iPhone performance degradation with battery aging

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I was reading earlier an interesting article earlier about how Apple may be quietly slowing down specific iPhone models as the battery ages:

https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-and-battery-age/

So I ran Geekbench on my 2 year old iPhone 6S and it was about a third slower than it should be. I looked at how much it cost to replace the battery and found there was a recall programme for some specific iPhone 6S batches and mine qualified so I’m sending it in for free, result! Has anyone used this option already? Do they replace the battery or simply send a refurb out?

I’ll run Geekbench again after it’s repaired and see if it’s back to normal.

 

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My 6S will be 2 years old in two days (so purchased about 3 months after they were released) and still seems fine (2521 in Geekbench).

It's had at least one full charge/discharge cycle every day.

Maybe I just got lucky with the battery.

Sounds like it, mine only does 1800 in Geekbench and does feel more sluggish but I thought it was iOS 7. Hopefully a fresh battery will get another year or two out of it.

 

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Confirming what we all pretty much already knew, my 6 runs like a dog these days and it's only a couple of years old.

I have no desire to change because it fulfils everything I need but it's become so sluggish it almost feels like Apple is intentionally forcing me to upgrade rather than 'Providing me with a great customer experience by slowing my phone down'.

Well if a £20 battery brings it back to life that’s a win for us.

Not sure the 6 is affected though, be worth checking a geekbench score.

 

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I saw this reply to the atrical on an Apple forum and had to LOL:

What annoys me about this and other things like it is that it sets the precedent that an uninformed public can develop an "outcry" over anything get a result out of Apple. Real shame. The public didn't deserve this level of compromise from Apple. Intelligent CPU management of a device powered by lithium-ion battery is expected and appropriate, and really no one's business besides the engineers.

I think it’s awesome. Who knows maybe Apple will listen to its customers. Micro SD slot anyone?

It’s sad that people think it’s bad that a company can be forced to listen to its customers rather than just doing whatever the hell it wants.

 

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I'd rather have a battery I can swap myself without a special toolkit and a computer engineering degree. You know, like old Nokia's had in the 90s and my work LG Android phone still has.

I don’t mind if Apple are doing it for £29, that’s barely more than a third party kit and you get OEM parts and warranty.

 

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If you look at the Geekbench scores there’s a small amount of variation at each step of the performance steps.

https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-and-battery-age/

It’ll just be whatever the phone is doing in the background causing a small amount of variability.

 

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I'm booked in with Apple on Thursday to look at a battery replacement for my iPhone 6, bit concerned about the wording they've used around the price change.



How do they determine whether it needs to be replaced? Looking at Coconut battery my battery capacity is at 86% but it's slow as a dog, latest Geekbench results show CPU running at around 50% performance :/

Seems it shouldn't be a problem. https://9to5mac.com/2018/01/02/appl...ces-are-eligible-for-29-battery-replacements/

I didn't think they were offering the reduced price until the end of Jan?

 

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Nice one!

 

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Just got back from my Genius bar appointment, the 'expert' ran some battery diagnostics (returned 87% health) and advised me my performance issues were nothing to do with the battery and that it must be a 'corrupt iOS install'. His recommendation was that I should reinstall iOS and that should sort it out

Advised him I wasn't having any of it and that I wanted the battery replaced for the sake of £25. It's night and day difference, so much snappier and responsive.

Geekbench before:
Single - anything between 826 and 1084 (low and high battery left)
Multi - anything between 1389 and 1826 (low and high battery left)

Geekbench after:
Single - 1525
Multi - 2633

Corrupt software issue my rear end.

This is exactly why Apple hiding this was such an issue. Before this issue if you’d gone to the “Genius” Bar with a slow phone you’d have been told to do an iOS reset then consider upgrading. No quick fix, even when the battery swap was £79 they’d still not have suggested it.

Glad you’re back to full steam.

 

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Some people having issues with Apple not wanting to replace their batteries - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43960267. Hard to know what % are having issues but seem quite a few get a better service from an indy repairer.

My 6S shows 90% so will see how it goes for now.

Sent mine in and it was rejected for external damage without any being present.