Seriously Apple, slowing down older iphones?

Best class action I was ever an unwitting member of was the Ford 5.8L “we’re 100+ years old and still can’t figure out how to do spark plugs” debacle.

Offer was $250 on a $1000 repair. So useless. LOL.
 
denverpilot said:
Best class action I was ever an unwitting member of was the Ford 5.8L “we’re 100+ years old and still can’t figure out how to do spark plugs” debacle.

Offer was $250 on a $1000 repair. So useless. LOL.
Click to expand...

The other $750 went to the lawyers
 
Plugged my older Samsung into a replacement charger a long while back - it wouldn't accept the charge, gave a message along the lines that I wasn't using the "real" charger"; did my research, and found Samsung was "protecting" my phone (making sure I bought a Samsung replacement charger); found a quick work around with the plug. That was sleazy, but I can replace the battery in it.

The phone has slowed dramatically in the last few months; not likely I'll replace it with an iPhone; more liklely I'll buy something that's easy to root, and skip a lot of this nonsense.
 
Sundancer said:
Plugged my older Samsung into a replacement charger a long while back - it wouldn't accept the charge, gave a message along the lines that I wasn't using the "real" charger"; did my research, and found Samsung was "protecting" my phone (making sure I bought a Samsung replacement charger); found a quick work around with the plug. That was sleazy, but I can replace the battery in it.

The phone has slowed dramatically in the last few months; not likely I'll replace it with an iPhone; more liklely I'll buy something that's easy to root, and skip a lot of this nonsense.
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Apple did the same thing with their chargers.
 
Apple just offered an apology, and is discounting iPhone battery replacements for $29, a $50 discount, through the end of 2018.

Also promising a better battery monitoring app, to make battery health more transparent.

It’s something.
 
I'm kind of bummed I bought Ipod/Iphone docking stations as gifts, back when they used the old style connector.

Maybe I shouldn't be. It taught me a lesson. Be careful gifting technology.
 
FastEddieB said:
Apple just offered an apology, and is discounting iPhone battery replacements for $29, a $50 discount, through the end of 2018.
Also promising a better battery monitoring app, to make battery health more transparent.
It’s something.
Click to expand...

I can accept a battery going bad, it's common and accepted.
I am having a hard time accepting a purposeful hamstringing of the device's function.
At the very least, give us the choice; slower or reduced battery life.
 
I want to start a hardware/software company called Orange. It will feature amazing innovations and developments, and be affordable, too. It will not be comparable to Apple. (But people will try...)

*user's choice to upgrade firmware and/or software revisions/updates
*easily reversible to the previous of above
*user replaceable battery
*screen goes all the way to the edge of the device
*waterproof
*very durable, nearly indestructible from drops
*built-in microwave raygun
*barometer/altimeter
*not too big, not too small
*interchangeable "guts" that can be swapped into different sized/shaped bodies
*new name = "Shell phone" because your phone can wear different shells for different missions
*Better "personal assistant" than Siri, because she's just about totally useless
*Cord-free charging, 3D pics and video, etc.

Who wants to toss in some start-up coin to get this world-beater flying? I figure $3 million USD will get us from here to the first units hitting shelves by Summer.
 
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Lachlan said:
I want to start a hardware/software company called Orange. It will feature amazing innovations and developments, and be affordable, too. It will not be comparable to Apple.

...

Who wants to toss in some start-up coin to get this world-beater flying?
Click to expand...

Me! Me! Me! Do you take crypto-currency? I'm going to start a new one tomorrow.
 
FastEddieB said:
Apple just offered an apology, and is discounting iPhone battery replacements for $29, a $50 discount, through the end of 2018.

Also promising a better battery monitoring app, to make battery health more transparent.

It’s something.
Click to expand...

THAT I can appreciate. So what are their rules for qualifying to need a replacement?

Reason I ask, seems like at that price, one should just preemptively replace all of them in any device you’ve got, that’s over a year old.
 
denverpilot said:
So what are their rules for qualifying to need a replacement?
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From MacWorld:

“Apple on Thursday announced a price reduction in its iPhone batteryr eplacement plan for owners of the iPhone 6 and later. The company is slashing the cost from $79 to $29, starting in late January 2018, with the offer ending in December 2018.”

Karen will certainly get her iphone7 done as soon as the program is in place. I will also make sure the buyer of my 6+ is aware of the program as well.
 
My 6s hasn't shown a huge degradation yet, so I'll set a reminder to replace it in December of 2018, that should SLEP it for a while.
 
My 6+ could drop from 100% to 16% in an hour or two if steaming content over cellular.

My new X points out how much capacity the battery my old phone had lost over the years.
 
FastEddieB said:
My 6+ could drop from 100% to 16% in an hour or two if steaming content over cellular.

My new X points out how much capacity the battery my old phone had lost over the years.
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I don't stream much, so probably don't notice how bad the battery has fallen.
 
My iPhone is a 5 something and is sufficiently aged that I can't recall in which year I purchased it. Probably 2014. I can't detect any diminution in its function at all, and its running the latest system Apple can cram down my throat. That said it spends its days happily plugged in at my office. Either its battery is in boss shape from my kind treatment or it's too old to run the self destruct software. Whichever is the case, I certainly can't complain.
 
FastEddieB said:
My 6+ could drop from 100% to 16% in an hour or two if steaming content over cellular.

My new X points out how much capacity the battery my old phone had lost over the years.
Click to expand...

Were you a day one adopter of the 6+? They haven’t been out that long. For most folks they’re talking two years on that device.

If batteries are dying in two years on what was then a “flagship” device at $800, that’s just pitiful.

Will the battery on the new $1200 device last more than two years?

My 6+ is similar, Karen’s is behaving a little better. Both are horribly slow on iOS 11. Apps can take more then ten seconds to become fully functional after switching apps.

They both act like iOS 11 simply runs them out of RAM.

Not that it’s a shining examples of efficient code, but Slack takes eleven seconds to start accepting touchscreen inputs. Very much less useable on iOS 11.

ForeFlight is also heavily affected. About 3-6 seconds to switch tabs and become responsive again, which is way slower than it was in iOS 10.
 
My 6+ had to be over 2 years old - I financed it for 24 months and it had been paid off for 5 or 6 months, I think.

Apple verbalized what should be obvious - batteries are “consumables” and do not last forever. How long they do last is obviously affected by many things. I doubt that’s exclusive to Apple.

My analogy of their screw-up might be a car with a defect that goes into “limp home” mode without telling you that’s what’s happened.

Better would have been an alert, something like:

“ALERT! Your iPhone 6+ battery now has 30% of its original capacity. Your iPhone will continue to function, but you may find some processes taking longer - this is to compensate for your battery’s diminished capacity. We recommend battery replacement as soon as practicable to restore your device’s previous performance.”

I assume that’s where they’re going with their promise of better battery management software in the coming year.

As an aside, my $800 phone (if that’s what it cost) was really a $600 phone that lasted me 2 1/2 years, since I sold it for about $200. I can live with that.
 
FastEddieB said:
Also promising a better battery monitoring app, to make battery health more transparent.
Click to expand...
I wish they provided a slider that let me choose performance vs. battery life. Until then, I just run my 4S in Low Power Mode and only charge it up to 80%.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I can accept a battery going bad, it's common and accepted.
I am having a hard time accepting a purposeful hamstringing of the device's function.
At the very least, give us the choice; slower or reduced battery life.
Click to expand...

How about making OSs that arnt full of bloat.

At work my coworkers update our company iPhone 6 all the time, despite me telling them not to, comparing the new OS with the never updated OS on my 6S, I don't see any additional functionality, though now you have to push the home button to get past the home screen and some other silly crap, it really feels like the only thing they do in their updates is to make enough bloat to force a new iPhone on you, now they will just be transparent about their new OS sucking.

I just can't believe that Apple is not capable to doing their "upgrades" while keeping the OS slim and light.
 
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GeorgeC said:
I wish they provided a slider that let me choose performance vs. battery life. Until then, I just run my 4S in Low Power Mode and only charge it up to 80%.
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Why not charge it up fully? Less than a full recharge doesn’t make sense with Li ion cells. If you’re talking about only occasionally doing partial charges then never mind.
 
Does anyone know if this issue (software slowdowns) applies to Ipads too? My Ipad Air 2 is getting so that it takes a long time to bring up an app like Foreflight. Much longer than it used to.
 
My Apple indoctrination must be wearing off fellow Comrades. I'll report to the Apple store for re-education.
 
JOhnH said:
Does anyone know if this issue (software slowdowns) applies to Ipads too? My Ipad Air 2 is getting so that it takes a long time to bring up an app like Foreflight. Much longer than it used to.
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Yeah, I've noticed that on mine as well. A little weird, since it spends almost all of its time plugged in. Thankfully I mostly use it for Foreflight, which, while somewhat slower is still fully sufficient for in-flight navigation. If you want to see slow try the Garmin 296 that lives in the back seat of the aircraft as a backup. May I never need it again.
 
denverpilot said:
They both act like iOS 11 simply runs them out of RAM.

........

ForeFlight is also heavily affected. About 3-6 seconds to switch tabs and become responsive again, which is way slower than it was in iOS 10.
Click to expand...

Fits the pattern - that's what my iPad 2 does. Except that it also crashes browsers on sites that display a lot of crap. Like Facebook.
 
wsuffa said:
Fits the pattern - that's what my iPad 2 does. Except that it also crashes browsers on sites that display a lot of crap. Like Facebook.
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I think that is more correctly classified as a "feature".
 
rtk11 said:
Apple “apologizing” to customers by offering a $29 replacement battery (instead of $79).

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/28...e-battery-replacement-price-slow-down-apology

But this is for a new battery, and not increasing performance back to normal. So with the replacement battery, you will have longer battery endurance as you wait for your phone to respond.
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As noted above, performance does indeed go back to normal after the battery is replaced. The slowdown is triggered by low battery voltage.
 
Lachlan said:
Why not charge it up fully? Less than a full recharge doesn’t make sense with Li ion cells.
Click to expand...

It does - in general, when talking about Li-ion batteries - they last a lot longer when you only charge them to 80%.

I wouldn’t bother with a phone since the batteries are relatively cheap, but if you want to stretch their life for some reason it would indeed make sense.

One of the best lectures on li-ion longevity:
 
deonb said:
It does - in general, when talking about Li-ion batteries - they last a lot longer when you only charge them to 80%.

I wouldn’t bother with a phone since the batteries are relatively cheap, but if you want to stretch their life for some reason it would indeed make sense.

One of the best lectures on li-ion longevity:
Click to expand...

80% V or mA?
 
Lachlan said:
80% V or mA?
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It's been a while, but IIRC you charge constant current (voltage ramping up) until you reach a certain voltage, and then constant voltage (current ramping down) the rest of the way. You hit the constant voltage part at 80-90% state of charge. There is a point of diminishing returns after which it's not worth winding the rubber band any tighter.
 
As I understand it, the issue isn’t how long your battery charge will last (though that is a factor), it’s the peak current it can deliver. Run the processor too fast and the aging battery can’t deliver enough current causing crashes. That’s what the slowdown is made to combat. So a selector or slider probably isn’t useful:”Crash your iPhone now. (y/N)”

I’m an Apple user though not a fanboy. I switched because of aviation apps. I do think they should have notified users.

John
 
Probably just should have used appropriately sized batteries for the current draw, instead of making the things so thin. Everyone puts a case on the stupid things anyway. And half of the cases now... include a second battery. LOL.
 
Batteries peak and total capacity change over time. Do you arbitrarily limit speed at the beginning so there’s no slow down (Tesla and other electric car manufacturers choice), slow down operations as they deteriorate (apparently Apples choice) or let the device crash when it exceeds the current capacity (some Android based device manufactures choice) ?
 
jsstevens said:
Batteries peak and total capacity change over time. Do you arbitrarily limit speed at the beginning so there’s no slow down (Tesla and other electric car manufacturers choice), slow down operations as they deteriorate (apparently Apples choice) or let the device crash when it exceeds the current capacity (some Android based device manufactures choice) ?
Click to expand...

Make them user-replaceable.
 
denverpilot said:
Make them user-replaceable.
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I’m good with that but it doesn’t change the fundamental physics nor the trade offs. Just add a notification to the user to change their battery for peak performance. But if they don’t the choices are still the same. And really, $79 to change the battery in a $600 device every 2 years isn’t bad. It’s just more fun to bash Apple. And yes, they should have been up front about it. And I can easily imagine the marketing folks reaction when the engineers presented the slow down solution:”And we can sell more new phones! Gravy!”
 
jsstevens said:
And really, $79 to change the battery in a $600 device every 2 years isn’t bad.
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It’s awful, actually. We have satellites on orbit that properly charge and discharge crappy NiCD chemistry cells in insane temperature extremes from solar panels, that have lasted a couple of decades.

Not being able to properly size and charge any lithium cell here on the planet in normal temps, is an embasssament of improper engineering.

Heck, we keep even crappier lead-acids alive longer in worse charging conditions in cars and airplanes.

And nobody knows the quality of the cheap-ass cells in these phones nor if Apple REALLY put this code in to stop/avoid the fires... and lawsuits...
 
denverpilot said:
It’s awful, actually. We have satellites on orbit that properly charge and discharge crappy NiCD chemistry cells in insane temperature extremes from solar panels, that have lasted a couple of decades.

Not being able to properly size and charge any lithium cell here on the planet in normal temps, is an embasssament of improper engineering.

Heck, we keep even crappier lead-acids alive longer in worse charging conditions in cars and airplanes.

And nobody knows the quality of the cheap-ass cells in these phones nor if Apple REALLY put this code in to stop/avoid the fires... and lawsuits...
Click to expand...

And those satellites are engineered to NOT get anything like peak current nor maximum charge from those batteries. Like so much of engineering where real physics is involved it’s a series of trade offs. Those systems were engineered to get maximum life in an environment where replacements are, shall we say, impractical. Maybe you’d weight battery life over performance for your phone but many would choose differently and most consumers wouldn’t understand the trade offs. Saying that it’s crappy design is ignoring the design trade offs. It may be a mistake but it wasn’t an accident.
 
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