. To a certain extent performance hits as the OS is updated are expected, since new features are often more demanding on iPhone resources.
The agency has already questioned the head of Apple Israel, Rony Friedman, according to Reuters. A spokesman said the Authority could potentially level fines, but that it's still too early to discuss the possibility in Apple's case.
Following a wave of anecdotal evidence, Apple in December admitted that iOS slows down iPhones with poorly functioning batteries, nominally to prevent sudden shutdowns. While the company later apologized and offered concessions -- specifically $29 battery replacements and new options in iOS 11.3 -- it was soon hit with a bevy of lawsuits, as well as probes by governments around the world.
Countries looking into Apple's practices include Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, South Korea, and the U.S.
Some critics and lawsuits have accused Apple of planned obsolescence -- intentionally capping the performance of older iPhones to encourage people to buy new ones. Arguably, a phone that doesn't crash when under high power demand is a more reliable device than one that does, but as consumers shift more everyday functions to the device beyond communications, a crash-free device may be a secondary concern to speed.
Battery replacements have always been available to customers, which would have returned the as-new performance to the device. However, the option wasn't generally presented clearly to consumers.
Following the replacement of a chemically depleted battery, iPhone benchmarks return to what they were with a fresh battery.
Customers have complained that new versions of iOS can make iPhones slower, but in recent years Apple has worked to better optimize performance. To a certain extent performance hits as the OS is updated are expected, since new features are often more demanding on iPhone resources.
Comments
A smart country like Israel should know that this is quite stupid. I mean punish a company for trying to support old devices . Wow.
That depends your view of what Apple's intent was. Maintaining device reliability is good, even if you have to compromise performance a touch to do it. The problem is the way apple went about it. Had they been more open and forthright about what was going on then there would be no debate, but by concealing the 'feature,' they left their intent open to speculation. If you like Apple, then their motives were purely good. If you hate Apple or even if you are a only bit cynical, then this was a veiled attempt to get people to upgrade their phones. As it is, people may have been either intentionally or unintentionally deceived into upgrading devices that only needed a new battery, and therein lies the problem.
Edit: Apple wasn't wrong to throttle the performance and prevent crashes; they were wrong to do so without telling people what they were doing.
Well complaining didn't start until 8 months after the update was applied, (when someone decided to benchmark his phone after updating to iOS 11) so at least Apple can throw that at the courts as proof that it wasn't really a widespread problem or that it was part of some nefarious scheme to obsolete 2 year old phones even though they still supported 4 year old phones.
On a side note, why do all the articles call it "battery throttling" ? The damned battery isn't throttled, the CPU is.
My Phone 6 Plus running Geekbench 4:
Date
Battery Health - Maximum Capacity
Single Core Score
Multi-Core
iOS version
5 April 2018
97%, 1 year old
1544
2616
11.3
7 Jan 2018
8 months old battery
975
1623
11.2.1
end April 2017
iPhone replaced
14 April 2017
20 months old battery
914
1747
10.3.1
Early August 2015
new iPhone
The tests on 7 Jan 2018 and 14 April 2017 were done immediately after restarting the iPhone, at ambient temperature about 20ºC - 25ºC, after annoying and embarrassing moments that the iPhone took at least 6 times longer to respond to take a photo with the native camera button while no other apps were stayed in the background.
Please explain the throttling on 7 Jan 2018.
Besides, only 8 months old, 97% of maximum capacity, fully charged and with or without connecting on AC power with 2.1A original charger, an iPhone 6 Plus was still throttled down to single core 975, multi-core 1623. Can you still blind your eyes and say you believe it’s all related to battery depletion?
Also, CPU is not the single cause of throttling. The developing tool. E.g. Xcode, and UIKit can easily differentiate models and control their performance, in a way that even though CPU is not throttled, the iPhone still slows down, technically speaking. Apple should prove the contrary.
Dismiss that as anecdotal, since it is, but to me the anger around this case isn't the throttling it is the underhanded way they slipped it into a minor release and put tech jargon around it in order to downplay the significance of it. Were they trying to pull a fast one? Doubt it. Is this planned obsolescence? No. If it REALLY was intended to be a helpful feature shouldn't they have been more forthcoming? Yes. And since they weren't, now they have to put up with BS like these lawsuits.