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

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19389 posts

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#1937326 11-Jan-2018 18:35

mudguard:
amiga500:

I have a Samsung S3 that I bought about 3 years ago - it was on a good discount by then of course. In three years I have bought 2 new batteries neither of which have improved its speed or battery life. The S3 experience I have had bears no resemblance to the reviews of the S3 done in 2012. I have done several factory resets, tried many battery saver apps, tried multiple light launchers. While I have no way of proving it I would not be amazed if Samsung has written some code to subtly slow the phone down or to drain its battery.

I have a couple of S3s at home. The one I used worked perfectly and was more than usable. Another S3 which my partner used for a while was the opposite. I actually think they were different sub models. I keep meaning to check to see if the model number is the same, might be an overseas version etc.

I previously had an S3, and found it to be terrible, that I ended up mainly using it solely as a phone. It got so slow over time, and the plastic build quality meant that it cracked in places, including around the jacks. Apparently some had a memory issue with a software patch was supposed to fix, so not sure if that was related to the problems I had. Not sure if it was battery related either, but never needed to replace it, as it had good battery life. But if I factory reset it, it worked fine for a few weeks, and then slowed down. Android has improved a lot since then though, but wouldn't buy another samsung. The iphone I have foud to be pretty quick and responsive, at least up until ios 11, which appears to have has slowed down the 5s a lot from my experience.

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amiga500

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#1937558 12-Jan-2018 10:07

The only things I really like about the S3 is the high quality screen & the camera. The screen makes even crappy photos look good! And the camera for its year of manufacture is really good. Never had an Iphone 5s but its camera is brilliant. There is an article on mdpreview.com where a guy in Australia went out on a sunny day with an Iphone 5s & a collection of DSLRs and a film DSLR & took photos of a well lit building. The 5s did really well compared to the cameras. I think it was better than some of the older ones such as the Canon 10d, better than the film camera, and darn close to the newest DSLRs the guy used. It is the quality of these phone cameras which has contributed to the likes of Nikon, Canon, and Panasonic to not making any really new budget compacts. They just give the camera a new model number & throw in another 3 art filters.

mattwnz

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#1938577 14-Jan-2018 13:51

The s3 camera was pretty good, as was its video recording for the time, but IMO that was about all that was good about it ..

I heard that radio NZs, this way up tech program did a story on this Apple problem, and have been trying to interview Apple, but to no avail. But the host seemed really angry about it, as his tests via an app he purchased, showed his phone had been slowed down, even though it hadn’t quite experienced 20 percent battery wear yet. He booked in online to get his battery replaced and was booked in at an agent. But when he got there , he was told that they didn’t have any stock of batteries, and that the price was going to be an extra 10 dollars for admin fees.IMO they shouldn’t be charging extra fees like that to the consumer, and if there is an admin fee, it should be disclosed on their battery form. So that 29 us cost, which works out at about 40 nzd, has risen to nearly 60nzd, or more if shipping it to them. IMO Apple really need to sort this out so it is easy for consumers, and not make them jump through hoops.

dafman

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#1938647 14-Jan-2018 15:55

mattwnz: The s3 camera was pretty good, as was its video recording for the time, but IMO that was about all that was good about it ..

I heard that radio NZs, this way up tech program did a story on this Apple problem, and have been trying to interview Apple, but to no avail. But the host seemed really angry about it, as his tests via an app he purchased, showed his phone had been slowed down, even though it hadn’t quite experienced 20 percent battery wear yet. He booked in online to get his battery replaced and was booked in at an agent. But when he got there , he was told that they didn’t have any stock of batteries, and that the price was going to be an extra 10 dollars for admin fees.IMO they shouldn’t be charging extra fees like that to the consumer, and if there is an admin fee, it should be disclosed on their battery form. So that 29 us cost, which works out at about 40 nzd, has risen to nearly 60nzd, or more if shipping it to them. IMO Apple really need to sort this out so it is easy for consumers, and not make them jump through hoops.

Or Apple could simply release a software patch that stopped slowing the phones down, or gave users the choice.

(silly me, that wouldn't get any extra battery or upgrade money out of the punters!).

mattwnz

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#1938702 14-Jan-2018 18:07

dafman:

mattwnz: The s3 camera was pretty good, as was its video recording for the time, but IMO that was about all that was good about it ..

I heard that radio NZs, this way up tech program did a story on this Apple problem, and have been trying to interview Apple, but to no avail. But the host seemed really angry about it, as his tests via an app he purchased, showed his phone had been slowed down, even though it hadn’t quite experienced 20 percent battery wear yet. He booked in online to get his battery replaced and was booked in at an agent. But when he got there , he was told that they didn’t have any stock of batteries, and that the price was going to be an extra 10 dollars for admin fees.IMO they shouldn’t be charging extra fees like that to the consumer, and if there is an admin fee, it should be disclosed on their battery form. So that 29 us cost, which works out at about 40 nzd, has risen to nearly 60nzd, or more if shipping it to them. IMO Apple really need to sort this out so it is easy for consumers, and not make them jump through hoops.

Or Apple could simply release a software patch that stopped slowing the phones down, or gave users the choice.

(silly me, that wouldn't get any extra battery or upgrade money out of the punters!).

But if they did that, they would get a lot of support tickets for phones that were crashing on 20-30-40% of battery remaining. In a way I would prefer my 5s would just slow down, rather than crash at 30% like it is currently doing, but it appears that patch only applies to iphone 6 and newer. Currently I have to recahrage it when it cashes at 30%, which is not good. The solution apple gave me, where the latest ios software update they said should fix my 5s, has made no difference to it crashing, and only made my 5s more laggy, and I can't roll back to my previous version of ios, so I am stuck with a laggier phone phone. So I am going to have to get back to their support again for a solution as ios is still crashing prematurely at about 20-30% when I put it under load, such as processing a video or launching an app.

alasta

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#1938748 14-Jan-2018 20:28

I would be more likely to replace a phone that crashes than one that has just slowed down a bit.

mattwnz

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#1938758 14-Jan-2018 20:52

So would I, as a crashing phone shows it isn't reliable enough, when you may need it for urgent calls. Apple though did appear to have had a lot of complaints about crashes on iphone 6's prior to the ios 10.2 update, which is why they said they had a fix for it in that version. That is when they released the patch in that version, but they didn't appear to tell anyone that the fix included slowing down phones that had a worn battery.

A slow laggy phone though is enough to make me want to upgrade to a newer faster one, while a crashing phone makes me want to find out why it is crashing from apple support. I wouldn't necessarily upgrade to the same brand if my phone kept crashing for no reason, but I may if it was just slower.

jarledb

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#1938823 14-Jan-2018 23:21

If you are having issues with the fix that Apple has implemented, they have started signing iOS 10 again - which means you can downgrade.

Again, I would rather have a stable and slightly slower phone (this only affects phones with battery issues) than a phone that crashes.

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Batman

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#1938837 15-Jan-2018 07:30

jarledb:

If you are having issues with the fix that Apple has implemented, they have started signing iOS 10 again - which means you can downgrade.

Again, I would rather have a stable and slightly slower phone (this only affects phones with battery issues) than a phone that crashes.

thanks for the tip!

how long will they sign it for?

Batman

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#1938972 15-Jan-2018 11:25

jarledb:

If you are having issues with the fix that Apple has implemented, they have started signing iOS 10 again - which means you can downgrade.

Again, I would rather have a stable and slightly slower phone (this only affects phones with battery issues) than a phone that crashes.

doesn't say they are :(

mattwnz

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#1938996 15-Jan-2018 12:13

jarledb:
If you are having issues with the fix that Apple has implemented, they have started signing iOS 10 again - which means you can downgrade.

Again, I would rather have a stable and slightly slower phone (this only affects phones with battery issues) than a phone that crashes.

I understand that was just a glitch, as I understand for a few hours you could downgrade to many of the older iOS versions. But I don’t think that is now the case.

mattwnz

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#1939160 15-Jan-2018 16:21

jarledb:

If you are having issues with the fix that Apple has implemented, they have started signing iOS 10 again - which means you can downgrade.

Again, I would rather have a stable and slightly slower phone (this only affects phones with battery issues) than a phone that crashes.

The other reason someone may not be able to downgrade, is if they have an apple watch. Apparently it isn't possible to downgrade an apple watch. So if you have upgraded the iphone to the latest version from ios11, and also upgraded the apple watch, then I suspect the apple watch won't work with the iphone, if it is downgraded to ios 10.

Starscream122

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#1939163 15-Jan-2018 16:24

jarledb:

If you are having issues with the fix that Apple has implemented, they have started signing iOS 10 again - which means you can downgrade.

Again, I would rather have a stable and slightly slower phone (this only affects phones with battery issues) than a phone that crashes.

source ?

mattwnz

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#1939165 15-Jan-2018 16:28

Starscream122:

jarledb:

If you are having issues with the fix that Apple has implemented, they have started signing iOS 10 again - which means you can downgrade.

Again, I would rather have a stable and slightly slower phone (this only affects phones with battery issues) than a phone that crashes.

source ?

I suspect they got confused over this error by Apple, which I also mentioned above

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/11/apple-accidentally-signed-old-ios-versions/

PhantomNVD

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#1965348 27-Feb-2018 19:26

And the actual fix (iOS11.3 Beta 3)

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