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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meow
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#1926529 29-Dec-2017 12:53

Apple issued a press release: https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/

See this:

Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com.

I would think the CGA would likely cover us here in NZ.

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tdgeek

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#1926532 29-Dec-2017 13:05

michaelmurfy:

Apple issued a press release: https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/

See this:
Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com.

I would think the CGA would likely cover us here in NZ.

Would that not need to battery to be faulty? Batteries lose life, that's normal. iPhone batteries lose life.

The reduction in replacing a battery is good, as the user may choose to uplift the phone performance by getting a new battery and avoiding Apple's management of older batteries. This isn't a faulty battery issue. Its an issue that Apple now uses to smooth the issues caused by a normal, non faulty, older battery.

It appears that they wont remove this, or add a setting, they will just add visibility of it. They should add a setting the enable or disable this IMHO

Pumpedd

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#1926556 29-Dec-2017 14:02

Too little too late Apple. For the amount of money the phones cost users expect more transparency.

tdgeek

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#1926563 29-Dec-2017 14:21

Pumpedd:

Too little too late Apple. For the amount of money the phones cost users expect more transparency.

I agree, but it will be old news soon, it always is when these things happen, no matter who it is

Pumpedd

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#1926564 29-Dec-2017 14:24

tdgeek:

Pumpedd:

Too little too late Apple. For the amount of money the phones cost users expect more transparency.

I agree, but it will be old news soon, it always is when these things happen, no matter who it is

Not sure....I think the suers will continue.

Just a pity Apple Spin Docs took so long to respond.

tdgeek

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#1926567 29-Dec-2017 14:27

Pumpedd:

tdgeek:

Pumpedd:

Too little too late Apple. For the amount of money the phones cost users expect more transparency.

I agree, but it will be old news soon, it always is when these things happen, no matter who it is

Not sure....I think the suers will continue.

Just a pity Apple Spin Docs took so long to respond.

They always seem to do that. "Apple was contacted and has not responded" and so on. Then its a feel good heartfelt "sorry"!

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antoniosk

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#1926573 29-Dec-2017 15:05

So timeline:

Hits reddit 19 days ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7inu45/psa_iphone_slow_try_replacing_your_battery/

Hits specialist sites around the 20th of Dec:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16800058/apple-iphone-slow-fix-battery-life-capacity

Hits mainstream 3 days later on 23rd

http://time.com/5078060/apple-iphone-slow-down-update/

And finally a response comes out, off a fashion, 6 days later:

http://time.com/5081679/apple-apologizes-iphone-slowdown-controversy-battery-price/

I'd say that's fairly fast turnaround over a xmas break, even with the threat of class actions and so on. So now we will get a software feature that tells you when the battery is no longer doing well, which should be interesting to observe. I wonder how Android land will respond?

________

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tdgeek

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#1926574 29-Dec-2017 15:10

antoniosk:

So timeline:

Hits reddit 19 days ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7inu45/psa_iphone_slow_try_replacing_your_battery/

Hits specialist sites around the 20th of Dec:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16800058/apple-iphone-slow-fix-battery-life-capacity

Hits mainstream 3 days later on 23rd

http://time.com/5078060/apple-iphone-slow-down-update/

And finally a response comes out, off a fashion, 6 days later:

http://time.com/5081679/apple-apologizes-iphone-slowdown-controversy-battery-price/

I'd say that's fairly fast turnaround over a xmas break, even with the threat of class actions and so on. So now we will get a software feature that tells you when the battery is no longer doing well, which should be interesting to observe. I wonder how Android land will respond?

What does an Android do when the battery cannot provide the power? Does it just slow down on that occasion?

mattwnz

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#1926587 29-Dec-2017 15:44

tdgeek:

michaelmurfy:

Apple issued a press release: https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/

See this:
Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com.

I would think the CGA would likely cover us here in NZ.

Would that not need to battery to be faulty? Batteries lose life, that's normal. iPhone batteries lose life.

The reduction in replacing a battery is good, as the user may choose to uplift the phone performance by getting a new battery and avoiding Apple's management of older batteries. This isn't a faulty battery issue. Its an issue that Apple now uses to smooth the issues caused by a normal, non faulty, older battery.

It appears that they wont remove this, or add a setting, they will just add visibility of it. They should add a setting the enable or disable this IMHO

They won't ever remove a fix to stop it crashing, as a crashing phone isn't a good look.

What is interesting is this doesn't apply to the iPhone 5s, which is still a current ios 11 model. Mine has been crashing when the battery has been around 30-40% when it is being used, so I do wonder if they just haven't introduced the fix for it, because if they did, it would probably be too slow to run anything?

This fix they are doing, where they will replace batteries cheaper on iPhone 6 and nerwe, only applies until the end of the year, (eg 2018). IMO it should be the permanent price. Apple have said that the battery is a 'consumable' yet IMO it is impossible to replace it without potentially damaging the phone or voiding the warranty and CGA coverage. Whether they should be sealing in the battery like they do, it just creates so many problems sealing in a consumable into a device with no easy way for an average consumer to replace it. Samsungs note fiasco recall wouldn't have occurred if they hadn't sealed in the battery, as they could have just sent out replacement batteries. The whole point of a 'consumable' and defining something as a consumable, is that it is something that will need replacing, and it should be able to be replaced by the consumer without needing an expensive repair job and being without the phone why it is being done. SO much easier just to pop in a new battery and chuck out the old one.

I do wonder what they will charge for battery replacement in NZ, guessing it will be closer to $50 with the exchange rate, which isn't that cheap. I understand that they also replace the outter housing, which adds to the cost of doing it, so essentially it is not just a battery replacement, its a repair to replace a failed component that wears over time, somewhat similar to an engine wearing out in a car overtime.

Either that or they need to create a battery that will last for the life of the device. If they put in larger batteries, then I imagine that should last longer between charging cycles, so the 500 charging cycles could be spread across 3 + years.

Starscream122

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#1926595 29-Dec-2017 15:55

Service Plus are a apple authorized repair agent they charge $159 for a iphone 7 battery replacement.. Because they are apple authorized repair agents wont they have the ability to seal the phone up so it will still be water resistant?

mattwnz

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#1926596 29-Dec-2017 15:56

tdgeek:

What does an Android do when the battery cannot provide the power? Does it just slow down on that occasion?

It's a different OS and uses different hardware, and if you look at the benchmarks, iphones can outperform android ones, even though the hardware specs may not look much better, such as less RAM. So I wonder if there is something about apples hardware or ios that is unique with this, that doesn't effect android devices in the same way?

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mattwnz

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#1926598 29-Dec-2017 16:00

Starscream122:

Service Plus are a apple authorized repair agent they charge $159 for a iphone 7 battery replacement.. Because they are apple authorized repair agents wont they have the ability to seal the phone up so it will still be water resistant?

That maybe the current price that a NZ agent may charge, which somewhat equates to the $US 79 apple charge in the US. But it appears apple will be intrductng different pricing as a result of this (eg dropping it by $50 US down to $29 US), to last until the end of the year, for devices affected by this. So I wonder if they will be doing the battery replacements themselves from Oz?I imagine there will be quite a large load of phones to work through. I would hope that apple will be doing it, so any waterproof ones don't lose that feature.

Starscream122

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#1926600 29-Dec-2017 16:23

Till the end of this year or next year?

danza

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#1926605 29-Dec-2017 16:51

tdgeek:
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.

Wait is there some sort of conspiracy on the REAL cause?

If anything it could just be that since the release of 6/6+, they allowed higher/faster charging current/wattage which is known to degrade batteries faster. While the 5s/5 were capped at 5W charging with a ton of people complaining that "crapple is not letting people charging their phone fast enough."

People have observed the same thing on those cylindrical li-ion cells where faster charging degrades the cell quicker and lower voltage from cells with high cycle count. So these are all pretty well known already.

Basically charge your devices at a lower current (the included 5W charger is pretty good). Keep the battery at a decent room temp and charge as often as you can so you are not cycling the cell that much.

eg. discharging from 100% to 0% = 1 cycle count, discharging from 100% to 80% 5 times with full recharge each is also 1 cycle count.

mattwnz

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#1926614 29-Dec-2017 17:19

mattwnz:

tdgeek:

antoniosk:

So timeline:

Hits reddit 19 days ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7inu45/psa_iphone_slow_try_replacing_your_battery/

Hits specialist sites around the 20th of Dec:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16800058/apple-iphone-slow-fix-battery-life-capacity

Hits mainstream 3 days later on 23rd

http://time.com/5078060/apple-iphone-slow-down-update/

And finally a response comes out, off a fashion, 6 days later:

http://time.com/5081679/apple-apologizes-iphone-slowdown-controversy-battery-price/

I'd say that's fairly fast turnaround over a xmas break, even with the threat of class actions and so on. So now we will get a software feature that tells you when the battery is no longer doing well, which should be interesting to observe. I wonder how Android land will respond?

What does an Android do when the battery cannot provide the power? Does it just slow down on that occasion?

It's a different OS and uses different hardware, and if you look at the benchmarks, iphones can outperform android ones, even though the hardware specs may not look much better, such as less RAM. So I wonder if there is something about apples hardware or ios that is unique with this, that doesn't effect android devices in the same way?

As this doesn't appear to affect ipads, I wonder if it has anything to do with the actual battery size and capacity itself. Batteries in mobile devices over the last number of years have been getting smaller , but the chips have been making up for that with being more efficient and needing less power, so don't need as large a battery, and I wonder if that is linked to this. The ipad for example has a smaller and lighter battery than the originals, to make it thinner and lighter, but because it is still a larger battery than the iPhone, I wonder if that is the difference..

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