iPhones

usedtobe

Have we covered this yet?
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-42438745

Nitefly

Nah mate, they just work.

stickyfiddle

Im not sure how I feel about this. 

On one hand, slowing a phone down is clearly shit. But equally, shit battery life is also shit. It seems that they’re trying to find a compromise between battery and performance as batteries get older. My 6 needs charging twice on any day I use it frequently, and it’s also really slow lately, but I’m not sure I’d want more speed for even worse battery life.

im not trying to defend apple at all on this, I’m just genuinely unsure how they could deal with it and keep everyone happy. 

What I do know is that I do t care if my next phone is 20 microns thinner than my current one. I’d much rather it gained a mm or two and filled all of that space with more battery...

Wolfetone

I think that it's disturbing   that a company  can take a  high handed decision to interfere with the performance of a device that isn't theirs particularly without informing the customer. What happens if the customer   replaces the battery? Do they reinstate the phone's performance?

The cynic in me says that this is nothing to do with batteries and more to do with selling phones. Do they do this with their computers too?

richardhomer

My 5 year old iPad has superb battery life but is almost unusable slow. Which - given its in immaculate condition - is very annoying.

I like Apple products - but £1000 handsets and tricks like this are just taking their customers pants down....

Sporky

stickyfiddle said:

I’m just genuinely unsure how they could deal with it and keep everyone happy. 

Make it an option, surely?

"Allow iOS to manage phone performance to optimise battery life"

Every laptop I've ever had let me adjust the power vs performance profile.

quarky

If I ask an app to perform an action, it still needs to do it, even if it does it slower. So how much benefit is there really to doing this? 

I am no fan of Apple (or Google to be honest), so it is easy to think the worst in this case. The fact that Apple didn't say anything about this doesn't look good, at all. It is hard to believe that even Apple could do something this dumb maliciously though. Still, with Google fucking over Amazon Firestick users, they no better.

crunchman

stickyfiddle said:

What I do know is that I do t care if my next phone is 20 microns thinner than my current one. I’d much rather it gained a mm or two and filled all of that space with more battery...

This is the fundamental issue.

They are so caught up in the aesthetic aspects of the design that they don't actually think about the functionality.  Because the battery life on them is so poor, it exacerbates the problem.  There is only a finite number of charge cycles in the battery.  A phone with poor battery life gets there sooner as you have to recharge it more often.

For me, battery life is pretty much my number one criteria when buying a phone.  When mine was new I could get close to 3 days out of it with my usage levels.  It's now 3 years old, and still ok because it's probably only have half the number of charges that a 3 year old iPhone would have had.

ICBM

Sporky said:

stickyfiddle said:

I’m just genuinely unsure how they could deal with it and keep everyone happy. 

Make it an option, surely?

"Allow iOS to manage phone performance to optimise battery life"

Every laptop I've ever had let me adjust the power vs performance profile.

This.

The problem with Apple is that they think they know better than the user does how their devices should operate. It's not at all unique to this problem, there are probably hundreds of examples of stuff Apple has changed without allowing the user to choose.

Just one minor, trivial example - in the recent versions of iTunes on the Mac you can no longer set the album artwork to be the full height of the screen, which you could before. Why not?! There seems to be no reason for this change other than 'because Apple knows best'. But I liked having the artwork the full size...

I like Apple kit, and I'm not going to stop using it, but this sort of thing does grate. It does indeed 'just work' - when you use it how they want you to. Try something different and you can be in for a lot of frustration.

TheBigDipper

The other piece of the puzzle is Apple say that the demand for sudden high voltage from fading batteries can cause voltage spikes that might damage the processor, and this reduction is, in part, to prevent that. For me, it’s the silent way they implemented it that causes me to trust them less. 

Sporky

crunchman said:

stickyfiddle said:

What I do know is that I do t care if my next phone is 20 microns thinner than my current one. I’d much rather it gained a mm or two and filled all of that space with more battery...

This is the fundamental issue.

They are so caught up in the aesthetic aspects of the design that they don't actually think about the functionality. 

Many years ago now (a few before the first iPhone went on sale), I was at one of the mobile operators' head offices. In the lift were two of the marketing people, and they had a conversation which went something like this:

"We got another set of customer survey results back. They keep saying they just want longer battery life"

"So we need to work harder on convincing then that that's not the priority?"

"Exactly"

crunchman

I read that older phones were shutting down when the battery was still showing about 40% as they couldn't supply the required current.  They initially implemented this because of complaints about that.  Whatever the cause, it's not good.

sinbaadi

It's engineered obsolescence at its finest!  Batteries degrade but they are using that as an excuse for "encouraging" people to upgrade.  Quite pathetic really.

boogieman

Apple make some really stupid decisions sometimes. I noticed the screen brightness kept changing randomly after the last iOS update to 11. They’ve buried the auto brightness switch in the accessibility section now (it had turned itself on which was causing the issue). But come on Apple, why??!! It was under the brightness slider before, which was the logical place for it. Morons. 

Danny1969

I wouldn't describe it as engineered obsolescence but for them as a company it's a welcome by product. Everyone wins, the software side can write the laziest bloatiest code and the worse case scenario is the company sell more new model phones with faster processors to offset the slowdown

Shame of it is the phones generally affected by the slowdown are the easiest phones to change the battery in and the battery cost a tenner !

bingefeller

Wolfetone said:

I think that it's disturbing   that a company  can take a  high handed decision to interfere with the performance of a device that isn't theirs particularly without informing the customer. What happens if the customer   replaces the battery? Do they reinstate the phone's performance?

The cynic in me says that this is nothing to do with batteries and more to do with selling phones. Do they do this with their computers too?

Yes, if you get a new battery apparently the processor of the phone will go back to what it once was before the degradation of the battery.

Same with their laptops - the battery effects power management so, as the battery degrades over the time, the computer will get slower unless you replace the battery to bring it back to what it once was.  

randella

richardhomer said:

My 5 year old iPad has superb battery life but is almost unusable slow. Which - given its in immaculate condition - is very annoying.

I like Apple products - but £1000 handsets and tricks like this are just taking their customers pants down....

@richardhomer My five year old iPad is just about usable but the battery's thrashed. To be fair I've never owned a device I've used so much, and it's still worth £100 at the phone recycling places. 

It's getting replaced in the new year but I really do feel I've had my money's worth out of it. The iPhone, on the other hand, seems to be getting a bit... cheeky with the pricing. 

impmann

Apple say that replacing the battery restores the speed. How? How does it know that it has a new battery? Surely a fully charged battery delivers the same electricity whether or not it is 'new'? Or is this a magic battery?

FWIW, my iPhone5 has done the same.... slowed down to a crawl and it *was* doing the crash at 22% battery power. There was another update (after a barrage of complaints from users) that miraculously stopped this. I'm 99% certain that this is a cynical attempt to get me to 'upgrade' - yet I don't *want* another phone, I like(d) this one. It was much faster, it worked well and it hasn't been abused. Therefore the only change has been Apple's "updates"...

But for the record, I'd rather roger myself with barbed wire than have anything with a Samsung (Smugsam) badge. Dogshit company to deal with.

My MacBook pro can't be updated as Apple has stated that it won't work with High Sierra... however, it should work with Mountain Lion etc... but I can't update to that as that software isn't available. Now I can't listen to Mp3s or Wavs on it because its bitching that iTunes is out of date, but I can't update that because the OS isn't currrent. I can't update the browser because of the OS so certain websites are impossible to use. Round and round we go...

Its not on, really.

richardhomer

randella said:

richardhomer said:

My 5 year old iPad has superb battery life but is almost unusable slow. Which - given its in immaculate condition - is very annoying.

I like Apple products - but £1000 handsets and tricks like this are just taking their customers pants down....

@richardhomer My five year old iPad is just about usable but the battery's thrashed. To be fair I've never owned a device I've used so much, and it's still worth £100 at the phone recycling places. 

It's getting replaced in the new year but I really do feel I've had my money's worth out of it. The iPhone, on the other hand, seems to be getting a bit... cheeky with the pricing. 

My iPad is only really used for viewing photos - I use my phone for pretty much everything.

The question is, how’s it possible to buy a 40”, 4K smart tv for less than £400, yet an iPhone costs double? Doesn’t make any sense at all....

mellowsun

Crazy idea and I know it’ll never catch on, but why not just allow the battery to be replaced?

BigBearKris

impmann said:

But for the record, I'd rather roger myself with barbed wire than have anything with a Samsung (Smugsam) badge. Dogshit company to deal with.

...and for years of using various Samsung devices I've never had a problem with batteries, slowing down, service etc.

Not a fanboy by any means, with every contract upgrade I look at other devices and would happily switch if there would be anything better. Thing is - there just doesn't seem to be any.

I wasn't aware that iPhones and iPads suffer with those issues. Fairly certain that I won't be interested in getting any of the Apple devices for quite some time.