[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.

[chipotle_coyote]

What I believe mthoms is saying that the "battery management" software was the secret thing, because it was. We all have a basic idea that when your battery is going bad you should replace it, I imagine, but the software fix Apple silently pushed out arguably prolonged battery life at the expense of making the phone run slower. But if the Apple Geniuses weren't told this was happening, they wouldn't be able to say, "Oh, yeah, your phone's turned on battery management because your battery isn't doing well."

[jki275]

I get what he's asserting, I just think he's wrong.

[mthoms]

The phrasing you've chosen ("degraded performance") is purposefully vague in order to move the goal posts. Please don't do that.

We're specifically talking about lower CPU clocking. Now, are you claiming to have known that Apple was throttling Phones with aging batteries before the rest of the world? Because well, that's a pretty amazing feat.

[jki275]

No, I'm not "moving the goalposts".

The accusation is that Apple downclocked the phone in order to degrade the phone's performance and make people buy new phones.

In fact, Apple downclocked the phones so that already degraded phones could continue to function without becoming unusable.

That's all it was.

[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.

[mthoms]

You were likely part of a very specific recall.

It's been established (and admitted to by Apple themselves) that the throttling was not properly explained to consumers.

[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.

[mthoms]

>This was not a secret and support people recommended it if you actually contacted them.

False. The retail and support staff were not informed of the throttling. See my other comment.

[acdha]

True, as personally witnessed.

[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.

[addison-lee]

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

[mthoms]

So they wrote code to deal with degrading battery health while at the same time didn't know about degrading battery health?

[schadara]

Not sure how neglecting to inform users of throttling is some kind of improvement.

They have an article about hardware microphone disconnects, prolonging battery life, etc. yet they neglected to write an article about hardware throttling.

It's almost as if they had a hardware problem and instead of issuing a recall, they quietly pushed a software fix. 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.

[mthoms]

Can confirm. My 5s suffered the random shutdown issue and wasn't part of the throttling fix.

[schadara]

Yes, this was a feature. This feature was so great that they kept it a secret and were subject to lawsuits and forced to pay millions in fines.

[thebruce87m]

They were fined for not telling people about the feature. The feature still exists.

[snowwrestler]

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

[schadara]

You seem pretty certain about their intent. The truth is Apple added battery throttling in iPhone 6 and up not in their older phones even though their older devices were capable of CPU throttling as well. For example, the iPhone 5S would throttle if it got hot enough to protect itself, yet it didn't receive the same throttling feature for the battery.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/ipad-airs-a7-chip-is...

[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.