muthuk_vanalingam

rogifan_new said:

John Gruber did a recent podcast with Jason Snell on this subject. Definitely did not let Apple off the hook. Snell wondered just how much Apple thinks about an iPhone in year 3,4 of its lifespan. He also thinks top execs at Apple should have to use the latest software in development on a 3 year old device as their daily driver to determine if the experience is good enough to ship. It sounded like he has family members with older phones running the latest software and the experience isn’t great. Something else they brought up is users shouldn’t have to wipe their devices and reload from backup to improve the experience or get it back to what it was before the software update.

I am curious about Apple’s product development process. When they were first desigining the 6 did they take in to account that it would get 3 years worth of software updates? Who decided the 6 should get iOS 11? How does Apple decide how big the battery is going to be in a device? Do they start out with a certain battery life they want to hit and then put in whatever battery size will meet that target? And what is the target based on? Or is the battery size determined by a specific device weight/thickness target? With iPad the battery life has consistently been about 9 hours or so. Does Apple ever think about trying to get more or have they decided 9 hours is good enough?

Another problem Apple has is new versions of iOS for iPhone are tied new hardware releases so people on older devices are updating at the same time new devices are going on sale. That can easily leave the perception that Apple slowing down older phones to get people to upgrade. I know Apple wants as many users as possible to be on the latest software but maybe they need to re-think how long older devices keep getting software updates. Maybe iPhone 6 should have stopped at iOS 10 and only receive updates if there’s some critical security bug or something broke that needs to be fixed (like some iOS 6 only devices getting an update to fix an issue with FaceTime). And on the hardware side perhaps devices need to be futue proofed more. Maybe iPhone 6’s 1GB RAM was sufficient with iOS 8 but would that still be the case a year or two later after several software updates? The first iPad Air I had Safari was nearly unusable because the browser tabs were constantly reloading (how anyone at Apple found this acceptable is beyond me). With my iPad Pro and 4GB RAM I never run into this issue. One reason why I would never go back to an iPad that has less than 4GB RAM. Phil Schiller gave an interview before Christmas when he said (in reference to software bugs) that Apple had some soul searching to do. Good. Hopefully we really see that they’ve done that in 2018, especially on the software side.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/12/30/the-talk-show-210

You have made lot of good points. Expect rebuttal from few of those posters who would defend Apple at any cost.

suddenly newton said:

What? They announced a chip without announcing the product that will use it? Well I’m sure Android P will have deep feature integration with this... /s

jcs2305 said:

nick05 said:

The reduced price for the replacement battery is much more reasonable for a phone battery. I hope this stays low. 

If you were just paying for the battery itself I would agree. It takes a bit more than just 2 screws and some adhesive being removed to get the battery out and putting the new one in when it comes to the iPhone 6 and newer. 

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+6+Battery+Replacement/29363

Ifixit lists the battery itself at 24.99. 

StrangeDays said:

rogifan_new said:

I said from day one when this first errupted this would be a huge PR problem for Apple. I wasn’t wrong. This is a good step though I agree with Ben Bajarin the $29 battery price should be permanent. Also I’m seeing quite a few posts from people saying their phone was fine with iOS 10 but when they upgraded to iOS 11 it really started to slow down. Seems there’s more issues than just the battery. Hopefully future point releases will fix these issues.

Hmmm, which part of “new software makes old hardware work harder” don’t you understand? Are you new to computing?

foggyhill said:

anshuljain said:

foggyhill said:

anshuljain said:

A simple Reliability analysis on the battery component would have let the engineers know of the expected life of the batteries with a certain confidence (usually around 95% confidence). This should have been followed by an accelerated life testing to determine the age. Seems like they didn't do this proper Reliability assessment properly or discovered it after he products were launched (through extended Reliability tests and/or warranty analysis) is that's pretty dumb. 

Not everyone uses the battery the same, the issue is not the battery reliability  at all ( except for the batch they replaced for the iPhone 6). At least try to read the actual issue.

One can make a fairly good predictive model on the analytical data to predict usage with a fair amount of certainty. Obviously, it isn't a 100% accurate model of the usage pattern, but from a pure reliability engineering standpoint, I'd accept a model that's even 80% accurate to aim for a reliability estimation of the usage. 

Their reliability Engineering team needs to be fired for this fiasco. Guess they relied on the vendors assessment of Reliability estimation (and ask any experienced Reliability engineer and he will never accept a MTBF/MTTF number from a vendor and will perform their own analysis and testing). I know this from my current job in medical devices where we are required to predict battery life for lifesaving medical devices that we design. 

Hey buddy, got 30 years of computer engineering behind me (graduated from Polytechnique) so stop trying to be clever.
Everything you say is irrelevant. This has NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIABILITY. Actually read about the issue or stop posting about it.
You are the epitome of the low information commenter.

BTW, a medical device's range of use is way way way way more constricted than a consumer device in the hands of hundreds of millions (that goes without saying).
You can have people playing AA games all day long while others only use their phone to call and text.
This device which also has the power of a laptop with a battery 1/5 the size..
The peak usage of the latest A SOC's demand a lot more from the battery than in any other device that size.
Top of the line Androids have barely caught up single core performance of the A9 (the one in the 6s).

Not to mention that things like device size are key selling point that consumer actually want runs counter to provide a big battery.
Its not just Apple that wants a smaller battery, it's the consumer too. That the consumer doesn't quite understand the implication of this is pretty clear.

Also, even if only 5% of buyers are very heavy users who charges their device fully twice a day (0-10% to 100%), a lithium battery will be close to worn after 12 months (depending on ambient temp of use).

Those lets say 5% of users   (could be a higher or lower percentage), probably the most techies of users, are in the millions and they're likely some of the most active online. The result is predictable. Their voice will be heard all over social media. The fact is that other than changing the battery, Apple can't do much for these users other than keeping their phones from not functioning at all, which they did. I sure  The fact that they're heavy phone users means they've probably had early battery replacements in the past (cause otherwise their other phone would also be dead).

Should Apple actually spec their battery so those heavy users can use their phones for 2 years? Or will they more reasonably make sure 90% of their users can reach 2 years without changing batteries.