[basseq]

This comment deserves more attention. And, in fact, means the headline is wrong.

Apple is not slowing down devices to extend battery life. Apple is slowing down devices to prevent the thing from crapping out entirely ("unexpectedly shutting down"). Arguably, this does more to prevent obsolescence than plan it.

Agreed with @djrogers suggestion to alert the user to the situation. It should not be a user choice.

"Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions [cold, low battery, battery age]."

[sambe]

That quote really hurts. My iPhone 6S has had spontaneous shutdowns since the first winter it was out (and is supposedly not in the replacement program). No previous Apple phones did. This winter it's the same. To me it suggests a more widespread defect that they do not wish to admit.

[abakker]

FYI - https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6s-unexpectedshutdown/ that was effected by a recall. You should check your serial number.

[sambe]

Like I said, it's not part of the replacement program.

[bastijn]

Put in my number for fun, found out it is eligible for a replacement. Good things after 2 years a free new battery :).

[bastijn]

So got my battery replaced today because of this thread. Feels very smooth again but may be between my ears. Only now realize I forgot to do a benchmark test with the old battery still in.

[abakker]

Glad it worked out.

[mrep]

Just got a brand new battery today after 2 years of usage thanks to your comment.

Thank you. You just saved me 80$ from paying to replace it myself.

Now I can justify to myself that it pays to read hacker news ;)

[valuearb]

Why didn't you replace it the first winter you had it? Would have been free.

[manmal]

Had the same problem - they told me I‘d have to wait up to 8 weeks for them to return my phone. I instead chose to pay a local repair shop €50 to swap the battery within 30 minutes. For €80 they would have used an original Apple battery replacement.

[siquick]

This was happening to me, resetting it solved the problem.

[lisper]

If that's true, why was Apple being so cagey about it for so long? Why didn't they advertise it as a feature?

[labster]

Feature list: * 4.7-inch retina display * 12MP camera * Phone will get slower over time

No, not seeing that advertisement working.

[Tloewald]

Well it's not like Android phones advertise "comes with malware direct from Google Play store" and "malware can run your phone so hard it will deform, catch fire, or explode"

[notatoad]

no, but that's also not true so it's not really a valid comparison.

[labster]

Actually the second one sounds like a selling point to me, in a Mythbusters sort of way.

[calciphus]

[citation needed]

[Tloewald]

Use google.

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/260789-new-android-malwar...

[calibas]

If anybody could sell it as a good thing, it's Apple. "Phone performance adjusts automatically to preserve battery life"

[Yetanfou]

Because it is not a "feature". It is a band-aid for a design defect in the affected iPhone models, advertising it as a feature would only draw attention to those design defects.

[acchow]

It's not a design defect. It is intentionally designed this way - as thin and light as possible with a battery that's only sufficiently powerful for the first month.

And they get planned obsolescence too!

It's intentional.

[ubernostrum]

Did you see how the internet reacted? Even the allegedly technically-competent parts of the internet?

[cowsandmilk]

When were they cagey about it? Not documenting something isn't equivalent to being cagey...

[lostmsu]

I would say it is quite cagey. I'd argue if your specs page says phone has 1.8GHz processor, it must deliver 1.8GHz otherwise it is faulty. If it does not live up to specs, and you (Apple) know about it, it is direct deception of the customer. I'd bet 100% court case victory for any complaining customer.

[andromeduck]

It does deliver 1.8 GHz though, but the window in which it can do that shrinks as your battery ages

[AETackaberry]

It's one of those things that woukd get bad press whether they were out in front of it or not, so you might as well keep quiet until it comes up.

[jsilence]

> Arguably, this does more to prevent obsolescence than plan it.

Why not simply make the battery replacable?

[kemiller]

I'm assuming you mean user-replaceable, since as others have pointed out, it is replaceable by a technician. And the answer is: it would compromise too many other areas of functionality. User-replaceable batteries would mean both internal housing hardware to create a bay, electrical contact interface, and housing for the battery itself. These would either add weight and bulk, or reduce the capacity of the battery overall, and it would make waterproofing much harder. I personally very much prefer the trade-offs Apple has made, and I suspect a lot of other people do too.

[QuotedForTruth]

It is replaceable, just not replaceable without expertise and tools. Would you say that most of your car parts aren't replaceable?

[michrassena]

Sure, and so are the motherboard, screen, digitizer, etc. But that doesn't make it consumer-friendly. The battery in my phone is also user replaceable. A new battery costs almost $20, and requires me to pull the back cover off the phone with my fingernails. Whatever excuses a company makes for not offering that feature really just boils down to making money.

[tcdent]

I'll take removing two screws to access the internals over having the entire thing fly apart when it's dropped on the ground any day. Do you remember removable batteries and cases from the early Nokia days? Even a minor jolt could interrupt the power supply and freeze the phone, so even if it didn't explode into four pieces, you still had to disassemble it and re-insert the battery.

Solid construction and mechanical fasteners are a feature. Servicing any part of an iPhone is not that hard; lack of serviceability is a myth.

Additionally, batteries are not the most commonly replaced part. So far my SE has had four screens and a lightning connector. I'll do the battery myself when I notice performance degrade, too.

[jrace]

The battery sure is, and so are the tires, windshield wipers, seats, etc.

have non-replaceable ram and cpu is one thing, but a part that is known to deteriorate with age and usage should be user replaceable.

[mikeash]

It is user replaceable. You can buy the part and the tools and do it yourself if you're handy with a screwdriver. It's not a simple matter of snap-out/snap-in, but it's not much harder than replacing a car's windshield wipers, and much easier than something like replacing tires or brake pads.

[nightski]

I've done this on many phones. The phone often isn't the same as it was initially because it was not designed for this. Many phones have tape that has been adhered through the use of heat. Changing the battery requires removal of many screws and disassembling very sensitive parts. Little mistakes can make the phone inoperable.

Not to mention you take it to a technician who has the tools and you'd assume is doing a good job right? No, often it's some high school kid who is not invested in doing a good job but rather just getting it done. It's sloppier than if you were to do it yourself. So you have to resort to buying hundreds of dollars of tools and taking painstaking hours to get it done right and even then it might not turn out.

To the other posters who argue'd that we make a choice about this - no we really don't get a choice. If you want a cutting edge phone there are simply 0 options with replaceable batteries. This is planned obsolescence in an age where my several year old Motorola works just fine for my needs.

[mikeash]

Hundreds of dollars of tools? iFixIt sells a kit with tools and a battery for $25.

[nielsbot]

The car is a good analogy.. As @mikeash said, it is replaceable, you just need tools, parts and expertise (and time and willingness). Same as replacing parts on your car.

[emmp]

It is just as user replaceable as those car parts, if not more so. It requires only a few cheap tools, some time, and maybe watching a YouTube video example before starting. I'm generally more comfortable dissembling my phone than my car since the consequences of messing up are much smaller.

[ghaff]

Returning to your car, so like your timing belt for example?

[komali2]

It's a "regular maintenance" type thing - less common than an oil change, sure, but perhaps just as necessary. So why not make it as easy as an oil change?

[metafunctor]

Having done both, I can tell you that replacing the battery on an iPhone is already easier than an oil change on a typical car. The iPhone parts are expensive, but it's a relatively simple operation for a trained person.

[abakker]

Not to mention that an Apple battery replacement is about the same cost as having someone change the oil in your car if you use full synthetic. I just don't get the complaints. If the battery is dying, get a new one. If you don't want to spend the money, then Apple has provided a feature that lets your phone keep running.

[waterphone]

I mean, I'll agree that replacing a battery on an iPhone is a rather easy thing to do, but it's definitely still easier to change a car's oil…

[JSONwebtoken]

Not to mention there are an infinite number of 5 minute tutorials on YouTube. You don't have to be trained, you just need a set of eyes and a brain. I'm glad an increasing number of phone manufacturers, not just Apple, put form factor and durability above user laziness.

[jelder]

Cars, you may have noticed, are big. Apple has made a tradeoff between replaceable batteries and small phones, and the market has more or less agreed with this decision.

[davrosthedalek]

Did the market know that their phone will be slowed down after a year? I don't think it was an informed decision.

An informed decision might yield the same outcome though.

[valuearb]

One of the reasons I upgraded to an iPhone X was that my 6 Plus was getting slow. I'm just now finding out that I could have replaced the battery for $85. Am I mad!?

No, I'm not. 3 years is long enough for a smart phone, I probably would have replaced it anyways. And I like the X way more.

My guess is most people plan to replace their phones after 2 years, and few have this problem before that. So disclosing probably doesn't change more than a minute number of purchase decisions. Though I don't doubt that some marketing person at Apple influenced limiting disclosure of this fix because they thought it helped upgrade rates. If that person exists, they should be fired, because it damaged Apple's credibility.

Instead of a hard to find value in settings that tells you your battery needs replacement, they should have a one time warning when it's first detected that explains this behavior.

[Bud]

The battery is replaceable. Apple offers free replacement with AppleCare and $79 replacement otherwise.

[TrainedMonkey]

I do not think situation is quite so simple. Apple has designed phones with insufficiently good battery to guarantee top speed operation as device ages. They have probably done it to make thinner handsets, but the end result is that an older device physically slows down. Moreover each new iOS release is slower and makes the older devices feel cruftish.

Where does that leave us? People that must have newest and fastest are encouraged to upgrade every year. Others accept slow downs due to old batteries and new iOS.

This is definitely not 'planned obsolescence' because your phone still works. Maybe 'encouraged obsolescence' is a better term.

[kregasaurusrex]

The problem isn't specifically Apple's batteries; it's with current Lithium-ion battery chemistry in general. As a whole, we've nearly reached the upper bound of where energy density and consumer safety are at for providing us with a good battery that doesn't easily explode and gives the phone a constant current. The documentary series NOVA had a good episode earlier in the year that showed some possible alternatives to these https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gxZrQ5yPsLI

Regarding the slowing down of devices, underclocking the CPU allows for both less power and a lower peak voltage to be drawn from the battery and extends the real usable life of the phone. Others would simply not turn on or pass a hardware test by failing to POST. You are right about new software versions being 'encouraged obsolescence'- a company that pushes features to its older phones knowing they may not be able handle these alongside the older essential ones definitely has an interest in you purchasing a new phone. This could easily be fixed by not having the slimmest phone on the market and instead have a thicker and more easily user-replacable battery.

[davidzweig]

"The problem isn't specifically Apple's batteries; it's with current Lithium-ion battery chemistry in general." - I'm not a battery expert, but at least according to this page [0], if you were to fit a 30% larger capacity battery, and only charge to a maximum of 4.0V instead of 4.2V, you'd apparently get the same day-to-day battery life, but the overall life of the battery would be extended 4x (ie from 1 years to 4 years)

[0] http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_li...

[esmi]

So you would be willing to have 30% less battery life everyday to avoid replacing the pack every couple of years? That’s a trade off I personally wouldn’t make.

[robotresearcher]

There is no such battery.

[ISL]

The performance requirements could be met, but the battery (and phone) would be larger and more massive.

[valuearb]

Even a bigger battery is going to degrade at the same rate. It might limit the need for CPU throttling, but probably not by much.

[ProfessorLayton]

Seeing as iPads are basically iPhones with much larger batteries, and don't suffer from the same issues, I disagree.

This could have been avoided if they weren't so obsessed with thinness. I reckon that if it was thick enough to not have a camera protrusion, it would be the perfect balance of form and battery life.

[ISL]

A larger battery, running the same CPU, with the same stated "battery life" as the original battery, will degrade gracefully for a longer period of time before the compute performance must also degrade.

[acchow]

Alternatively, you could say Apple is putting in a barely-sufficiently-sized battery for planned obsolescence... and masking it under "make it as thin and light as possible".

In reality, it's probably some mix of both sides.

[mempko]

Strange, I have an old HP veer That is 6 years old and it doesn't spontaneously shut down. I have a 3 year old android phone that doesn't spontaneously shut down. What is so special about iPhones and why do they crap out in 2 years?

[emmp]

My Nexus 6P starting having spontaneous shutdowns at 15-30% over the past few months. I replaced the battery and it's back to normal. My old Galaxy S4 before that had similar problems after 3ish years.

So a feature to throttle the CPU while I waited for a battery replacement on Android would have been great I think! It needs to be toggleable and it needs to clearly surface to the user what the long term fix is though (i.e., replace the battery). Apple's solution did neither of these, but if it did I think it would have been fine.

[swiley]

All of the Android phones I've had do when the battery starts to get old, Especially when you use the camera while it's low. Maybe you take better care of your batteries?

[nogridbag]

My 2013 Macbook Pro would spontaneously shut down with anywhere between 30-40% battery. I tried a few tips I found online to fix it, but nothing seemed to work.

[esmi]

This post gives us an estimate for what percentage of the iPhones are getting throttled by this issue. I think it's reasonable to use this as a proxy to estimate how many units were at risk of shutting down and it is the minority of units. Happily it appears both of your devices are in the majority of units which don't exhibit this issue.

https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/12/iphone-performance-an...

[valuearb]

If I read that correctly, is it 25% of two year old devices (6s) that are getting throttled?

[wdn]

Have your android get any update after a year? Doubt it.

If you do, are they even functional after the upgrade? Mine became couldn’t do anything because it is so slow after upgrade.

Only good thing was I had an unlocked boot loader and able to flash the original Android back

Please don’t act like Android is anything better. It is not.

[CaptSpify]

My 5 year old android gets the latest updates, and I don't have that issue either. I agree Android's are POS, but that doesn't detract from the fact that iPhones are also POS.

[em500]

what's so special is that modern iPhone CPUs are as fast as laptop CPUs (when untrottled).

[valuearb]

This. iPhone has been the industry leader in CPU performance and integrated processor functionality for a while now, I have no doubt that plays a role.

[calibas]

This is kinda of a gray area, if they really wanted to treat their customers well, they'd have easily-replaceable batteries and a notification that lets people know their phone is slowing down because they need a new battery. Still seems like planned obsolescence, or at the very least, encouraged obsolescence.

[epistasis]

>if they really wanted to treat their customers well, they'd have easily-replaceable batteries

It's an extremely infrequent service, but it's not difficult. Certainly much much easier than an oil change on a car, which is a frequent service. Instructions, third party supplies, and third party services are abundant for it. I don't think it's fair to call it anything but "easily-replaceable."

[Fnoord]

> I don't think it's fair to call it anything but "easily-replaceable."

Yeah? Well that is peculiar. Here [1] [2] it says: "Difficulty: Moderate". I guess someone is wrong on the Internet, and I don't think its iFixit.

You see, the battery in my phone can be replaced in literally under half a minute. Without any special tools. Without any guide. The only thing is, I gotta buy the battery from the vendor, for 20 EUR.

That is, according to my reference point, "easily-replaceable" indeed (I could even do it whilst I'm hiking without any special tools), while the circus act you're going to have to put up (which includes all kind of non-standard tools (with additional price tag) which you can read about at [1] and [2]), clearly -without the shed of a doubt- makes it a lot more difficult to replace the bloody thing.

And let us be honest: that is entirely intended. Because else, Apple would use standard screws, and wouldn't use all kind of acts to use more obscure screws.

Fun fact: my mother, in her 60s, has changed oil numerous upon numerous times in her life. She's never replaced a battery in a phone though. Some people are scared opening up hardware. Heck, I bet she was scared refreshing oil the first time as well but my father guided her (he became blind, so couldn't do it anymore). Another one: the other day I was replacing a battery and reapplying thermal paste on my partner's MBP and my partner's sister complimented that I was doing that, even though it was my first time doing that and I was just using iFixit's guide. (I still managed to kill the iSight camera, even though the guide said I shouldn't worry about that connector. GG). That guide said Moderate difficulty as well IIRC. And I screwed it up. So... easy? Give me a break. Its tedious. And that, too, is way more difficult than opening up a ThinkPad T61.

Ergo, my point is that calling it "easily-replaceable" completely and utterly ignores how easy it used to be to replace your cellphone's battery. Call it a reality distortion field if you must.

So your reference point is yours, and mine is mine. We can call it there. I won't though; I want other people to take iFixit's reference point more serious than randomers because they are experts at defining the difficulty and their guides have been proofread and used. By many eyes.

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+6+Battery+Replacement/29...

[2] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+6+Plus+Battery+Replaceme...

[valuearb]

I don't want an easily replaceable battery, the trade-offs are too costly and benefits too small.