Apple Being Sued for 'Purposefully Slowing Down Older iPhone Models'

Forums › Apple iOS and devices › Apple Being Sued for 'Purposefully Slowing Down Older iPhone Models'

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#1924706 24-Dec-2017 19:32

My 6 is over two years old, charge it nearly everyday.

I haven't gone to ios11, just keep hitting remind me later when comes up. Figure it might slow phone down, plus wifi, bluetooth being a fight to keep them off is unnecessary battery drain.

Seems to be running fine, wonder how big this slow down is, if hardly noticeable does it matter?

tdgeek

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#1924707 24-Dec-2017 19:37

rugrat:

My 6 is over two years old, charge it nearly everyday.

I haven't gone to ios11, just keep hitting remind me later when comes up. Figure it might slow phone down, plus wifi, bluetooth being a fight to keep them off is unnecessary battery drain.

Seems to be running fine, wonder how big this slow down is, if hardly noticeable does it matter?

Your 6 is 2yo, my 6+ is 3yo?

Each user uses it differently. Ive got young rellies, that would marry their phone if it was legal.

I clearly use mine less than you use yours, how does your battery usage compare to mates with similar usage?

Batman

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#1924843 25-Dec-2017 09:05

tdgeek:

I think Apple quotes 1000 cycles will reduce the battery to 80% capacity. At once a day thats 3 years, for normal people thats 6 years. Even then its 80% not 100%. Its a non issue

i think that's for ipads. for iphones it's 500 i think.

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#1924896 25-Dec-2017 10:56

RunningMan:
Batman:

Who makes phones that crashes when CPU is under load?

Apple. It's what this thread is about. The phone crashes and powers off unexpectedly (when there is a high power demand such as high CPU usage) as though the battery has gone instantly flat even though it shows significant charge left. They released a software update that reduces the phone performance (and hence power demand) when the battery is in poor condition, but didn't tell anyone.

Funny, there was a recall for this.. my iPhone 6s Plus had its battery replaced by Apple for free.

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amiga500

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#1924970 25-Dec-2017 13:34

Sure Apple is claiming it's is all about degrading batteries & so they look after the customer by slowing down their device. For Apple to also design an update that will subtly slow down older phones may not be all that difficult. Not so much that it makes an Iphone 6 unbearable, but enough for a loyal Apple user to start looking for a replacement.

And the cynic in me says that it's probably not only Apple slowing down phones on purpose. If Samsung and others were squeaky clean about this they would have already thrown Apple under the bus. Just like when Volkswagen was outed for their fuel economy scam there was deafening silence from the other major car makers - then it turns out it was not only Volkswagen playing these games.

In defence of Apple at least they provide security & other updates for their older phones unlike the crazy situation with Android.

MadEngineer

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#1924991 25-Dec-2017 15:13

I wanted to assume that they've done this due to the extra heat that older batteries generate, hence like most computers nowadays will slow down when getting too hot.

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Starscream122

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#1924992 25-Dec-2017 15:17

Pumpedd:

Starscream122:

Pumpedd:

Batman: I thought $300?

They said $170 on local news...so it could well be wrong.

I called service plus (apple authorized repair agent)

And they told me for a iphone 7 it's $159 to have a new battery fitted

You need a new battery on a 13 month old phone???

No. I wanted to see how much it would cost... For when I do need one in a couple of years from now.

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#1925075 25-Dec-2017 20:31

The technical idea behind this, i think is brilliant.

Their implementation however, should have been more transparent.

Ontop of this, based on atleast the synthetic results; the slowdown seems to be a tad more aggressive than required... more likely favors them to pick that side of the double edged sword.

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bitserf

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#1925536 26-Dec-2017 21:17

Wife's iPhone 6 is about 400 lower on GeekBench than iPhone 6 should be benching at, and her battery is >80% of factory capacity, so who knows the rhyme or reason.

hio77

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#1925540 26-Dec-2017 21:29

It's quite impressive to see graphed.

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Coil

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#1925541 26-Dec-2017 21:33

I am running a 5S and I am not too sure if it is directly related as it is a lot older but the slowdown has been massive. At times I cannot even open my settings area on the phone and it will completely crash. Done the full reinstall from a fresh OS file so it isnt a patched updated one and no luck.
I decided to test if it was thermal related and I removed the case and I noticed an improvement overall..

The battery isn't the best and the slowdown coincides with battery degradation.

Quite a tricky one for Apple. As others said, They have given us the sharper side of the double edged sword.

danza

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#1925835 27-Dec-2017 19:16

Eh it's either a phone that can still take calls and do things albeit at a slower pace, or random shutdown at time.

They probably realized they can't win either way when the "random shutdown even with 20~30% battery left" was a problem and the hardware they've made are good enough to outlast the battery.

amiga500:
Sure Apple is claiming it's is all about degrading batteries & so they look after the customer by slowing down their device. For Apple to also design an update that will subtly slow down older phones may not be all that difficult. Not so much that it makes an Iphone 6 unbearable, but enough for a loyal Apple user to start looking for a replacement.

And the cynic in me says that it's probably not only Apple slowing down phones on purpose. If Samsung and others were squeaky clean about this they would have already thrown Apple under the bus. Just like when Volkswagen was outed for their fuel economy scam there was deafening silence from the other major car makers - then it turns out it was not only Volkswagen playing these games.

In defence of Apple at least they provide security & other updates for their older phones unlike the crazy situation with Android.

From this pretty good article:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12184/apple-confirms-cpu-limitation-in-ageing-devices

"Capacity and supply voltage of a battery decreases over time as a function of charge cycles and charging behaviour (Higher charging currents causing more degradation per cycle). This causes the total useable battery capacity before the cut-off voltage to decrease."

"As batteries degrade over time and the cell impedance also rises also in function of the state of charge and temperature, the current flow becomes restricted and the cell is no longer able to satisfy the power requirement at a high enough operating voltage."

Also they determine the battery percentage by "after connecting the battery to a power source (being charged), it's at voltage x and will not increase any further (calling it 100%)". While a voltage 'floor' is being used as 0% (eg. 3.0V for the above graph). And then extrapolate the percentage depending on your current battery voltage.

Maybe they could've made battery depletion warning more noticeable to people but then again it might freak people out and push them towards shady battery service places with bad batteries that might even catch fire.

danza

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Master Geek

#1925837 27-Dec-2017 19:23

Also a good analogy is overclocking.

When you want to run at a higher clock speed but still having a stable system, you increase the voltage.

But when your power source (PSU/VRM) is crappy, you are stuck at a lower clock.

They are basically doing that without asking people to shell out more money for a new battery while still having a phone that can take calls and basically 'usable' to most people.

tdgeek

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#1925862 27-Dec-2017 20:35

amiga500:

Sure Apple is claiming it's is all about degrading batteries & so they look after the customer by slowing down their device. For Apple to also design an update that will subtly slow down older phones may not be all that difficult. Not so much that it makes an Iphone 6 unbearable, but enough for a loyal Apple user to start looking for a replacement.

And the cynic in me says that it's probably not only Apple slowing down phones on purpose. If Samsung and others were squeaky clean about this they would have already thrown Apple under the bus. Just like when Volkswagen was outed for their fuel economy scam there was deafening silence from the other major car makers - then it turns out it was not only Volkswagen playing these games.

In defence of Apple at least they provide security & other updates for their older phones unlike the crazy situation with Android.

I agree, not as I use Apple, I lost the fanboy thing. I want to see what the REAL cause was, maybe we wont know. My 6+ is 3yo now, its normal, well it feels normal. If its a help user/didnt tell them, they need a slap. If its to promote sales, make it headline news.

Tinkerisk

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#1925886 27-Dec-2017 23:04

If Samsung and others were squeaky clean about this they would have already thrown Apple under the bus.

You might be (technically) right but in difference to apple, user could improve situation just by simply buying a new battery at a reasonable price and exchange it by himself.

In case of a proprietary design THEY let the user eiter pay for degradation of useable phone life, an expensive battery swap or for a new phone. Smart for the manufacturer. I would claim for a free battery exchange paying only for the new battery component itself.

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