Bad form by Apple here in my opinion, they should have been more up front with their customers.
I am joining the party of those who think that Apple is killing the battery by overclocking our phones when they are new.
Does Android do this also? Certainly feels like it…
This wouldn’t be a big deal if you could swap the battery yourself. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to do, necessarily, but they should have been more transparent about it. Evidently it’s only with very old batteries or when it is really cold?
🤔
They’re doing it on the 7 and that’s only a year old so… no.
I read in a car mag that a consortium of German automakers was getting into mapping and other support services for autonomous cars, specifically because they feared Apple would get there first and lock everyone into their system. So something like this should surprise no one. Apple didn’t become what it is by being nice, open, or consumer-friendly (though they do a good job of delivering what people want, just not necessarily what they need).
I don’t feel what Apple is doing is necessarily wrong (overcoming the limitations of lithium-ion batteries). But I feel there should be a setting in iOS that lets users decide: longer battery life vs speed.
My 6s qualifies for the free battery replacement from Apple, so I’ll be taking advantage of that soon.
Batteries, huh? Bullshit spin for what is more likely a marketing driven agenda to drive people to the new hotness every year, IMO. If it walks like a fucking duck…
And when it comes out that the rest of them do it too, well fuck them too.
It is BS really. No reason why you can’t simply and easily and even cheaply just replace the battery like you do with 99% of things. It’s just a way to maximise profits.
You can replace the battery for relatively cheaply and it disables the throttling. And the throttling is because there is a real voltage drop under high loads on older batteries, which could cause the phone to crash or at least rapidly degrade battery life. In fact it is exactly the same algorithm that slows the phone down in extremely cold or hot weather. Is that so controversial?
I’d say the only semi-valid criticism is that Apple does this without letting people know they can get a new battery to rejuvenate their phone. But here we are, and people will know it, based on this story.
But we shouldn’t let this get in the way of the Apple-hate though :). Lets just hate them because they’re different. Personally I don’t like IOS and stupid annoying things that can’t be changed - for example the Iphone 10 has this awesome new unlock feature, but they still require a swipe, ever single time!
While there is definitely some of that going around, I think to a large degree Apple sets itself up for backlash, or at least, it’s fans do. Anyone who has ever endured the cult-like experience of many Apple Stores, or suffered the natterings of technically clueless but Apple-infatuated iPhone/Mac devotees (a subset of course of a much broader Apple universe of normal users) can’t but come away with a lingering desire to whack Cuptertino with a stick.
It’s not that what Apple is doing is, in and of itself, terribly bad, or even unjustified, beyond perhaps not telling people some stuff they probably should have been told, but that when you take the often unjustified adulation the company receives from its fans, and couple that with sometimes distasteful but totally business-normal practices, it’s a recipe for people to pile on.
Also, iMore reported on this back in February, but the OMG APPLE SLOWS DOWN IPHONES headline is better. Because doesn’t every chipset (even laptop chipsets) downclock if there are thermal/power iees?
It doesn’t happen on the 5.
::Looks at his 5::
sigh
They can “fix” this controversy with a simple Settings toggle that allows people to turn off the throttling.
But that would be giving the user a choice but of course Apple knows what’s best for you so users should just accept it like the good little sheep,they are.
Plus, they’d just code the toggled-off option to reboot your phone randomly every few days and then say “well, we told you old batteries make our phone unstable. See, obfuscating this was in your best interest all along.”.
I don’t think the toggle is the best option, since the option leads a hard crash.
I do think something akin to a status like my MacBook has: This battery is degraded and requires service. Either a popup, different color battery icon, or something that directs the user to get the battery replaced.
You know the dumb thing - I don’t recall this being a particular problem for the other mobile devices we have been rocking for two decades - laptops. Aside the fact that you can generally get new batteries for them, I have never come across complaints that old, tired batteries cause unstability and force system throttling to circumvent.
I can pick up my wife’s 10yo Dell and it runs just the same as it ever did. Pick up my wife’s 4yo iPad and it runs like a fucking turd compared to new.
Edit:
Interesting, what does it take to trigger such a warning on Macs? Office full of Macs - 12 or so over the years - here and never seen this kind of message.
Pff, just buy a new iPhone every year. PROBLEM SOLVED PEOPLE.
A combination of battery health to cycles. I’ve seen it on two MacBooks: a 2009 MacBook Pro and I think an old WhiteBook had it
I have had a lot of battery issues over the years with laptops. Also, 10 year old laptops I think just shit the bed power wise if the battery couldn’t handle the draw.
The 4 year old iPad is what, an Air? I think given how large the iPad batteries are the slowdown on those is actually the new version of iOS.