[thebruce87m]

I wish people would qualify their “Apple Hate” every time they mention it. It would make it easier to know who’s opinions to discount.

An alarming number of people still believe Apple slowed down all their old phones for the sole purpose of selling them new ones for example.

[bakedbeanz]

They did absolutely slow down their older phones, but it comes down to whether you believe that their explanation of why was the whole truth. https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/02/apple-agrees-to-settlement...

I'm not an Apple hater or a fanboy. I've owned a number of Apple devices in the past. However, they have their issues just like any other tech company, but their devoted following does seem to be more cultish than that of, say, Microsoft or Google.

[thebruce87m]

I know the intricacies of what they did. To summarise: some phones with older batteries would suffer brownouts because the internal resistance of the battery was too high. They updated the OS to detect the brownout and throttle the CPU to prevent it happening again.

So they didn’t slow down all old phones, only ones that had the problem. They actually attempted to fix older models. To me this is the opposite of planned obsolescence and appeals to my environmental view that all manufacturers should be supporting their hardware as least as long as Apple currently does.

Now they didn’t communicate, and were fined. I think that is fair enough, but I feel the size of the fine was quite excessive given they were trying to extend the life of their customers hardware.

Note that the other phone manufacturers that have exactly the same problems did nothing and are actually better off because of it.

[mthoms]

Your "summary" curiously omits one of the most important details — That the battery could be replaced and the phone would perform like new. If not, the ever deteriorating battery would result in a never ending arms race of throttling. Inevitably, that phone and battery would be in the landfill instead of just the latter.

Whether or not the whole thing was intentionally nefarious I'm not convinced. But the episode looks way worse than your comment suggests.

[thoraway1010]

Man - almost every other phone brand ends in the the trash MUCH MUCH sooner than Apple, so this is funny to read.

Seriously - can you tell me how long you received updates on your android phone?

Apple is the absolute leader in getting longer life out of their phones, they have much higher resale as a result as well.

Apple not only allows older devices to installer newer software (with bug fixes / security fixes / and supportable features) but they have been backporting stuff to a one step earlier iOS as well in terms of basic fixes. It's actually crazy especially in comparison to their competitors (that get no flak on HN) who literally ship with an old version of android AND DO NOT UPDATE IT!

[mthoms]

The statement wasn't about how Apple's phones compare with other phones. It was (pretty clearly I thought) about how long Apple phones with new batteries last against those without new batteries (and throttling applied).

>Seriously - can you tell me how long you received updates on your android phone?

I've used Apple computers exclusively since about 2005 and phones since around 2009. So no, I've never owned an Android phone. In fact, my small apartment has no less than 8 Apple devices in use between my partner and I.

Why do you assume I'm not an Apple user? Because I said something mildly critical of them?

[chipotle_coyote]

My understanding of the change they made was that it was expressly to deal with a condition with failing batteries where, as they were nearing the end of their life, they would just shut off abruptly when they still claimed to have 40% or more charge left -- the problem was that they could no longer deliver peak power, and if the phone tried to draw what was now too much power for something, it'd fail. The solution to that was to limit how much power the phone could draw.

I don't think it was intentionally nefarious -- this is a real problem with this kind of battery and I've experienced it, and it's not unique to Apple devices. In theory, their solution is actually pretty good! The problem was the way they communicated this to end users, namely, that they didn't. They just did it. And didn't even have iOS tell you it had enabled this "battery management" mode when it was turned on.

This wasn't an engineering fiasco, it was a PR fiasco. Apple has always been guilty of what we could diplomatically call "under-communicating," but this is the sort of change someone -- many someones, arguably -- internally should have flagged and said, "No, look, this isn't something we should just do silently, in part because it's going to create a suboptimal user experience and in part because if we don't communicate what we're doing and why we're doing it, it's going to come across as us just slowing old phones down to make you buy new ones."

[erik_seaberg]

A short-lived consumable that can't be field-replaced is always an engineering fiasco. I used to keep a spare battery in my backpack; an external USB battery is not a reliable substitute when (not if) the internal battery gets bad enough.

[jki275]

Are you suggesting it wasn’t known that battery replacements were available for iPhones? I know I personally replaced several batteries over the years in iPhones, I don’t think that was a big secret. There were shops you could drop your phone off at and have anew battery put in for fifty bucks in an hour overseas at least.

[movedx]

> There were shops you could drop your phone off at and have anew battery put in for fifty bucks in an hour overseas at least.

Actually I bought my iPhone 6S in Australia and had the battery replaced for free in Vienna under their battery replacement program. It was done in 45 minutes.

[mthoms]

>Are you suggesting it wasn’t known that battery replacements were available for iPhones?

I'm asserting as fact that Apple retail and support employees were kept in the dark about throttling. So, even if you had Applecare, your "genius" would tell you that your phone wasn't slowing down (you were imagining it) or that the slow down was an inevitable result of ever more complex OS upgrades. The end result is that you were told nothing could be done.

So no one was told the simple truth. That poor performance was related to poor battery health and could be rectified by a simple battery replacement.

[jki275]

Are you sure about that? I thought it was pretty much common knowledge that your battery going bad would degrade performance and it was time to get a new battery.

[schadara]

Apple didn't inform users that battery replacements would make their sluggish phones fast again.

[movedx]

But they did, though? I got an email telling me my battery was part of a replacement program before this throttling "scandal" broke. I had it replaced for free in Vienna (phone was bought in Australia) in 45 minutes. I had noticed the throttling taking place but it wasn't until the email that I knew about the fault.

[acdha]

More accurately, Apple didn’t have a UI notification. This was not a secret and support people recommended it if you actually contacted them.

[addison-lee]

It's almost as if you get ideas to improve products as time goes on. No, that can't be it.

[thebruce87m]

I didn’t leave it out on purpose. In my eyes it was a “limp home” mode so you would expect it to return to full performance. If it didn’t then that definitely would be a scandal.

Yes, they definitely should have communicated better. 100%. It was non obvious to any users that the phone had been throttled and that it needed a new battery. I think the fine they got will remind them to be more explicit in the future.

The feature still exists today, just explained better.

[sudosysgen]

It wasn't non-obvious. It was covert. People had to root phones and observe CPU frequencies to uncover it. I see absolutely no indication that the intent was for the batteries to get replaced.

[schadara]

It's curious that this problem was introduced in the iPhone 6, but not in their earlier phones, wouldn't you say?

[29083011397778]

I'd assume the solution was introduced with the iPhone 6. The problem was there much earlier, due to the way Li-Po batteries work.

As such, it could even be counted as one of the touches Apple is known for that other OEMs don't bother with. It just needed better communication.

[snowwrestler]

They introduced in direct response to people keeping their phones for longer--an more recent industry trend that has been well documented.

[movedx]

> Your "summary" curiously omits one of the most important details — That the battery could be replaced and the phone would perform like new.

I considered this omitted because it's obvious given the technical details surrounding the throttling to begin with.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

Yeah, I had an old, slowed iPhone 5S and I had a third party shop replace the battery and when it can me back, it was significantly faster.

[schadara]

Supposedly, Apple didn't "implement" battery throttling on the iPhone 5S - Apple's discount battery replacement program only applied to the iPhone 6 and up. This suggests that Apple switched to a flawed battery technology in hardware starting in the iPhone 6 that wasn't realized until years later. And, instead of issuing a recall or repair program, they pushed a silent cover up in the software. Whatever the motive, they should have been more open about it.

I had an iPhone 5S that ran ok until I upgraded to iOS 13, IIRC. After that, the frames started skipping and it became frustrating to use.

[judge2020]

You could ask any non-Apple industry personnel about what happens to batteries after years of constant usage and all of them will agree that eventually you eventually won't be able to pull the power you need to keep the phone running fast. Getting a new battery always fixed this, Apple just was performing this power management without telling the user before ios 12.1.

[thebean11]

But if I'm an average user and my phone is slow, my first thought isn't "hey I should get the battery replaced". It's perfectly reasonable to assume the phone would still be slow, so why not just buy a newer model?

It's a lie of omission, which you could reasonably interpret as a trick to get people to upgrade.

[hwbehrens]

If Apple had done nothing, then that same user's phone would randomly start switching off at non-0 battery levels (the un-throttled behavior) when brownouts occurred. Wouldn't the same user still come to the same conclusion, that their phone has some problem and needs to be replaced?

In general, the mobile phone industry has done a pretty good job encouraging their userbase to forget that their batteries are replaceable, so I don't think that most users would consider that as a remediation step off the top of their head.

I think it's plain that the best solution would be informing the user of the problem and letting them choose between behaviors (or, you know, replace the battery), but between slow usage and random shutdowns, I would personally choose the former.

I wonder if there have been any studies on how many users, once the toggle had been added, switched it from the (default) throttling behavior to the shutdown behavior? I'd be curious to see if I'm in the minority there.

[thebean11]

> If Apple had done nothing, then that same user's phone would randomly start switching off at non-0 battery levels (the un-throttled behavior) when brownouts occurred. Wouldn't the same user still come to the same conclusion, that their phone has some problem and needs to be replaced?

No I actually think then the average person would assume it's a battery issue, or at least be able to google it. I'm not saying that this is actually better behavior (I would also choose slow mode over random shutoff mode), but it doesn't obfuscate the fact that the phone has a faulty battery.

The reason I suspect that Apple did this maliciously is that "service battery" notifications are pretty standard behavior (including on their own laptops). It just seems like an intentional omission.

[Lownin]

If you're an average user and your phone is spontaneously rebooting, you probably think to replace it even more.

[thebean11]

If the battery is dying at <5% I think it's pretty obvious. But I think the real solution is the throttling behavior PLUS a "service battery" notification.

[movedx]

> It's a lie of omission

I got an email well before the throttling "scandal" broke out telling me my battery could be replaced for free. It was, 16,000KMs away from home, for free.

What was it Apple lied about?

[thebean11]

I didn't know about this email, but it still seems like a pretty bad way to communicate this no? How about a notification from the OS like in Apple's laptops?

[movedx]

I agree. They deffo dropped the ball on this one.

[derivagral]

A big point of this is how user-hostile replacing a battery on a phone has become for flagship mobile devices, which makes this situation a bit worse IMO.

[jmull]

> their devoted following does seem to be more cultish

I don't know about that. I seem to see a lot of irrational Apple hate, but not that much irrational Apple love.

I think they are far from perfect in many, many ways. But so much criticism of them appears overblown, short-sighted, irrelevant to me, or just plain wrong.

I look at it like this: all things considered, balancing various concerns, what's the best option for me for my given needs? Following that philosophy I've ended up with a lot of Apple gear. Am I a fanboy because a better alternative doesn't exist?

[sbuk]

Exactly this. In fact, I’d suggest it’s a massive circular argument. A lot of the vehement ‘defence’ of Apple I see is usually in response to some outlandish claim being made against them, which is often made in response to a gushing anecdote of how great Apple are. It has been ever thus.

[webmobdev]

> I wish people would qualify their “Apple Hate” every time they mention it.

Sure, let me do that: Apple is a corporation and it is stupid to believe that they care more about you than making profits.

This applies to any corporation. I've particularly noticed that the US citizens are increasingly buying into this propaganda that corporations can better protect their rights than a democratically elected government. And that is just sad and dangerous. We should be campaigning for our privacy rights directly with the government, and not just hope that some corporation will act benevolent towards us.

(And it is not a coincidence that this "news" came up in the social media feeds when the [news about exploits that granted unauthorised access to your camera through Safari is going around](https://www.ryanpickren.com/webcam-hacking-overview).)

The issue here is that instead of adding a physical switch to disable the microphone and camera, Apple is again asking its users to blindly trust it. We just have to take their word for it that it will work. They can always blame a bug in the firmware if somebody finds a way to exploit it tomorrow ...

(Note: I mentioned the Safari exploit only to point out that there is some negative news which obviously a corporation would like to bury with some positive publicity. It is commendable that Apple paid the discoverer a nice bounty and will be fixing it soon.)

Edit: And, ofcourse, the downvotes begin as the social media management team steps in.

[lrdd]

I don't think caring about the user and making profits are mutually exclusive. A company that is interested in delivering what the user wants and needs will often make profit. It's not a case of 'with the user' or 'against the user'.

[jay_kyburz]

I think the OP is trying to say that there is no evidence that apple cares about the user, only its own image in the eyes of users.

There is always an antagonistic relationship between buyers and sellers. Buyers want more money for less features, Sellers want more features for less money.

There is no such thing as "with the user", unless the users are shareholders in the company.

[CapriciousCptl]

I see opinions like this and then see corporations like Costco that you’d have to try hard to find a reason to hate. Ultimately you’re not going to align the interests of different groups perfectly, but profits and competion align value with consumer value we’ll most of the time. And I think it’s fair taking Apple at its word for now— you can bet a lot of tear down people want to test this.

[nixpulvis]

Apple is easy to hate if you want stuff that you can trust to work over time. Anything that locks you in as much as they do is not a friend of mine (anymore).

They aren't the worst player, or even close really however. It's just there's a lot of power and influence in that company, so you hear a lot about it.

[geekifier]

> I wish people would qualify their “Apple Hate” every time they mention it.

Apple hate? I'm a Mac convert, and I admire most of their hardware and design. But it's no secret they purposely refuse to interoperate with other vendors, and purposely develop proprietary technologies to keep you within their ecosystem. The recent acquisition, and subsequent planned shutdown of Dark Sky is just one recent example.

Part of it is just the business model, I guess. For example, Google's apps are widely available across a variety of devices, since it gives Google the juicy data that they're after. For Apple, which is not an ad company, the incentive might not be there for opening their apps up to a wider audience.

Since I cannot justify a $1k+ phone for myself and my family members (I am content with my $500 S10e), and I have a mix of Mac, Linux, and Windows devices, the Apple applications (however well designed) are sadly out.

[monadic2]

Apple will always make the right choice—until it messes with their business model. There are uncountable examples of ways in which they have intentionally crippled their own hardware and software to prevent users from using their own purchase.

[simonh]

I wish we lived in a world where people only said things like that they believed.

[freedomben]

I think we do. The problem is that people often believe things based on perception and snap judgement, which are often wrong. And once somebody has some "knowledge" even if gained through unreliable means, displacing that "knowledge" is rather difficult.

It's an artifact from evolving in a world where snap judgments were often the difference between life and death, and the person who assumed the rustle in bushes was just the wind, but it was actually a tiger, did not live to propagate. However, the paranoid person who thought it was a tiger every time the wind rustled the bushes, did survive to propagate.

Our current political system is pretty good evidence of people believing strongly enough in ideology to destroy the lives of others. I think they really do believe the stuff, and that's why it's so dangerous.

[simonh]

I don't know. I suspect a lot of people spreading fake news, conspiracy theories and crap like this know perfectly well it's rubbish.

[freedomben]

Certainly some people do that, but I would imagine it's a very small subset that are either trolls or consequentialists who feel the end justifies the means who originate it. Most who spread it are useful idiots (I use the word idiot very lightly. It's easy for anyone who is human to get suckered by a fake news story here or there).

I have quite a few family and friends that unintentionally spread fake news because they really thought the story was real. One in particular is extremely hateful toward fake news but made a conclusion based on a headline that turned out wrong (we don't all have time to read every story we see, as much as we'd want to).

[shaklee3]

I don't hate them, but I find their hardware is typically not as good as the competition, and for a higher price. I also think most people that buy Apple devices don't know this, or just refuse to believe it.

For example, I can't tell you how many times I've heard "I tried a Moto g and it's horrible! My old iPhone was better", or "this $300 Dell laptop is way worse than my MacBook". Of course a $1000 phone is better than a $200 phone, and likewise for the laptops.

But when you start looking at high-end laptops like the surface series, or phones like oppo/Huawei, it's usually in favor of the non-apple.

[jakear]

People don’t buy specs, they buy experiences. If the Android has 12GB ram and some super fast processor, but runs in a GC’d runtime that stutters when collecting and unloads background apps with high frequency, it’s not actually better than whatever’s in the iPhone.

Plenty of videos out there comparing opening a bunch of apps in a cycle on iPhone vs Android. Android wins the first open, iPhone destroys on the second. (iPhone is able to keep all apps in suspense, whereas android unloads them)

[kube-system]

Don't make the mistake of assuming 'experience' is synonymous with 'performance' either.

Side-by-side comparisons aren't really of any real-world significance. Very few people do that when forming their opinions. For the average person, performance either detracts from the experience, or it doesn't.

There are many other factors that are more important to experience than performance. Does the interface conflict with their expectations? Does the user find the features to be self-explanatory? Does the device enable the user to conform to social expectation?

> People don’t buy specs, they buy experiences.

More specifically, people don't buy actual experiences, they buy expectations of experience. 99%+ of people who buy a phone haven't had more than a couple of moments of experience with it. They buy it because they expect it to be good based on their first impressions and/or preconceived notions.

[shaklee3]

I think you will need to be more specific. I have never seen a difference in high-end phones with Apple versus Samsung or any of the other Android phones with the latest Snapdragon.

[jakear]

Is one plus 7 pro on latest snaP dragon? https://youtu.be/Ic8q1kPseVE

[shaklee3]

One plus isn't the same as Oppo. One plus is the cheaper brand from the same manufacturer.

[jakear]

It is an "Android phones with the latest Snapdragon", is it not? And it was outperformed by iPhone 11. These goalpoasts are sliding...

[lern_too_spel]

> iPhone is able to keep all apps in suspense, whereas android unloads them

Android also saves activity state for fast resume and keeps activities running until there is memory pressure. I've heard people complain about iOS devices in this regard because they do the same thing but don't have enough memory to do it effectively.

[_ph_]

There is a lot of great hardware out there, no doubt. But the question isn't that simple. Another big component is the software. For the desktop, I find MacOS difficult to beat. I like and use Linux a lot, but there are commercial applications, I can't run on Linux. And I want to avoid Windows if possible.

And once you stepped in the Apple universe, you will find a large number of devices working together. The Mac, the phone, the tablet.

So there are many reasons to choose an Apple product, beyond its specs per dollar. Also, while I think that Apple prices are high, and upgrade prices even outrageously high, if I spec a high quality competitor coparatively, I often am not that far away from the Apple prices.

[shaklee3]

I don't agree with that. With the advent of WSL on Windows you can happily run Linux whenever you want and have all the normal ubuntu pieces available to you without starting a VM. You also get the windows application catalog, which is essentially every piece of major software ever written. With WSL now in the picture, I don't see how a BSD-based OS could beat it given that many applications that an apt install can give you aren't available as easily or at all there.

[_ph_]

As I wrote, I don't like Windows much and are happier not having to use it. I still don't like the overly flat UI style and well, it is still Windows with all its oddities over the ages. I also get the impression, that Windows handles HiDPI way worse than MacOS, which is an important criterium.

WSL certainly has the potential to be a game changer and this has made Windows potentially interesting to me. What would really be a huge step, if Microsoft would built a Wayland server into the Windows UI. Having Linux GUI apps running on the native Windows UI with all acceleration, could make it a premier desktop for running Linux applications.

[voqv]

Well the BSD-based OS OP's talking about doesn't run loads of questionable telemetry (just judging by CPU usage) and does not turn on at night to install an update that will reset whatever telemetry settings the user hacked to disable.

[Hnrobert42]

Well, with Oppo and Huawei in particular, its pretty easy to beat the competition with state sponsored industrial espionage subsidizing their R&D costs.

[shaklee3]

Samsung, too.