Apple apologizes for slowing down your iphones

[Halcyon]

Because every discussion of Apple invariably results in the Apple haters expounding on everything they hate about Apple, regardless of whether said criticism is grounded in reality or not.

I'd like to think however on a forum such as this so far the criticism seems to have been well founded and factual.

[Someone]

Then it occurred to me that this issue should also apply to electric cars? Waaa ma Tesla is slower

They went through the same thing last year:
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/10070/tesla-explains-why-it-sometimes-limits-supercharger-charging-speeds
Consumers expecting 100% performance over the life of the product when they have known wear out rates (that can be influenced by the user) is the problem here, choice is nice but thats not the style of iOS devices with their approach of hiding all the details and leaving the minimum needed to function (no distractions).

[Someone]

Because every discussion of Apple invariably results in the Apple haters expounding on everything they hate about Apple, regardless of whether said criticism is grounded in reality or not.

I'd like to think however on a forum such as this so far the criticism seems to have been well founded and factual.

Seems a bit rich coming from your posts of "trust me, but I won't provide details" or this classic flaming opening:

Unfortunately I have to use Apple devices at work and they are awful to work on. I'm yet to find anything good about them.

Zero upsides at all? Surely the most balanced of opinions.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

[..]
As cells age, their internal resistance goes up.  When new, the internal resistance is low enough for the battery voltage to remain above cut-off during periods of high CPU load even when the remaining charge is relatively low.  We can all agree on this. Apple were torn between allowing phones to regularly turn off when charge <30% during high loads, or, implement throttling which will slow the phone down (whether or not this is noticeable by the user, depends).  You seem to be suggesting they upgrade the battery for higher capacity..  which is a silly idea as it would require a clumsy mounting, plus a bigger/heavier phone.  The energy density of Apples batteries are no different from any other manufacturer - its just they tend to be smaller.
[..]

Now they can't retrofit a bigger batt of course. The proper battery size is one that 1) can power the phone at low temps and 2) as cells age lasts less but can still power the phone at full chooch (without throttling). Clearly there's a design error here (too low mAh rating) and the proof is that these batts can't cope at a SoC of 30%.

[tszaboo]

Because every discussion of Apple invariably results in the Apple haters expounding on everything they hate about Apple, regardless of whether said criticism is grounded in reality or not.

I'd like to think however on a forum such as this so far the criticism seems to have been well founded and factual.

Seems a bit rich coming from your posts of "trust me, but I won't provide details" or this classic flaming opening:

Unfortunately I have to use Apple devices at work and they are awful to work on. I'm yet to find anything good about them.

Zero upsides at all? Surely the most balanced of opinions.

The screens have nice color.
But it is glossy, thus unusable.

[Halcyon]

Seems a bit rich coming from your posts of "trust me, but I won't provide details"

I can only share my experiences just like everyone else here, surely I'm entitled to do that without going any further? I'm not about to start "proving" my qualifications on a public forum such as this for several reasons, but the primary reason is that you aren't privy to that information. I'm not the sort of person who tries to prove himself to complete strangers, I have no need.

Unfortunately I have to use Apple devices at work and they are awful to work on. I'm yet to find anything good about them.

Zero upsides at all? Surely the most balanced of opinions.

Again, my opinion? I can name several devices which look, feel, perform, sound, smell, taste better. You obviously disagree and you have every right to. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa. Why must I try to "balance" my negative experience with Apple mobile devices with a positive one just to please the Apple lovers out there? You're basically saying my opinion or experiences aren't valid (or somewhat less valid) because they don't coincide with yours. I stopped thinking like that in high school.

[bd139]

I think the internet goes on the policy of “shit, or get off the pot”. We don’t see any shit.

[Someone]

Unfortunately I have to use Apple devices at work and they are awful to work on. I'm yet to find anything good about them.

Zero upsides at all? Surely the most balanced of opinions.

Again, my opinion? I can name several devices which look, feel, perform, sound, smell, taste better. You obviously disagree and you have every right to. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa. Why must I try to "balance" my negative experience with Apple mobile devices with a positive one just to please the Apple lovers out there? You're basically saying my opinion or experiences aren't valid (or somewhat less valid) because they don't coincide with yours. I stopped thinking like that in high school.

Because you state, and now try to back up the statement that:

I'm yet to find anything good about them.

If you're required to use them for work then get on with it, saying that there are zero good aspects to them is clearly impossible unless you are going to make comparisons to something else which is superior...

When people are forced to use something all the problems are blown out of proportion and they fail to see the good features or aspects, suddenly when they have choice all the negative aspects of their choice can be dismissed or ignored. This happens time and time again in workplaces and I happen to work with employers that let the employees choose their own platforms, then every person gets to make their own balance of whats important to them and what will work.

Its particularly grating when you then come out with the everything is ok alarm:

I'd like to think however on a forum such as this so far the criticism seems to have been well founded and factual.

Despite that this is thread is clearly full of unfactual and unfounded apple hating and you specifically are not adding any facts that we can consider how important they are to us.

[tooki]

(...)
https: //youtu.be/8k3TT-T-vyw

That was a good video, tooki. Thanks for sharing. I have several criticisms over Apple's practices but I agree with the guy this is not necessarily one of them. 

I'm an Apple fan and I openly criticize Apple regularly, because though I do think they're better on the whole, there are things that drive me nuts, too.

I guess the lesson learned is to better be open from the beginning and deal with the PR nightmare than to get caught and have an even worse PR crisis to solve.

You can say that again!!! I'm baffled as to how they could make this big a PR blunder. I mean, given the ongoing rumors of deliberate slowdowns in the name of planned obsolescence, for years and years, what did they think people would think once this came to light???!? It's not a smoking gun, but from a distance it sure looks like one, especially for those who are looking for smoke.

Because every discussion of Apple invariably results in the Apple haters expounding on everything they hate about Apple, regardless of whether said criticism is grounded in reality or not.

I'd like to think however on a forum such as this so far the criticism seems to have been well founded and factual.

This particular thread has been relatively civil. But other threads here on eevblog are just as full of fantasy-based, clickbait-driven vitriol as the world in general. (And if anything, slanted a bit Apple-hostile, due to the very real issue of most engineering applications not existing for Mac, and many nerds'/geeks' belief that "real nerds/geeks" use a "real OS" like Linux or Windows.)

[tooki]

Now they can't retrofit a bigger batt of course. The proper battery size is one that 1) can power the phone at low temps and 2) as cells age lasts less but can still power the phone at full chooch (without throttling). Clearly there's a design error here (too low mAh rating) and the proof is that these batts can't cope at a SoC of 30%.

A reasonable argument. (Other than that it's not the mAh rating that's at issue, but rather the current capability, which is not necessarily directly related.) Presumably the predicted aging characteristics haven't matched up with the real-world ones. Or there's more variability in the aging than expected.

[Dubbie]

One thing I have never understood about the blind apple haters (reasonable, fact based criticism is fine with me) is how they say the following:

# Apple hardware/software is complete junk

# Apple hardware is overpriced

# Morons buy it because of marketing.

If these things were true, how come Apple has figured out how to sell junk to idiots for very high prices with a relatively modest marketing budget compared to other companies of their size?

A phone is something that is very important to most people’s lives. Why would they spend more to get a worse experience?

It seems to me that the bulk of the Apple haters make the mistake of extrapolating their particular desires and needs to the whole phone buying population. Most people don’t give a shit about the things you care about.

[bd139]

I think it goes like this.

There are always three classes of interactions with computers:

1. The machine has to compromise to my requirements (Android, Windows pre 10).
2. We meet in the middle and both make some compromises (iOS, MacOS, Windows 10+, ChromeOS)
3. I have to compromise for the machine (PalmOS/Blackberry/WinCE/Windows phone).

Groups #1 and #2 hate each other because of the sheer amount of marketing that goes into each position and the fact that humans are competitive. But look at the direction everything is going (windows UWP and store model as an example). #3 is dead. #1 as a concept is dying and I'm not going to die with it.

Linux/BSD etc sits firmly in all camps depending on how bothered you are when you have a problem to solve

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

A reasonable argument. (Other than that it's not the mAh rating that's at issue, but rather the current capability, which is not necessarily directly related.) Presumably the predicted aging characteristics haven't matched up with the real-world ones. Or there's more variability in the aging than expected.

The current capability is directly proportional to the mAh rating. E.g., put two identical batteries in parallel and you've got 1/2 the internal resistance and twice the mAh. Or, make a batt that has (say) 10 cm2 internally (active surface), now make another twice as big (20 cm2) and it will have 1/2 the internal resistance and twice the mAh.

They've made a mistake: their maths are wrong.

[james_s]

The stupid thing is they could have avoided this whole controversy with transparency. It's perfectly reasonable to cap the CPU speed when operating from an aging battery that cannot supply adequate current. When doing that though there should be a notification somewhere that the CPU speed is being capped due to the battery being worn out.

I used my old iPhone 4 for over 4 years and I did replace the battery once. As far as I know it did not have the throttle feature and when the battery got tired the phone would simply shut off instantly if I tried launching one of the more CPU intensive apps when the charge level was below about 40%. $10 later I had a new battery that took only a few minutes to install, I don't know why everyone seems to think you have to pay Apple a fortune to have an iphone battery replaced.

[tooki]

The stupid thing is they could have avoided this whole controversy with transparency. It's perfectly reasonable to cap the CPU speed when operating from an aging battery that cannot supply adequate current. When doing that though there should be a notification somewhere that the CPU speed is being capped due to the battery being worn out.

Yep. EVERYONE is in agreement on this.

I used my old iPhone 4 for over 4 years and I did replace the battery once. As far as I know it did not have the throttle feature and when the battery got tired the phone would simply shut off instantly if I tried launching one of the more CPU intensive apps when the charge level was below about 40%.

The throttling is only on iPhone 6/6+, 6S/6S+, and SE when updated to iOS 10.2.1 or later, and iPhone 7/7+ on iOS 11.2 or later. Definitely not present in iPhone 4 or 4S. (My 4S did the sudden shutdown in the cold after it reached 2 or 3 years of age. At around 20% it'd just shut down.)

$10 later I had a new battery that took only a few minutes to install, I don't know why everyone seems to think you have to pay Apple a fortune to have an iphone battery replaced.

Because that doesn't fit the OMG APPLE IS EVIL narrative. (And frankly, I didn't even consider Apple's original battery service to be unreasonably priced.)

[Bud]

Definitely not present in iPhone 4 or 4S.

Have not noticed on my iPhone 5 either.

[james_s]

I'm not an Apple guy but I found the iPhone was the one that sucked the least and met my critera of a small yet reasonably capable phone. As far as I'm concerned there are no really good smartphones, it's all various levels of suck. I also haven't found them to be all that expensive, with both that I've purchased I simply waited until the new models were released and then bought the previous model at half price. It's absurd to me how rapidly people replace phones, 4 years is the soonest I've ever replaced one and it was still in nearly new condition, it was just getting hopelessly outdated due to all the bloat in apps and websites. If not for that I could have happily kept using it for a decade, which is of course the dilemma for manufactures.

[Bud]

My iPhone 5 is clean as a nude virgin, compare to a Samsung Galaxy Android phone that I did try to like, but it did not happen because the Samsung was bloated beyond imagination. The number of settings in it was ridiculous. I went back to the simplicity of the 5.

[james_s]

I don't want to go too far off topic here but I sit in different camps depending on what the device is. For a PC that I tinker with all the time the iPhone model is absolutely unacceptable and the Win10/Android model is only marginally more acceptable in that at least it's possible to crack the thing open and tweak it to my needs. With a phone though it's something I rely on having available every day, it's imperative that it just works, I don't need or want to tinker with it or hack it. There are certainly things about the iPhone that annoy me to no end, for example why on earth is Facebook, Twitter and other crap I don't use permanently integrated into the OS when they all have apps that can be installed if one desires? On the other hand, most of the guys I know with Android phones had to root them just to make them usable, cleaning out all the bloated cruft that came pre-installed. One of the guys I work with had some built in apps that were no longer supported, no longer worked due to external services they relied on and couldn't be deleted, they just sat there burning up battery life and filling the logs with errors. How stupid is that.

The whole concept of included apps that cannot be deleted or at the very least completely hidden and disabled is something I find infuriating and something shared across all mobile platforms.

[tooki]

I don't want to go too far off topic here but I sit in different camps depending on what the device is. For a PC that I tinker with all the time the iPhone model is absolutely unacceptable and the Win10/Android model is only marginally more acceptable in that at least it's possible to crack the thing open and tweak it to my needs. With a phone though it's something I rely on having available every day, it's imperative that it just works, I don't need or want to tinker with it or hack it.

This is precisely why iOS is locked down super tight, and macOS is not.




FYI, I think your iOS knowledge is a smidgen outdated:

There are certainly things about the iPhone that annoy me to no end, for example why on earth is Facebook, Twitter and other crap I don't use permanently integrated into the OS when they all have apps that can be installed if one desires?

The OS-level integration of FB and twitter (and a few others) was ripped out in iOS 11, since iOS 11 now has a strong API for sharing extensions.

be deleted or at the very least completely hidden and disabled is something I find infuriating and something shared across all mobile platforms.

iOS 10 (IIRC) added the ability to delete nearly all the included apps (including calendar, mail, reminders, weather, stocks, music, itunes store, mail, notes) and reinstall them later from the App Store if desired. As best I can tell, the exceptions are Safari, Settings, Camera, Photos, Clock, Phone, Messages, Wallet, and Health. (And the App Store, obviously.)

[Bud]

for example why on earth is Facebook, Twitter and other crap I don't use permanently integrated into the OS when they all have apps that can be installed if one desires?

Because per Jobs' biography book, he was often seen on campus with Zukerman (or whatever that facebook moron last name is).

[tooki]

for example why on earth is Facebook, Twitter and other crap I don't use permanently integrated into the OS when they all have apps that can be installed if one desires?

Because per Jobs' biography book, he was often seen on campus with Zukerman (or whatever that facebook moron last name is).

Err, no. I have that book, and I just checked it: Zuckerberg is mentioned a whopping three times. None of those mentions describes them being friends, nor describes Zuckerberg being on the Apple campus. (I'm sure Zuckerberg did visit the Apple campus, but it was not mentioned in the book. Never mind any suggestion of them being BFFs.)

The reason Facebook (and a bunch of other services) were integrated was to make sharing easy, since at the time, iOS didn't have an OS-level sharing mechanism. Now it does, and they tore the proprietary integration right out. (As I already explained in my post just above.)

[Bud]

Yes it then was in the audio book, not in the printed book. Can't remember what source but that certainly was said.

[james_s]

My iOS knowledge is a tad outdated because I don't have 11. My phone came with 10.2 and I have the Apple update server blocked on my router to freeze my devices with the OS they came with. I know too many people who had their iOS devices update to the latest version and become significantly slower or in a couple cases completely unusable so now I have a policy of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Frankly I've lost all of the inherent trust I once had in software updates having been burned multiple times. I know it goes counter to the current culture but I don't update anything anymore without carefully vetting the update in question. Yes there are potential security risks but so far I've never been bitten by one, IMHO the cure is worse than the disease.

[Halcyon]

If you're required to use them for work then get on with it, saying that there are zero good aspects to them is clearly impossible unless you are going to make comparisons to something else which is superior...

Well, no, it's not clearly impossible as that is my genuine opinion (see below for the clarification you seem to be craving). My primary work phone is actually an Android and whilst it's not the phone I would personally purchase myself, it is orders of magnitude better than the Apple counterparts in many ways. It seems if I made the same comment about a [insert brand of Android phone here], you wouldn't be making such a fuss about what is essentially my opinion. As I said earlier, I'm entitled to mine just as you are entitled to yours. You don't see me taking offence to the fact that you seem to love your Apple devices.

When people are forced to use something all the problems are blown out of proportion and they fail to see the good features or aspects, suddenly when they have choice all the negative aspects of their choice can be dismissed or ignored. This happens time and time again in workplaces and I happen to work with employers that let the employees choose their own platforms, then every person gets to make their own balance of whats important to them and what will work.

Thankfully this is not what is happening in my case, but yes, I can see how some people would react.

Now onto my biggest gripes with Apple iPhone's (I'll keep it short as I could almost write a short novel):

PHYSICAL DESIGN - I see a higher proportion of smashed screens on Apple products than any other, even considering that Android phones outnumber Apple in Australia. Visually they are also kind of ugly (once again, my opinion). The new iPhone X isn't too bad however and looks more like Samsung handsets, but even with the iPhone X, the buldging out of the camera is more of a hindrance. I've also seen enough iPhone 6 and 6 Plus's which have faulty digitisers and sensors which basically renders the phone unusable by randomly "pressing" buttons all over the screen (also known as "touch disease").

SOFTWARE DESIGN - It's restrictive, very restrictive. You have no where near as many options to tweak system settings as you do on Android or indeed BlackBerry or Windows-based devices. I'll give you an example I ran into today: If your battery charge is below a certain percentage (I think it's around 20-30%), it forces the minimum screen sleep/lock time and doesn't allow you to change it until you charge your phone. So rather than given the user the option (which exists), it just locks you out. That's just one example in a long list.

HARDWARE DESIGN - Compared to phones of the era, it's underspec'd. Arguably Apple users don't need the additional RAM. Also since as long as I remember their cameras were mediocre with many suffering from that green or purple "halo" right in the middle of the photo when exposed to bright scenes. Then of course the is the lack of expandable storage, how many major revisions of the iPhone are there? 15? Yet still no microSD card slot. Then there is the plethora of expensive Apple-branded adapters and cables (which aren't built that well to begin with) just so you can use your peripherals (headphones for example). Want to try and repair your iPhone? Instead of using common sized screws, they've mixed and matched different sizes, just to make sure they are extra painful to pull apart and get back together.

APPLES ATTITUDE TOWARDS CONSUMERS - Remember "Antenna-gate", Apple's response was "You're holding your phone wrong". They changed their connector: "You can buy an adapter". Then they changed their connector again: "Here's another adapter"... and again... you guessed it, more adapters. Oh and you don't need a 3.5mm audio jack anymore, away with you! Now there is the latest battery issues (which have been brought up before), instead of giving the user power management options, they just do their own thing on the sly and not tell anyone.

PRICE - They are bloody expensive for what you get. I can walk into a retail store and buy a brand new Samsung handset, which is more powerful, packs more memory, has more features and better software for $800. How much does the iPhone X cost? Almost double!

As I said, I could go on, but this gives you some kind of an idea. If you think Apple are innovative, you can guess again. They stopped innovating long ago. Now they are just playing catch-up with all the other manufacturers who came out with features years before. Their market share is slipping and I can see why. I'm by no means a "Samsung fan boy" either. It just happens to be the phone I use at the moment. I liked my previous handsets just as much which include Nokia, Sony, Blackberry, LG, Motorola and back in the day O2 and HP iPaq's (and those are just the ones I still own and work, there are probably others I'm forgetting).

I look forward to your rebuttal.