bsimpsen

CloudTalkin said:

bsimpsen said:

I think Apple's approach is reasonable. Thirty years ago, I designed battery powered medical instrumentation (including defibrillators) containing rudimentary "gas gauge" hardware/firmware in the battery packs that allowed cell life and capacity to be monitored far more accurately than in previous systems. A couple years after introduction, we started getting field failure reports of batteries going dead unexpectedly while the gas gauge was indicating half a tank, or of warnings from our software that recently refurbished battery packs were worn out.

Customers were replacing the cells in our packs with generic cells of about half the capacity,  because they were far less expensive. On the first charge cycle, those new cells were delivering half the energy expected by our battery monitoring system and our firmware wasn't able to cope with such a large (and out of spec) change in component behavior. A large system customer asked us to disable or modify our firmware to allow use of those lower capacity aftermarket replacement cells. We refused. It was our contention that the end customer for our products was the patient who's care was affected by our product's performance. Were we not about to let unskilled health care providers dictate to us the parameters for safe and effective operation of our products.

Your anecdote, although interesting, is only a single data point.  The viewpoint it represents is not indicative of the current state of battery tech in iPhones.  You haven't presented any evidence that current 3rd party batteries for iPhone are any more likely to be substandard to OEM or Authorized batteries. You've provided info about an issue 30 years ago.  Again, it's interesting, but doesn't seem really relevant here.  Afaik, there haven't been wide scale complaints about 3rd party iPhone batteries.  No shortened life span, nothing about lesser capacity.  Those details, relative to your devices' issues, serve to highlight troubles you experienced 30 years ago.  Those details, relative to this iPhone issue, paint an inaccurate picture unsupported by any evidence.  If 3rd party batteries were that much of a menace, Apple wouldn't be willing to service iPhones with them inside.  Yet they do. 

Also, the software flakes when confronted with an OEM battery that wasn't installed by Apple or an Authorized repair shop.  So it's not just a 3rd party issue.  Essentially, Apple is saying you can use batteries that weren't installed by us or our partners.  We know they work just like ours, but we won't monitor them with our software.  Which is fine, since they weren't monitoring the batteries via that software before last year anyway... and people were none the worse for wear.  Remember, this software only exists because Apple mishandled informing users of the software throttling they instituted to deal with their own substandard batteries.  Users that concerned can probably get an app like Coconut Battery to monitor their non-OEM/authorized battery if it's a real concern.

I've been designing battery operated instrumentation for the entire thirty years since that first experience with battery management. The story has not changed, the behavior of third party service bureaus has not changed, the variance in quality and specification for batteries (of any chemistry) has not changed. The issue of Apple software not operating properly upon installation of an Apple battery has been explained as the result of the service person not using Apple's tools to recalibrate the monitoring system to the new battery.

My "anecdote" is not a single data point. My experience, which makes me appreciate what Apple is dealing with, spans thirty years of battery system design and tens of thousands of devices in the field.

As for Apple throttling the CPU to extend operating time, the issue was primarily poor communications. I've seen no evidence to suggest that Apple was using substandard batteries, but rather that it deployed a mechanism for extending the operating time of their phones without explaining it properly. The batteries in current iPhones are no better than before (excepting general improvement in the technology over time), but owners now have a better view into their health. Customer satisfaction with iPhones remains the best in the industry, and that's Apple's goal.

Widespread complaints about third party batteries would require widespread use of third party batteries, and some method of objectively comparing performance of those batteries to Apple's OEM parts. Were I to put a cheap third party battery in a two year old iPhone, I don't think I'd be inclined to complain much if it didn't last as long as the original.

Also, understand that Apple can't monitor things that can't be measured in the phone, like battery condition at installation, expected cycle life, initial capacity, etc.

Zamgeek said:

There might be umteen hundred Apple authorised service centers around the US, sure. But the world is bigger than the US, and Apple products are used arond the globe. Some countries, like the one where I service Apple products, have no official Apple presence at all. Battery replacement is dead simple to do really, any tech savvy person can do it. If Apple wanted to make sure replaced batteries are working the way they should, the better road to take would be to institute an MFI program for 3rd party batteries. I would be happy to get mine from a MFI certified manufacturer, the market for 3rd party batteries are for the most part completely opaque and it's really difficult to know anything much about the quality of the batteries you do take in. Which is a bummer for me and my business and a bummer for my customers.

We tried this route for third world countries where our products were sold, and where our distribution network was too thin to easily supply fast turnaround support. We quickly dropped the effort because it was too difficult to certify and police third party battery suppliers. We had particular difficulty in India, where the service bureau recommended by our customers, and who we'd connected with our own battery cell supplier, chose to use the worst quality NiMh batteries we'd ever seen in their refurb work, while tarnishing our reputation by claiming (correctly) that we'd certified them. That's the kind of brand damage that Apple understandably wishes to avoid. They're in a better position to hold third party service providers to account, but it's still a risky move.

elijahg said:

So it does affect the use of the phone, as you can no longer see the battery health, despite the phone knowing that data, and it seemingly will not go into "peak performance protection" mode. Ok then.

If the specifications of a replacement battery are not known to the battery management system, the phone does NOT know the battery health. There are variations in cell capacity and cycle life between manufacturers of physically compatible batteries and iPhone cannot know what those are.

I think Apple's approach is reasonable. Thirty years ago, I designed battery powered medical instrumentation (including defibrillators) containing rudimentary "gas gauge" hardware/firmware in the battery packs that allowed cell life and capacity to be monitored far more accurately than in previous systems. A couple years after introduction, we started getting field failure reports of batteries going dead unexpectedly while the gas gauge was indicating half a tank, or of warnings from our software that recently refurbished battery packs were worn out.

Customers were replacing the cells in our packs with generic cells of about half the capacity,  because they were far less expensive. On the first charge cycle, those new cells were delivering half the energy expected by our battery monitoring system and our firmware wasn't able to cope with such a large (and out of spec) change in component behavior. A large system customer asked us to disable or modify our firmware to allow use of those lower capacity aftermarket replacement cells. We refused. It was our contention that the end customer for our products was the patient who's care was affected by our product's performance. Were we not about to let unskilled health care providers dictate to us the parameters for safe and effective operation of our products.

Amazon has worked out ways to minimize the potential for television dialog to wake Alexa. Surely Apple is bright enough to figure this out, too?

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/5503926/amazon-echo-alexa-ad-wake-up-word/