Apple admits it slows down older phones. What are your thoughts about it?

[Ledsteplin]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

Get an app called "Battery Life". It will show you the battery wear level. If you keep your device topped off (wireless charging makes this even easier), the battery will stay in good shape for years or essentially past the useful life of the device. Don't leave it in a car in extreme heat or cold, etc.

If your battery is excessively worn, its peak current output is going to be severely hampered. When a device demands higher peaks, battery voltages can sag low enough to respring the device. The newer builds take battery condition into play and will adjust CPU throttle curves in accordance to prevent random resprings. This will definitely have an impact on performance overall. Its similar to using a battery saver profile on a laptop.

Users with slower devices have reported that changing batteries in those devices did restore performance so there's that.

The only change, IMO, there should be is a pop up notification that would basically tell you that the battery is worn and performance is degraded. Replacing the battery would restore performance.

The idea behind this is, simply, a slow device is better than a device that randomly shuts off or restarts. Apple should just notify the users why.

The Battery Life app is just guessing based on whatever info they can get, such as age of phone. Apple no longer allows battery life or cycles data for developers. I do think their guesses are close though. Topping off charging does nothing for battery life. That top off % is added to more top off charges to equal a charge cycle. So if you start a charge at 90% to 100% ten times, that's 1 charge cycle.

 

[C6TX6]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

Cycles isn't necessarily an accurate metric to health. 100 cycles derived from use to cut off back to 100% vs. use to 70% and back to 100%, the former is far more detrimental.

Keeping a phone topped off at 100% and sitting in a drawer is also not ideal.

Even adding to the complexity 1% shown isn't the true 1% as only 1% left on a lithium-polymer pack is quite unhealthy.

In any case probably the worse one can do for their battery that sadly gets done commonly is overheating and/or freezing.

Not allowing detailed pack information to devs is bad. This info IS available on MacOS (for now).

The only way to gauge if a battery pack is affected is by tracking voltage while applying a varying, working load. It certainly could be done by software but it appears that would be limited to Apple's own engineers since they have locked out third parties from doing so.

 

[Lee_Bo]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

Apple is EVIL and I'm gonna leave for Android as soon as possible. This wasn't don't for the consumer, it was done to force ppl into new devices. If they were doing it for the consumer, they would've told us about it and say that replacing the battery is an option. But they decided to keep it a secret and throttle down the cpu to make ppl think something is wrong with their devices. #EVIL

Bye Felicia.

I've had my 7+ since launch and if Apple is slowing it down, I can't tell. It's still fast and performing just as good, if not better, then the day I bought it.

 

[reeneebob]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

The histrionics about this are incredibly entertaining.

Next up, APPLE KICKS PUPPIES ZOMGELEVENTY!?!!!!1!1!1!1!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!11!!1!1!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!1!1

 

[calebt]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

How come I haven't heard it called batterygate yet?

 

[wolfee48]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

The histrionics about this are incredibly entertaining.

Next up, APPLE KICKS PUPPIES ZOMGELEVENTY!?!!!!1!1!1!1!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!11!!1!1!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!!1!1!1!1

High five!

I agree. Nonsense battering, yet entertaining. I have no concern.

 

[Quis89]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

People are letting Apple off VERY easy over this. What they did is fine. But they fact that they didn't let people know this was happening is extremely problematic. Devices were slowing down and rather than letting people know, "Hey, replace your battery and you'll be good". They said nothing, causing people to upgrade their devices when all they had to do was replace the battery. This was shady and manipulative. I don't care how fans spin it or how Apple tries to justify it. I don't have an issue with them adjusting the OS to compensate for our batteries aging. Just tell me that. As a consumer, we all deserved to know. And Apple should have let us know.

 

[anon(10092459)]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

People are letting Apple off VERY easy over this. What they did is fine. But they fact that they didn't let people know this was happening is extremely problematic. Devices were slowing down and rather than letting people know, "Hey, replace your battery and you'll be good". They said nothing, causing people to upgrade their devices when all they had to do was replace the battery. This was shady and manipulative. I don't care how fans spin it or how Apple tries to justify it. I don't have an issue with them adjusting the OS to compensate for our batteries aging. Just tell me that. As a consumer, we all deserved to know. And Apple should have let us know.

I think that's the heart of it. Not so much that it's being done, but the lack of communication/transparency.

 

[Quis89]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

It’s not “when they upgrade their iOS version”, nor “on older phones”, it’s when the battery starts degrading.
The hardware performance is throttled to maximize what’s left of the battery life aka you’re due to replace it anyway so you might as well take advantage of the situation.

This isn't true. Battery degradation alone isn't what is causing the slowness. Apple is compensating for
the effects of that battery degradation (random reboots) by implementing throttling features into our devices. So to prevent our devices from shutting down randomly, our devices are throttled. These features were introduced via iOS version updates. This was directly stated from Apple. The iPhone 7 received this throttling feature with the iOS 11.2 upgrade.

Bye Felicia.

I've had my 7+ since launch and if Apple is slowing it down, I can't tell. It's still fast and performing just as good, if not better, then the day I bought it.

Too early for you to notice an issue. This grew out of concern from owners of 6/6s(+) users. The "feature" they referenced was just newly introduced on your device with 11.2.

Basically...it is with older devices after upgrading iOS versions and will only show it's face as time passes. We should all hope that a year old device wouldn't be affected already. But it's more understandable with devices 2 years old or more.

 

[doogald]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

Obviously you're an apple sheep. Ive read this and many other articles and no matter how Apple tries to spin this, the bottom line is that the high road would have been to let ppl know that a simple battery change would fix any issues but they decided to make it so that ppl believe their phones are slow and buy the next thing. Why didn't they put a notice in the software up-to let users know what they're doing? Why? Because #bottomlines

1. How do we know that Android isn't doing the same thing?
2. We do know for certain that almost all Android OEMs but Google and Motorola have cheated on benchmark test apps (in other words, they let the processor spike when running Geekbench and other tests when the system should have spun down the processor clock with other apps.) OnePlus was just caught doing it again this year.

I agree that Apple should have been more clear about what was happening, but the release notes of iOS 10.2.1 said right in black and white that it included changes to improve the battery life on older devices. Nobody really figured out that this meant that they were clocking down the CPU at peaks only to prevent phones from shutting down from an excessive battery spike/

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893?locale=en_US

iOS 10.2.1 includes bug fixes and improves the security of your iPhone or iPad.It also improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone.

 

[Lee_Bo]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

Too early for you to notice an issue. This grew out of concern from owners of 6/6s(+) users. The "feature" they referenced was just newly introduced on your device with 11.2.

Basically...it is with older devices after upgrading iOS versions and will only show it's face as time passes. We should all hope that a year old device wouldn't be affected already. But it's more understandable with devices 2 years old or more.

My son had my old 6s+ and he's also not seeing a slowdown issue and he stays glued to his phone all day (he's 18) so I feel confident in saying that if he noticed an issue I'd be hearing about it.

 

[Quis89]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

My son had my old 6s+ and he's also not seeing a slowdown issue and he stays glued to his phone all day (he's 18) so I feel confident in saying that if he noticed an issue I'd be hearing about it.

That's good. I'd be interested in someone who started with the 6s+ on release day. They'd be able to better tell their experiences from when the phone was new until now. My son also gets my hand-me-downs. But his frame of reference isn't the same as mine because he doesn't know how the phone ran fresh out of the box. He knows how it runs after a year of use. So he may not recognize the same slowdowns I notice. My grandpa has a 5SE that he bought used. He doesn't have an issue with it. I use it and want to pull my hair out lol. I had a 5SE as well when it released but definitely don't remember it performing how his was. I could also just be so used to my X (and 7 Plus before that) that I just don't realize how slow things really were then.

 

[Quis89]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

1. How do we know that Android isn't doing the same thing?
2. We do know for certain that almost all Android OEMs but Google and Motorola have cheated on benchmark test apps (in other words, they let the processor spike when running Geekbench and other tests when the system should have spun down the processor clock with other apps.) OnePlus was just caught doing it again this year.

I agree that Apple should have been more clear about what was happening, but the release notes of iOS 10.2.1 said right in black and white that it included changes to improve the battery life on older devices. Nobody really figured out that this meant that they were clocking down the CPU at peaks only to prevent phones from shutting down from an excessive battery spike/

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893?locale=en_US

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I'd be willing to bet they do. Android is so fragmented of an OS that it'd be tough to roll out a mass fix for it though. +1 for Apple and iOS. But I recall the LG G3 having similar random restart issues.

 

[moshe5368]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

This is just like Washington politics. It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup. I still have a 6s+ as well as my 8+. I use both for my business and see no real difference in performance. I do think the software upgrades improve battery life and see that in my daily use of both phones. I agree that Apple should have been more transparent about the issue but, hey, they sell phones. Go figure.

 

[anon(50597)]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

1. How do we know that Android isn't doing the same thing?
2. We do know for certain that almost all Android OEMs but Google and Motorola have cheated on benchmark test apps (in other words, they let the processor spike when running Geekbench and other tests when the system should have spun down the processor clock with other apps.) OnePlus was just caught doing it again this year.

I agree that Apple should have been more clear about what was happening, but the release notes of iOS 10.2.1 said right in black and white that it included changes to improve the battery life on older devices. Nobody really figured out that this meant that they were clocking down the CPU at peaks only to prevent phones from shutting down from an excessive battery spike/

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893?locale=en_US

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This.

They weren’t hiding anything. Maybe they didn’t explain it in intimate detail, but how many people even read about what comes in an update? I’m willing to bet most people just hit the “update” button.

They were trying to help people with older devices and with poor batteries get more life out of their phones and they get flack for it.
Typical.

 

[MasterDarque]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

How come I haven't heard it called batterygate yet?

You haven’t been reading other forums?
Cough :MacRumors: cough...

 

[Trigati]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

How come I haven't heard it called batterygate yet?

Because you haven't looked at enough sites.

http://www.businessinsider.com/appl...es-slowed-down-and-why-its-a-big-deal-2017-12

 

[Premium1]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

Reducing the performance to maintain battery life is understandable IMO.

I agree but the fact they won't tell users is not. Not to mention the fact that if their battery tests say the battery is fine, they wont even allow users to get a new battery (even if they want to pay the $79 for it). This makes it seem it is more for apple to try and get people to upgrade versus maintaining battery life.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

I am always amazed at people’s expectations of “transparency” from a business and/or government entity. People are rarely completely transparent in a personal relationship, so what makes them think an entity will be transparent in all things? Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not defending Apple, but I am questioning the legitimacy of the claims about it failing to be transparent with regard to the battery issue. I’d argue that even if they had flat out told everyone, people would still be having a fit and calling it battery-gate.

 

[Wotchered]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

I agree but the fact they won't tell users is not. Not to mention the fact that if their battery tests say the battery is fine, they wont even allow users to get a new battery (even if they want to pay the $79 for it). This makes it seem it is more for apple to try and get people to upgrade versus maintaining battery life.

I concur, by doing this Apple is preventing affected owners from even testing the idea that their battery is past it's best ! And why? you are not going to convince me that it is not possible to at least break even at $79 !