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

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#1926616 29-Dec-2017 17:20

danza:
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.

Apparently discharging all the way down to zero causes extra wear on the battery, so I don't think it is quite as simple as your calculation. Apple have also said in their announcement that the chemicals aging in the batteries can impact on the life.

mattwnz

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#1926618 29-Dec-2017 17:31

I think apples solutions to this is reeasonable, however this sort of price for batteru reaplcement should be the permanent price to replace a battery. Paying $160, which isn't much less than the price of a mid range android (eg Nokia 5 on special), IMO is far to high to replace a consumable battery, which only has a 1-2 year life.

danza

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#1926623 29-Dec-2017 17:44

mattwnz:
Apparently discharging all the way down to zero causes extra wear on the battery, so I don't think it is quite as simple as your calculation. Apple have also said in their announcement that the chemicals aging in the batteries can impact on the life.

Discharging down to 0% for the battery isn't good because each cathode layer in the cell might have a slightly different nominal cell voltage and you might have depleted the electrons on one layer of the cathode while the other layers aren't completely flat.

But this shouldn't be a probably at all since the power controller should be smart enough to auto shutoff before the battery reaches that point, eg the 0% might not actually be full battery depletion.

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#1926624 29-Dec-2017 17:47

tdgeek:

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?

I'd like to know too. Google is remarkably silent on this matter - if android was foolproof you'd expect they would have been crowing by now.

It was the bane of my life when I developed XDA all those years ago, when Windows Mobile devices had no persistent store and that once the battery was gone, it would wipe the device. We also suffered from spontaneous shutdown when a high draw operation - like the flash - would suddenly cut the power before "disk operations" could complete, frequently corrupting the device and requiring a reset.

Of course things are better now, but even so a declining voltage environment is just terrible, and when the power source becomes unreliable (ie a worn battery) it's just hell. The number of laptops I've had destroyed over the years because of unexpected draw is evidence for me (I once had a toshiba portege R100 destroy the 1.8" HD because the UMTS card drew too much power. I was on a train to leeds...)

Batteries... 25 years of development and we are still very little ahead....

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danza

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#1926626 29-Dec-2017 18:00

It's not that bad, we only got to Li-ion in the last decade or so which is already more than twice as energy dense Ni-MH, which is a bit less than twice as energy dense as lead acid battery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

Looks like what we really need is a Ham and Cheese Sandwich.

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#1926662 29-Dec-2017 19:44

mattwnz:

mattwnz:

tdgeek:

antoniosk:

So timeline:

[snipped]

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..

Makes me think it's more to do with extra heat that older batteries may produce, in that iPads would be able to dissipate that heat quicker

MadEngineer:

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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#1926827 30-Dec-2017 09:00

mattwnz:

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.

Partly agree. They should have a battery insert, like a larger sim pullout. But you say faulty again, the battery isn't faulty. At 500 cycles its at 80% capacity, and I assume peak power. Thats normal. Even at that level its an 80% battery, not a faulty battery urbane that last 30 minutes.

Id like to know why apps crash, it should be like a PC that is running at full CPU, slow. When the peak need is over, its back to normal. Especially as unlike a PC, an iPhone is running usually just the front app (with exceptions like Music etc) It would be far better to manage the power on a real time basis, so the front app stays up, is just slow

tdgeek

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#1926829 30-Dec-2017 09:05

mattwnz:

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?

If Android doesnt crash, if Windows or OSX doesnt crash, it seems a bit bizarre. The reason that iOS performs netter on same or less hardware is that iOS is custom built for that device, Android is generically built to have to cater for varying hardware, so its just more efficient. As I just said, if the phone reaches peak power and the app wants more, that app should just run slower until the peak power need is over. Its 2018, crashing due to not managing the power required on a heavy load? Silly.

tdgeek

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#1926831 30-Dec-2017 09:09

danza:
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.

My 6+ charger is I am sure, 5W, 500mA. If I charged on my 12W, 2.1mA iPad charger, it will still charge at 5W 500mA, as the device draws what it is supposed to draw, not what the charger can deliver. Its always been like that for Apple, I haven't read where that has changed.

tdgeek

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#1926834 30-Dec-2017 09:15

mattwnz:

I think apples solutions to this is reeasonable, however this sort of price for batteru reaplcement should be the permanent price to replace a battery. Paying $160, which isn't much less than the price of a mid range android (eg Nokia 5 on special), IMO is far to high to replace a consumable battery, which only has a 1-2 year life.

1 year life is charging 1.5 times per day.

2 year like is charging .75 times per day

Thats a lot. My 6+ I dont charge it anywhere near that often, although I dont live on it either.

At 2 years for a heavy user and its still 80% is IMHO, fair and reasonable.

If Apple made the battery user replaceable, or cheap to get replaced, would that stop sales? I dont feel it would at all.

tdgeek

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#1926835 30-Dec-2017 09:17

danza:
mattwnz:

Apparently discharging all the way down to zero causes extra wear on the battery, so I don't think it is quite as simple as your calculation. Apple have also said in their announcement that the chemicals aging in the batteries can impact on the life.

Discharging down to 0% for the battery isn't good because each cathode layer in the cell might have a slightly different nominal cell voltage and you might have depleted the electrons on one layer of the cathode while the other layers aren't completely flat.

But this shouldn't be a probably at all since the power controller should be smart enough to auto shutoff before the battery reaches that point, eg the 0% might not actually be full battery depletion.

They recommend o a new iPhone, to run it to very low, like 1% then a full 100% charge. Do this 5 times or so, this keeps the battery calibrated, after that, whenever you like. Yes, dont run it flat.

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#1926836 30-Dec-2017 09:17

tdgeek:

My 6+ charger is I am sure, 5W, 500mA. If I charged on my 12W, 2.1mA iPad charger, it will still charge at 5W 500mA, as the device draws what it is supposed to draw, not what the charger can deliver. Its always been like that for Apple, I haven't read where that has changed.

5 watts does not equal 500 mA. As USB is 5 volts, a 5 watt charger will be 1 amp. 500 milliamps is 2.5 watts. 12 watts will be 2.1 amps, not milliamps.

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#1926851 30-Dec-2017 09:30

danza: It's not that bad, we only got to Li-ion in the last decade or so which is already more than twice as energy dense Ni-MH, which is a bit less than twice as energy dense as lead acid battery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

Looks like what we really need is a Ham and Cheese Sandwich.

Ham & Cheese sandwich Is probably a good 5 years away yet.

Starscream122

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#1926853 30-Dec-2017 09:33

So in October next year my iphone 7 will be 2 years old. I guess I should get it's battery replaced then as it will only cost $49... But I wander if apple are reducing the price that their authorized repair agents charge or is there going to be a different way to get the cheaper replacement done....

tdgeek

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#1926870 30-Dec-2017 10:19

RunningMan:

tdgeek:

My 6+ charger is I am sure, 5W, 500mA. If I charged on my 12W, 2.1mA iPad charger, it will still charge at 5W 500mA, as the device draws what it is supposed to draw, not what the charger can deliver. Its always been like that for Apple, I haven't read where that has changed.

5 watts does not equal 500 mA. As USB is 5 volts, a 5 watt charger will be 1 amp. 500 milliamps is 2.5 watts. 12 watts will be 2.1 amps, not milliamps.

Ah ok I thought it was 500mA for the 5W, my mistake.

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