Apple Officially Admits They Slow Down Older iPhones

E

exlink

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 16, 2006
Messages
6,068
Apple has officially stated that they slow down older iPhone models:
"The company said its software updates for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6S, iPhone SE and iPhone 7 are designed to "smooth out" peak power demands, prevent these surprise shutdowns and ultimately prolong the lifespan of batteries.

But the updates can also lead to disappointing speeds."
Click to expand...

http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/21/technology/apple-slows-down-old-iphones/index.html

As a long time iPhone user, this is disappointing. It is essentially admitting to planned obsolescence. I understand that Apple wants to prolong the lifespan of the batteries, but the approach they have taken is very poor. First, this should've been made public a while ago and not until people started comparing Geekbench scores which backed Apple into a corner for an explanation.

Second, they should give users the option of either sacrificing performance for battery life or forcing the phone to run at the previously advertised speeds regardless of the impact on an iPhone. I could smell a class action lawsuit if this option isn't given.

But Apple has a solution! Don't want a slower phone? Pay $79 for a battery replacement...o_O

I have an iPhone X right now, but honestly this type of shady shit is probably going to also make it my last iPhone.
 
Last edited:
I usually upgrade my phones in less than a year, but I know a lot of people who don't, including most of my family and friends. They ALL use iPhones. Not good, Apple. :punch:
 
While I don't see a reason to be so up in arms about their approach, I think they should have given users a choice in terms of how to prolong the life of their device instead of making a blanket decision for everyone.
 
I can enable battery saver mode on my phone when I want to slow it down for more battery life. It also kicks in automatically so if I needed to it can turn on at even 50% if my phone is getting old. If Apple wanted to do this automatically, it should also let the user know that the battery is getting worn out.
 
Emission said:
While I don't see a reason to be so up in arms about their approach, I think they should have given users a choice in terms of how to prolong the life of their device instead of making a blanket decision for everyone.
Click to expand...

That's basically exactly what Apple is known for doing.
 
And this is exactly why I don't like to support Apple as a company. They (typically) make fine products. But it's not the product that's the problem, it's the company controlling how and what you can do with the product. This is how they have always operated just so many ignorant, uninformed, uneducated people just blindly buying their products thinking Apple is their friend.
 
Did they mention what version of iOS this feature was introduced? I had the battery in my iPhone 6 replaced about 10 months ago now on iOS. At the time the battery was showing pretty severe signs of wear, I could barely make it through the workday without the phone battery depleting. I never noticed any performance difference before and after the replacement. I did however notice that as in the summer before iOS 11 came out that my phone gradually started becoming slower and buggier. This was after a DFU restore and app cleanup.

I still feel that Apple does something to slow older phones down just before new phone releases. Nothing to impact CPU performance, but little UI lags being introduced to give users just enough of a perception that there phones are getting old.

I don't really blame Apple for it. Planned obsolescence is designed in to pretty much everything we buy today; TV's, appliances, cars, etc.

Still using an iPhone 6 by the way. I plan to keep using it until it either breaks or iOS updates become unsupported.
 
acascianelli said:
Did they mention what version of iOS this feature was introduced? I had the battery in my iPhone 6 replaced about 10 months ago now on iOS. At the time the battery was showing pretty severe signs of wear, I could barely make it through the workday without the phone battery depleting. I never noticed any performance difference before and after the replacement. I did however notice that as in the summer before iOS 11 came out that my phone gradually started becoming slower and buggier. This was after a DFU restore and app cleanup.

I still feel that Apple does something to slow older phones down just before new phone releases. Nothing to impact CPU performance, but little UI lags being introduced to give users just enough of a perception that there phones are getting old.

I don't really blame Apple for it. Planned obsolescence is designed in to pretty much everything we buy today; TV's, appliances, cars, etc.

Still using an iPhone 6 by the way. I plan to keep using it until it either breaks or iOS updates become unsupported.
Click to expand...

I remember reading in another article that the iPhone 6S was given this "feature" in iOS 10.3 while the iPhone 7 just received it in iOS 11.2. Both of these are about a year after the phone's release and line up pretty close to the releases of the new iPhones.

Personally I wouldn't care about this if this was given as an option to the user instead of just automatically enabling it.
 
exlink said:
Apple has officially stated that they slow down older iPhone models:


http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/21/technology/apple-slows-down-old-iphones/index.html

As a long time iPhone user, this is disappointing. It is essentially admitting to planned obsolescence. I understand that Apple wants to prolong the lifespan of the batteries, but the approach they have taken is very poor. First, this should've been made public a while ago and not until people started comparing Geekbench scores which backed Apple into a corner for an explanation.

Second, they should give users the option of either sacrificing performance for battery life or forcing the phone to run at the previously advertised speeds regardless of the impact on an iPhone. I could smell a class action lawsuit if this option isn't given.

But Apple has a solution! Don't want a slower phone? Pay $79 for a battery replacement...o_O

I have an iPhone X right now, but honestly this type of shady shit is probably going to also make it my last iPhone.
Click to expand...


Erm, the reasoning is already placed in what you linked.

So your two options are either, have them throttle some speeds some of the time as your battery is severely degraded or your phone just shuts off. And by shuts off, they aren't referring to when your battery charge gets low, they're talking about when peak performance demand occurs. Older phones experienced this when iOS11 dropped. This was implemented so people had usable phones.

For more on that, since you're using CNN, here's another CNN source:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/opini...down-not-conspiracy-arthur-opinion/index.html

So if Apple making your phone usable at all means you don't want to buy another phone for them, that's fine. But they can only make a battery last so long.

My phone is on year 3 (iPhone 6S Plus). I haven't replaced the battery yet and I am experiencing no problems. But I fail to see how me being "forced" to replace a battery after three years and 1000 cycles makes Apple "shady" when the time comes. As this is literally no different than having to do the same in any other form of expensive electronics. Such as say a laptop. (EDIT: And nor would this be any different on any manufacturer of any other cellphone).
 
Last edited:
The thing is, that's just covering up a flaw in their batteries. They shouldn't have degraded that much in less than 3 years.

But I guess we'll just declare a new normal to accommodate Apple.
 
ChronoReverse said:
The thing is, that's just covering up a flaw in their batteries. They shouldn't have degraded that much in less than 3 years.

But I guess we'll just declare a new normal to accommodate Apple.
Click to expand...

You're kidding right? There is software that can track how many full charge cycles you've placed on a phone. How much have you researched battery chemistry? How many full charge cycles do you think is reasonable? Apple themselves state that 80% of their battery life will persist after 500 full discharge cycles.

First present who's doing better, then state why Apple is missing the mark.
 
80% of the battery life yes everyone knows that much (it's actually closer to 70% for cell phone battery chemistries but it's close enough). But Apple is also saying that the full current load isn't available so they have to slow down the processor to keep the phone from shutting down.


But you know what I'm not going to argue any further, clearly Apple doesn't have to match the standards of every other cell phone in existence.
 
ChronoReverse said:
80% of the battery life yes everyone knows that much (it's actually closer to 70% for cell phone battery chemistries but it's close enough). But Apple is also saying that the full current load isn't available so they have to slow down the processor to keep the phone from shutting down.
Click to expand...

So you know the number isn't the number because you're in the know?

ChronoReverse said:
But you know what I'm not going to argue any further, clearly Apple doesn't have to match the standards of every other cell phone in existence.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:

CNN said:
One question that's raised here: Why don't owners of Android phone complain about slowdowns? Where's the social media outrage about that? Surprising fact: They do. If you search for "Android update slower" or similar, you'll find people grumbling on Twitter and elsewhere about how a new update has slowed down their phone. But because Android phones don't get the monolithic upgrades that Apple does -- in fact, it's almost pot luck if such phones ever get upgraded (with the extra security and new features such upgrades bring) -- you don't see the same noise about it.
Click to expand...

People complain at Apple because they made their 3+ year old phone usable (the 5s is now 5 generations back... yuh-huh). Meanwhile any Android phone is lucky to be updated past 2 years. If you want to see planned obsolescence, just try using LagWiz for more than 1 year without modifying any aspect of the OS.

Show me the Android phone that's 5 years old running the latest version of Android that has zero battery problems (or 3 for that matter). You're spewing anecdotal opinion without any references. If you're not going to buy Apple products, cool, I'm not saying that they're "the best". But if you're going to throw stones, you'd better measure all the competition by the same yardstick.


[EDIT: Spelling and grammar, ugh]
 
Last edited:
The issue isn't that Apple is slowing it down, or even that it's not giving you a choice -- it's that Apple isn't telling you what's happening before it does. The lack of information has led to conspiracy theories (including ones repeated here) about forced obsolescence.

The consequences of a severely worn battery are true for any manufacturer; it's just what they ask you to put up with that's different. If anything, it sounds like Apple is trying to minimize the pressure to replace your phone.
 
they're not slowing it down

they're letting you appreciate it longer.

while you wait for it to load.
 
Stuff like this, and by this I mean people complaining, is why we needed a third competitor in the arena, Windows Mobile. Stinks that they killed it off even though it ran well even on older hardware. Oh well, we take what we get, not always what we want.
 
exlink said:
That's basically exactly what Apple is known for doing.
Click to expand...

Yes it is. Apple is the Nazi party of the computing world. They tell you how things should be. What OSes you can run and what your hardware can and should be used for. It's why I've always despised Apple as a company and refuse to buy their products. Every Apple thing I own (which isn't much) was actually given to me. I've got an ancient iPod my girlfriend bought me back in the day and her old iPad which I barely use for anything. I think that's it for Apple products that I own.
 
Does this affect iPhone 6's? I've been reading a few places that said it only affects 6S and above right now.
 
acascianelli said:
Does this affect iPhone 6's? I've been reading a few places that said it only affects 6S and above right now.
Click to expand...

Yes... and no. It affects you if you have an old or otherwise damaged battery that doesn't properly hold charge or your battery is currently experiencing either incredibly hot or incredibly cold temperatures.
If you're not in one of those two categories, this does not affect you at all.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Yes... and no. It affects you if you have an old or otherwise damaged battery that doesn't properly hold charge or your battery is currently experiencing either incredibly hot or incredibly cold temperatures.
If you're not in one of those two categories, this does not affect you at all.
Click to expand...

Yea, I get that. But is it iPhone 6's and above or 6S's and above?
 
Its hilarious watching Apple and their fanboys spin everything in their favor. Android/WP phones suffer battery degradation - they work just fine without having software to slow the phone down. And the root cause of this is course not providing user replacable batteries, which is a stupid decision that the entire tech media is in love with because it was done by Apple. Other oem's followed this trend, along with removing sd cards to copy Apple, but thankfully most have come to their senses and both features are in many Android phones now.

And even if they want to have this feature, why not make it a user preference?

And honestly, who knows what they are really doing, this is just what they've admitted to.
 
MrCrispy said:
Its hilarious watching Apple and their fanboys spin everything in their favor. Android/WP phones suffer battery degradation - they work just fine without having software to slow the phone down. And the root cause of this is course not providing user replacable batteries, which is a stupid decision that the entire tech media is in love with because it was done by Apple. Other oem's followed this trend, along with removing sd cards to copy Apple, but thankfully most have come to their senses and both features are in many Android phones now.
Click to expand...

What is and is not important in a phone is subjective. If you want a removable battery and an SD card slot you have your choice in the market to buy what you want. The statistics are in. Most of the general public doesn't buy multiple batteries. Most of the general public wants thinner phones. Most of the general public is going to care more about water proofing than removable batteries or SD cards.
Don't like those compromises? Well that's why there are other options. You don't like Apple's design decisions, that's fine. But it's asinine to say that their design decisions, which happen to not fit your preferences, is their failure. The market is open, and guess what?: It's big enough to accommodate people who don't want or need user removable batteries and those that do. In other words Apple, like every other phone manufacturer, literally cannot make 1 phone that will be perfect for everyone. The iPhone isn't designed for you. You are not their target market. Feel free to get over it anytime. Need more information about this subject? Go to Wikipedia and read about: "market segmentation."

Second, It makes literally zero sense to blame Apple for doing anything when all of Apple's competition has done the same stuff to a certain degree. Saying "they started it" is the poorest excuse you can give a company. If you want to talk about how "hilarious" it is to watch 'Apple fanboys' spin everything in their favor then you should watch out how you're doing the same. If I saw two 5 year olds give me the "they started it" excuse, they'd both end up with a tanned hide. Each company is accountable. So if Apple is to blame, so is everyone else. Because it was their job, their actual job in terms of making money, to offer the best experience to the customer. So if Android manufactures failed you, then they've failed you (and no, that sentence isn't redundant). Their shit stinks just as bad.

Third, Apple's competition do suffer from these problems. Especially the update slowness problem (not just that it's impossible to get updates from a carrier in less than 6 months or expect that an $800 phone will receive more than two major releases. But, that each update creates greater slowness in the phone). Apple is just high profile enough and updates their phones often enough (unlike Android) that they've developed a target on their back.


MrCrispy said:
And even if they want to have this feature, why not make it a user preference?
Click to expand...

Saying that means you don't fundamentally understand why this fix was implemented in the first place. Something I already covered, and also something covered literally in every article that has gotten posted. The original issue is that bad batteries couldn't meet up with power demands during peak usage and would suddenly shut off in order to preserve components of the phone. So if you're saying that people should have the option to have their phone just shut down on them constantly because they have a bad battery versus the implemented fix, then I guess to you reliability isn't something you want or need in a phone.

That issue was already documented by people with old phones (or in actuality, people with bad batteries). The fix has essentially made the devices usable for a longer period of time.
Apple could've just been dicks and said: hey, your phone keeps shutting off? Buy another battery from us. Or worse, buy another phone. Instead they created a solution that extends the usable life of the end users' battery and consequently, their phone.

So really what's happening here is that people complained to Apple about a problem. Apple fixed the problem. Then people complained about the fix. If you want to talk about bias, then there is much greater scrutiny placed on Apple for what they do, than literally any other competitor on the market. Hell, you're in here complaining about an issue you've literally never experienced. As it's apparent you don't own an Apple phone. So really this whole discussion is so you can be in here and talk shit without really knowing any information or having any first hand experience.

And really this is only affecting a small subset of users that have phones that are three generations old or older, never replaced the battery, and have either had a large amount of charge cycles or abused their batteries by exposing their phones to extreme temperatures.
If you want to play the comparison game, we can feel free to have anyone with an S6 that uses their phone a lot and never replaced their battery tell us what their experience is like. Starting with if they can even have the latest version of their OS or if they experience any slowness or throttling. I'll gladly take any bet regarding 3 gen old Android phones having problems at this point.


MrCrispy said:
And honestly, who knows what they are really doing, this is just what they've admitted to.
Click to expand...

That has already been tested. Hence why any of this was revealed in the first place. Some journalists noticed their phones were being throttled. Did a benchmark, then replaced the battery, and bench marked the phone again and noticed their phones was no longer throttled. Good battery resulted in 'restored speed' and returned faster operation. So really the mechanics are pretty straight forward and observable. Trying to say the mechanics are mysterious is disingenuous and there is no reasonable journalistic source that says otherwise. But feel free to find a reasonable source that has any statement to the contrary. I'll wait.
 
Last edited:
UnknownSouljer said:
That has already been tested. Hence why any of this was revealed in the first place. Some journalists noticed their phones were being throttled. Did a benchmark, then replaced the battery, and bench marked the phone again and noticed their phones was no longer throttled. Good battery resulted in 'restored speed' and returned faster operation. So really the mechanics are pretty straight forward and observable. Trying to say the mechanics are mysterious is disingenuous and there is no reasonable journalistic source that says otherwise. But feel free to find a reasonable source that has any statement to the contrary. I'll wait.
Click to expand...

The throttling isn't something some journalist just randomly noticed and tested for. iPhone users have been complaining of slow downs for years that have coincided with new iPhone launches. It wasn't until REDDIT users started comparing Geekbench scores weeks ago that the throttling was officially confirmed by numbers. Then some journalists just recently caught on and started reporting on it as well. Why did it take Apple years to even mention that they were doing this when people have been complaining of iPhone slow downs for quite a while now? I think even Google alluded to this in one of their Pixel 2 advertisements.

My previous girlfriend's launch day iPhone 6 was running substantially slower earlier this year. When we brought it to Apple they just factory reset it for her and told her that if she wanted faster performance then she should upgrade to the iPhone 7. It was very obvious that the phone was running slower than when she first bought it; she didn't need a new phone to use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. You can white knight Apple all you want; this was shady.

EDIT: Also, for the record. My close buddy has a Nexus 6P and his phone still has the same performance as the day he bought it over 2 years ago. His battery life is about 20-30% less, but that's about in line with the aforementioned iPhone 6's battery life loss.
 
Last edited:
exlink said:
The throttling isn't something some journalist just randomly noticed and tested for. iPhone users have been complaining of slow downs for years that have coincided with new iPhone launches. It wasn't until REDDIT users started comparing Geekbench scores weeks ago that the throttling was officially confirmed by numbers. Then some journalists just recently caught on and started reporting on it as well. Why did it take Apple years to even mention that they were doing this when people have been complaining of iPhone slow downs for quite a while now? I think even Google alluded to this in one of their Pixel 2 advertisements.
Click to expand...

These are two different phenomena. One has to do with older phones not taking to being updated as well. And the other is throttling due to aged batteries.

The first phenomena is absolutely documented. But it has nothing to do with overall performance of the phone. https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/257252-benchmarking-firm-says-apple-isnt-slowing-old-iphone

Secondly, show me a manufacturer that that isn't the case. That is to say, progressively older phones getting slower with updates. Which I might add was also already covered in this thread and by the CNN article I linked.


exlink said:
My previous girlfriend's launch day iPhone 6 was running substantially slower earlier this year. When we brought it to Apple they just factory reset it for her and told her that if she wanted faster performance then she should upgrade to the iPhone 7. It was very obvious that the phone was running slower than when she first bought it; she didn't need a new phone to use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. You can white knight Apple all you want; this was shady.
Click to expand...

This is anecdotal. Show me scale. My mom is using an iPhone 6 Plus that I got her used last year (meaning it's battery is now over 3 years old and hasn't been replaced). She is experiencing no issues, and yes, I've used her phone. Most notably to fix problems that aren't problems (she obviously doesn't understand everything that has to do with the phone). So great. We could spend all day and all night talking about how we know people that do and do not have problems.

Is Apple problem free? No, but show me who is. Like I said to MrCrispy, if you want to scrutinize Apple, go for it, but then have the integrity to look at the practices of the manufacturers you prefer with the same level of scrutiny. Because you aren't.

Also blaming CS reps for the entire face of the company is also not a fair level of equality either. Should they know information better? Sure, but the failure on their part of giving advice isn't the failure of the entire company. Your ex probably just needed a new battery. And at $79, it's a reasonable expense on what was originally a $700 device to extend its life out another 2 years.


exlink said:
EDIT: Also, for the record. My close buddy has a Nexus 6P and his phone still has the same performance as the day he bought it over 2 years ago. His battery life is about 20-30% less, but that's about in line with the aforementioned iPhone 6's battery life loss.
Click to expand...

Okay. More anecdotal evidence. I have a friend with a Note 5 that has replaced her battery twice and has also never experienced a non-laggy experience. Who has wiped her phone repeatedly since she got it new 2 years ago. And as an AT&T device it has a locked ROM and hasn't received an update in years. We can exchange stories all you like. But until there is some admission that literally all of this is on a case by case basis and that the revealing of issues can only be shown via statistics and scale then there isn't intellectual honesty.

Is there people with problems using Apple devices. Absolutely, unequivocally, yes. But there is at least the same amount of issues happening in the Android world. And probably more so because most Android devices other than Nexus/Pixel never receive updates and are horribly unoptimized.
The great irony is that Apple extends the life of devices by rolling out a much greater series of updates for longer with a 5 gen old phone and people like you complain about it on behalf of other people while not even using these phones.

I have a friend that I see 5 days a week still using a 5S with no issues. Great, lets play more anecdotal evidence.

So if you want to get into that ring, we can start also talking about any 5 year old Android phone and dissect any problems it's having too. Starting with, is it even running the latest OS is it remotely slower and how is the battery life?
 
Last edited:
exlink said:
Lol.
Click to expand...

This isn't news. People sue people because they can in the US. This has no barring on if this claim is even valid. Or if they will even win.
Likely it will go on for 2 years and nothing will be accomplished. But feel free to keep patting yourself on the back and trying to throw mud on others to make yourself look good.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
This isn't news. People sue people because they can in the US. This has no barring on if this claim is even valid. Or if they will even win.
Click to expand...
Jesus I'm just posting an update. Stop getting so offended about any negativity towards Apple.
 
  • Like
Reactions: T4rd
like this
exlink said:
Jesus I'm just posting an update. Stop getting so offended about any negativity towards Apple.
Click to expand...

You're being intentionally inflammatory. And my response was hardly of one of 'offense'. If anything it was an incredibly rational response about what is going to actually happen.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
You're being intentionally inflammatory. And my response was hardly of one of 'offense'. If anything it was an incredibly rational response about what is going to actually happen.
Click to expand...

Intentionally inflammatory in what way? I posted an update that is completely relevant to this thread and you respond with just "Kay." The second anyone spouts anything negative against Apple you swoop in and white knight. Anyway, I'm going to close this thread now until the next update comes up so we can actually have a discussion on the topic instead of continuing this poor quality of posting.
 
Lol this thread still proves that Apple is on top.

Apple conspiracy theory: check
Conspiracy theory minor: check
People posting about how their life being ruined: check
 
You know, for all the flak Apple has received over its lack of transparency, its handling of this has been fairly elegant.

Everyone remembers the iPhone 4's antenna issue (which turned out to be overblown, but still...) and the infamous "you're holding it wrong" remark. While there was a grain of truth to what Apple was saying about antenna reception, the basic gist was: blame the user, not the design. Flash forward to 2017 and it's a different story. Apple clearly wants to defend itself to some degree, but it's not blaming users and is directly and swiftly responding to complaints. We're not only discounting batteries (you could argue they should be free, but it's still a big deal), we're starting that program sooner than we thought we might. We're going to directly show battery health in iOS so that you know what's happening. Basically: instead of trying to shift blame until it can fix an issue with the next hardware revision, it's tackling things head-on.

Contrast this with Samsung. It did eventually do the right thing with the Note 7, but that was after it tried a super-hasty initial recall where the goal was getting the phone back on sale as quickly as possible, not producing a guaranteed fix. I suspect it learned a lesson and probably won't try something like that again, but you'd think a company like that would know not to rush things when an entire model line is at stake.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top