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

[Quis89]

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 they had flat out told everyone people would still be having a fit and calling it battery-gate.

It’s not unreasonable to ask that a tech company simply let us know they are slowing down our devices prior to allowing us to purchase a new device due to that slowness when other options would be available such as a new battery. That’s quite a shallow transparency level to request, imo. I didn’t expect so many people to be so nonchalant about this honestly lol. Good for Apple at least.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

It’s not unreasonable to ask that a tech company simply let us know they are slowing down our devices prior to allowing us to purchase a new device due to that slowness when other options would be available such as a new battery. That’s quite a shallow transparency level to request, imo. I didn’t expect so many people to be so nonchalant about this honestly lol. Good for Apple at least.

It’s not unreasonable to understand that a company will make efforts to get its current customers to upgrade to its latest offering(s). That’s business 101.

 

[Quis89]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

After years of people saying “Apple doesn’t throttle older phones to get you to upgrade” and now your response is this?

It’s not unreasonable to understand that a company will make efforts to get its current customers to upgrade to its latest offering(s). That’s business 101.

That’s unfortunate.

There are other ways to encourage consumer spending that don’t include manipulation and shady practices.

I don’t even know if I believe Apple was being manipulative here. But if they were, and your response was their thinking, that’s scary lol.

 

[anon(10092459)]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

It’s not unreasonable to understand that a company will make efforts to get its current customers to upgrade to its latest offering(s). That’s business 101.

I want to make sure I understand what you're saying..

I am reading this as "I'm okay with Apple throttling devices without consumer knowledge in the interest of business"

I don't want to misinterpret. Would you add a little more color to that post?

 

[TripleOne]

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 completely agree!
As mentioned by Rob, Apple should have not been transparent about it.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Apple admits it slows down older phones

I want to make sure I understand what you're saying..

I am reading this as "I'm okay with Apple throttling devices without consumer knowledge in the interest of business"

I don't want to misinterpret. Would you add a little more color to that post?

I’m saying this: to think that a company will not take steps to get its customers to buy its newest offering(s) is naive. In addition, expecting complete transparency from a company with a history of secrecy for an issue like this when arguably a majority of its customers willingly buy its newest iPhone model “every” year out of desire is laughable to “me”.

 

[doogald]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

After years of people saying “Apple doesn’t throttle older phones to get you to upgrade” and now your response is this?

But Apple didn't. They throttle phones with underperforming batteries **only when the demand would make the battery fail and shut down the phone**. Note that the performance isn't throttled 100% of the time - it's only when cranking up the CPU would cause the battery to dramatically drain. If anything Apple isn't throttling to get you to upgrade; they are throttling because they wanted to reduce problems for people with phones that shut down when the battery meter reads 40%, and wanted people with these older phones to continue to be able to use them as long as they wished, rather than live with a phone that might shut down at any moment. Throttling to make people upgrade is the exact opposite of why they throttled. If they wanted to make people upgrade, they'd put up a message (like the iPhone is too hot message) that the phone can no no longer run and it's time to replace the battery or upgrade to a new phone.

I have to be honest - I think Apple not saying that CPU was occasionally reduced was the right choice. The vast, vast, vast majority of people cannot understand the nuances of how these devices work and wouldn't have been able to understand that the CPU doesn't run at full speed most of the time anyway. Clearly, from the reaction to this story, people still don't understand this.

 

[anon(10092459)]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

I’m saying this: to think that a company will not take steps to get its customers to buy its newest offering(s) is naive. In addition, expecting complete transparency from a company with a history of secrecy for an issue like this when arguably a majority of its customers willingly buy its newest iPhone model “every” year out of desire is laughable to “me”.

I got ya, I think.. You're saying, basically, that it's a fool's move to forget that Apple is a for profit company. Expecting them to be "your best friend/neighbor/bother-in-law" is silly from the beginning.

 

[Quis89]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

I got ya, I think.. You're saying, basically, that it's a fool's move to forget that Apple is a for profit company. Expecting them to be "your best friend/neighbor/bother-in-law" is silly from the beginning.

This is such a wild belief to me. I get that they are for profit. But if we are excusing a company secretly manipulating our devices to encourage us to upgrade out of some odd belief that business’ have the right to do whatever they want for profit regardless of the unfairness it causes consumers and we are silly to think otherwise, that is insane to me. Lol. Holy cow I can’t believe we are excusing this with that as a rational. I can see debating their intentions. But to excuse poor execution and manipulation under the guise of “its business” is wild to me. I respect the opinion but man I don’t agree with it in the least lol.

And it’s not completely transparency I’m talking about. But man, why shouldn’t I be able to know what’s going on under the hood of my phone, that I purchased, before buying another phone? How is that wrong of a consumer to expect? Simply to know the manufacturer is slowing down my device to save the battery and that’s why I’m noticing slowness. An expectation of that level can’t seriously be seen as naive can it? Maybe it is and I’m just weird lol.

 

[Quis89]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

But Apple didn't. They throttle phones with underperforming batteries **only when the demand would make the battery fail and shut down the phone**. Note that the performance isn't throttled 100% of the time - it's only when cranking up the CPU would cause the battery to dramatically drain. If anything Apple isn't throttling to get you to upgrade; they are throttling because they wanted to reduce problems for people with phones that shut down when the battery meter reads 40%, and wanted people with these older phones to continue to be able to use them as long as they wished, rather than live with a phone that might shut down at any moment. Throttling to make people upgrade is the exact opposite of why they throttled. If they wanted to make people upgrade, they'd put up a message (like the iPhone is too hot message) that the phone can no no longer run and it's time to replace the battery or upgrade to a new phone.

I have to be honest - I think Apple not saying that CPU was occasionally reduced was the right choice. The vast, vast, vast majority of people cannot understand the nuances of how these devices work and wouldn't have been able to understand that the CPU doesn't run at full speed most of the time anyway. Clearly, from the reaction to this story, people still don't understand this.

I’m honestly not saying they did. I’m only responding to the “a company should be able to do what they want to sell their product” sentiment mentioned above. That was the point of that statement. Because IF that’s what Apple is doing, it seems that practice was excused above under the guise of “business 101”. That is just wild to me.

 

[DJLILM]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

I'm still on the 6 plus and iOS 10.3.3 and i notice from time to time the phone would freeze while in apps.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

I got ya, I think.. You're saying, basically, that it's a fool's move to forget that Apple is a for profit company. Expecting them to be "your best friend/neighbor/bother-in-law" is silly from the beginning.

Although your statement is true, my focus was more on the expectation of transparency. In addition, the claims that Apple ‘forced customers to upgrade” due to their ‘throttling’ is bunch of crap for the most part, in my not so humble opinion. . Like always, the folks that are screaming bloody murder are ‘probably’ techies who rarely keep their devices longer than 12 months. Then again, I live in ‘Realville’ where we are expected to change what we can, accept what we can’t and make the best of what we have with the understanding that there are pitfalls and deceptions in government, business and in our personal lives.

 

[SprSynJn]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

While I understand their reasoning for doing this, I have to mirror many here in questioning why they haven’t said anything up until they were caught. I’m not really surprised, sadly, that others are just writing them off however.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

You’re the CEO of a company that is set to make a billion dollars from a device it is about to sell. Folks are chomping at the bit to purchase it. An hour before your device officially goes on sale, one of your techs alert you to a flaw he discovered that he calculated would affect approximately 2% of those devices. Do you

A. Postpone the opening sale and alert prospective customers of the flaw, thus risk losing millions of dollars

or

B. Make the decision to continue as planned and not mention the flaw because it would be cheaper to deal with the aftermath from the 2% that are affected.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

While I understand their reasoning for doing this, I have to mirror many here in questioning why they haven’t said anything up until they were caught. I’m not really surprised, sadly, that others are just writing them off however.

I hear ya. Some of us would conclude that we should get a new battery and then go about our business. Know what I mean?

 

[TwitchyPuppy]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

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.

All that caused by a very, very degraded battery

 

[anon(50597)]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

Apples choices:

1. People with older phones where the battery has degraded to the point where processes due to the upgraded OS kill their phone during high demand times complain because their phone is dying and aren’t smart enough to either buy a new phone or replace their battery which is common sense.

2. Apple finds a way to slow these same phones down only during these high demand times so that the phone performs better and people complain because Apple was “hiding something from them”.

Conclusion: people will complain about anything and throw around the term “class action lawsuit” any time they can.

 

[doogald]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

Apples choices:

1. People with older phones where the battery has degraded to the point where processes due to the upgraded OS kill their phone during high demand times complain because their phone is dying and aren’t smart enough to either buy a new phone or replace their battery which is common sense.

2. Apple finds a way to slow these same phones down only during these high demand times so that the phone performs better and people complain because Apple was “hiding something from them”.

Conclusion: people will complain about anything and throw around the term “class action lawsuit” any time they can.

There was another choice. Remember the message you get when the iPhone is too hot and it has to cool before you can use it? Apple could have chosen to crash the running app and put up a notice that the app was closed because the battery is not in a state to run an app that requires that much power, and potentially offer to go into a low power state to let you try again.

But, you're right that people would complain about that, too.

 

[anon(50597)]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

There was another choice. Remember the message you get when the iPhone is too hot and it has to cool before you can use it? Apple could have chosen to crash the running app and put up a notice that the app was closed because the battery is not in a state to run an app that requires that much power, and potentially offer to go into a low power state to let you try again.

But, you're right that people would complain about that, too.

I agree. Hindsight always shows us alternatives.

 

[Premium1]

Re: Apple admits it slows down older phones

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 !

Agree. I could see if people are going in asking for a free battery replacement, but no way that the battery cost anywhere near $79.