Apple slows your iPhone down "to conserve battery"

[xb8browney]

Personallysed it.

* p.s : I purchased the X just because the screen had more real estate than my 7 plus

Jokes?

 

[Tunney]

All that just to replace a battery lol

Takes 5 seconds on some non-apple phone.

Fixed for you.

Good luck replacing the Samsung Galaxy S8’s battery in 5 seconds. Same with most other flagship phones these days.

 

[adolf hamster]

Fixed for you.

Good luck replacing the Samsung Galaxy S8’s battery in 5 seconds. Same with most other flagship phones these days.

indeed, £100 says he can't change a sony z series battery in 5 seconds, even with proper tooling

 

[Minstadave]

Not much that can be done about the past. At least Apple have now clarified the situation.

What we don’t yet know are Apple’s motives. You are assuming you know the motives already, but I suggest you remain open minded until we see the actual result of the various investigations that have now started.

Lol. Blind faith much? Apple doesn’t do anything by accident. I’m sure this was just a little whoopsie, all in the past, promise not to do it again!

Come on.....

 

[jpaul]

adding some colour

 

[Drizmod]

You could, but you’d have to prove that that was Apple’s intention. And we have no evidence of that. Apple have publically stated this fix was to prolong the life of a device not shorten it.

Then why not offer an option to change battery rather than slow the phone down? its very shady. its obvious what was up but you are right its hard to prove

 

[V F]

Lol. Blind faith much? Apple doesn’t do anything by accident. I’m sure this was just a little whoopsie, all in the past, promise not to do it again!

Come on.....

Whoopsie.

 

[ebilcake]

Not much that can be done about the past. At least Apple have now clarified the situation.

What we don’t yet know are Apple’s motives. You are assuming you know the motives already, but I suggest you remain open minded until we see the actual result of the various investigations that have now started.

There are three options I can see.

#1 Apple intentionally chose a battery they knew wouldn't last to get customers to upgrade sooner or buy additional batteries by way of down-clocking.

#2 They're lying and there is nothing wrong with the batteries

#3 They're trying to hide what is effectively a hardware fault with the battery to save them the embarrassment and expense of replacing millions of batteries

Neither option is good.

 

[Hotwired]

#3 They're trying to hide what is effectively a hardware fault with the battery to save them the embarrassment and expense of replacing millions of batteries

Batteries do degrade and there are ways to deal with it.

Slowing hardware isn't even a new thing, many devices do this if they know they are low on charge but you are informed of this ability in advance.

It simply shouldn't have been done in an underhand way.

 

[Nasher]

Yes batteries degrade, usually 3-5 years is their lifespan. But e.g. for my phone I can just buy a new one for under £4 on ebay lol

 

[asim18]

Yes batteries degrade, usually 3-5 years is their lifespan. But e.g. for my phone I can just buy a new one for under £4 on ebay lol

Ah but you cant get genuine apple lithium ions for £4. Those special lithium-ions cost £79.

/sarcasm.

 

[Nasher]

You mean iLithium. Totally new and invented by Apple.

 

[MagicBoy]

Ah but you cant get genuine apple lithium ions for £4. Those special lithium-ions cost £79.

/sarcasm.

£25. Fitted.

/sarcasm or not

 

[asim18]

£25. Fitted.

/sarcasm or not

Price dropped on 28th December.

Seriously. It hasn't even been a whole week since it's been reduced to £25 (as a bribe), and you're acting as apple has never charged £79.

The fact is, exponentially more batteries have been billed £79 than they have been £25. Its literally been a few days lol.

 

[MagicBoy]

You dangle a hook and he bites on command.

 

[asim18]

You mean iLithium. Totally new and invented by Apple.

Ah yes the most 'radical' and 'most advanced' lithium ever.

You dangle a hook and he bites on command.

???

Obviously, you quoted me.

I was replying to Nasher when you butted in and directly quoted me lol.

 

[ebilcake]

Batteries do degrade and there are ways to deal with it.

Slowing hardware isn't even a new thing, many devices do this if they know they are low on charge but you are informed of this ability in advance.

It simply shouldn't have been done in an underhand way.

Then you clearly don't understand the issue.

Capacity degradation is completely normal, agreed but that's not the problem, if it was Apple would have no reason to implement this.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

There are three options I can see.

#1 Apple intentionally chose a battery they knew wouldn't last to get customers to upgrade sooner or buy additional batteries by way of down-clocking.

#2 They're lying and there is nothing wrong with the batteries

#3 They're trying to hide what is effectively a hardware fault with the battery to save them the embarrassment and expense of replacing millions of batteries

Neither option is good.

Or

#4 All mobile manufacturers run there batteries far too close to their theoretical maximum with little buffer at the top and the bottom end to get every last min of screen on time/call time. These batteries run in this way are only really decent for 500 cycles or so which most people seem to get though in 2 years or so. Just happens to be the same length of time of most modern phone contracts where people then tend to upgrade. It's like they have done some market research into this or something?

Battery degradation in Li-Ion is more than just cycles though:
The deeper you discharge it, the quicker it degrades. If you fully discharge it, it dies. This is very important.
The higher you charge it the quicker it degrades.
If you store it fully charged, the quicker it degrades.
The quicker you charge or discharge it, the quicker it degrades.
Too hot? Degrades quicker
Too Cold? Looses capacity.

A degraded battery is more than just lost capacity, it effects everything:
How quickly you can charge it.
How much power you can draw.
How much capacity you have.
How it performs when hot or cold.

If you google search phone turning off at 30% there are so many results and there not just Apple.

Yes batteries degrade, usually 3-5 years is their lifespan.

Just no.

If Tesla or Nissan put batteries in their cars that only lasted 3-5 years they would have gone out of business years ago. It's about how you use and manage the available power, how you charge and how you store it. Batteries in those cars will last 10 years, take a car well over 100k miles and thousands of cycles if they are managed properly. There is very little difference in the core technology, just different cell design and chemistry which results in different characteristics of the cell.

Batteries in phones by design have only really lasted 2-3 years at best before they are seriously degraded with average use. This is down to getting the most out of it before the average consumer bins it for a few one.

This isn't new either, for instance if you only use the Tesla super charger to re-charge your Tesla over many many charge cycles the software in the car reduces the peek power draw from the charger to protect the battery from degradation.

The way Apple implemented the software change was completely wrong though and they need to seriously re-think their communication going forward.

 

[ebilcake]

Or

#4 All mobile manufacturers run there batteries far too close to their theoretical maximum with little buffer at the top and the bottom end to get every last min of screen on time/call time. These batteries run in this way are only really decent for 500 cycles or so which most people seem to get though in 2 years or so. Just happens to be the same length of time of most modern phone contracts where people then tend to upgrade. It's like they have done some market research into this or something?

Battery degradation in Li-Ion is more than just cycles though:
The deeper you discharge it, the quicker it degrades. If you fully discharge it, it dies. This is very important.
The higher you charge it the quicker it degrades.
If you store it fully charged, the quicker it degrades.
The quicker you charge or discharge it, the quicker it degrades.
Too hot? Degrades quicker
Too Cold? Looses capacity.

A degraded battery is more than just lost capacity, it effects everything:
How quickly you can charge it.
How much power you can draw.
How much capacity you have.
How it performs when hot or cold.

If you google search phone turning off at 30% there are so many results and there not just Apple.

That theory assumes other manufacturers are doing the same when there is no evidence to support that, there is a lot of evidence to support otherwise.

Do older Android devices really start shutting down? Nope, a few devices shutting down when they're not at 0% can be something as simple as needing to calibrate the battery. I've seen this a lot even with new devices (it's a software issue).
Is the charge time changing? that one is common sense, of course that will change, less capacity would surely equal faster charging? right? Well maybe not but I've seen no evidence either way.
How much power you can draw? Properly managed this should take many years, is my OnePlus One from 2014 or Samsung i8910 HD from 2009 shutting down? no, are the benchmark results slower? no.
How it performs when hot or cold? it either works or it doesn't, could heat from the battery cause the device to throttle, sure. I've never seen any evidence to suggest that happens more often with older batteries but theoretically that's probably the case when they're coming to the end of their life, which again should take many years, far beyond the usual two year contract.

The Samsung i8910 HD from 2009 still has the original battery, it still works, it's not heating up much when in use and the benchmark results are the same as the day it was bought, the battery life is a bit crap though but you would expect that.

How are iPhone's from 2009 coping?

 

[Tunney]

The Samsung i8910 HD from 2009 still has the original battery, it still works, it's not heating up much when in use and the benchmark results are the same as the day it was bought, the battery life is a bit crap though but you would expect that.

How are iPhone's from 2009 coping?

I was on the team that developed the i8910 HD. A lot of the software work was done in glamourous Staines. It’s fair to say that the i8910 HD doesn’t push its battery anywhere as hard as a more modern smartphone pushes its battery.

People seem to be angry that Apple can’t break the laws of physics. Battery tech isn’t improving at the same rate as other smartphone tech. Apple’s rivals have had their fair share of battery problems.