[ryao]

My recollection is different. The batteries were not defective. They simply got old in terms of cycle life and once they were old enough, they could not support the peak current needed by the phones causing crashes. Apple shipped an iOS update that throttled the CPU frequencies of phones with old batteries and called it a stability update without explaining anything. Phones stopped crashing, but started to become slower. Then 12-18 months later, people realized how the update worked and there was outrage because of how Apple handled it. Then Apple shipped an update to give customers visibility into this, published documentation and offered to replace batteries that were below 80% capacity for $29 for a year.

[frollogaston]

I've owned multiple iPhones that I've kept for a long time. The iPhone 6 was the only one that shut down randomly, and the phone was only 2 years old then, so yes it seemed defective. After it did that once, it got throttled to the point of being nearly unusable for several months until Apple pushed an update to let me disable that.

Most users seemingly responded by just buying newer iPhones that didn't have this problem, before Apple even offered the $29 fixes. I got an old iPhone 5 instead, and it was fine. So I'm pretty convinced the 6 was just bad.

[giingyui]

> “We found that a small number of iPhone 6S devices made in September and October 2015 contained a battery component that was exposed to controlled ambient air longer than it should have been before being assembled into battery packs. As a result, these batteries degrade faster than a normal battery and cause unexpected shutdowns to occur. It’s important to note, this is not a safety issue.”

Seems a defect to me.

[ryao]

I had forgotten about those, since they had not been relevant to the controversy at the time. The controversy had applied to nearly all iPhones at the time, not just the small number of iPhone 6s devices with batteries that degraded prematurely due a manufacturing issue. The only ones that were exempt were the oldest iPhones that did not receive iOS updates anymore such that they never received an update that throttled the CPU when the battery was degraded. Had Apple given users documentation on its throttling patch and visibility into battery health upfront, there would never have been any controversy.

The current issue affecting Google Pixel 6a phones is a safety defect, which is quite different than Apple’s throttling controversy. It has more in common with Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7.

[refulgentis]

^ vouch

Also boo on Google for not being open and honest about this.

I'm sure the lawyers believe in minimizes...something?...by not going officially on the record that the reason is there's a heightened risk of fire. All corpospeak, the original was: "Pixel 4a will receive an automatic software update to Android 13 that introduces new battery management features to improve the stability of the battery. This update will reduce your battery’s runtime and charging performance.", and I presume this one isn't better.

Then again, that "forget about Nvidia" blog last week with the extremely poorly designed melting connector that they don't cop to is probably worse.