iPhone 6 slows down by 28% after just 4 months use
simplyfixit.co.uk
simplyfixit.co.uk
The test scenario was not described, this is only one sample which could have been selected and the source is not credible.
After 12 months of heavy daily usage on my 6s, I'm seeing 87% battery capacity left as an example after over 312 cycles. I am also seeing the same benchmark as the day I got it.
I know that's just one data point, but I'm super-sceptical given all of the misinformation that's been floating around about this topic.
Have not benchmarked it but it was only slow for a week or two after upgrading to iOS 11 and seems fine now. Did not notice slowdowns when using iOS 10 (which was when throttling was introduced)
Apparently general sluggishness is not caused by the battery, but by some rogue iOS system process (which a reset fixes).
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/12/22/glenn-iphone-sl...
if "everything" is slow on your iPhone, it’s probably not this issue related to older batteries. A full backup and restore is a pain in the ass, but it’s worth trying. There are clearly some bugs in iOS 11 that triggered such problems in far too many devices.
http://mglenn.com/blog/2017/12/22/apples-bungled-battery-fea...
Ever since iOS 11 came out I had experienced a significant performance issue on my iPhone 6S. Animations and transitions were slow, app loading was noticeably and unbearably slower than iOS 10 and my battery was draining faster. Many rumours swirled that others were experiencing this but not all. […]
Then several weeks ago a Reddit conversation started spreading online that presented possible evidence Apple was reducing the performance of their iOS and possibly laptops when the battery life was sufficiently degraded. That day I decided to test the theory by getting my battery replaced at the Apple Store.
[…] After I confirmed with her that I was not using it that heavily and the battery setting statistics also didn’t show an application using a large percentage of the battery she suggested a rogue system process that somehow persisted through upgrades and restarts.
She also let me know that my battery was at 83% health and that Apple won’t even do a replacement unless it’s below 80%.
So I went home and immediately did a local backup, wipe and restore. And voila! Performance issues were gone.
EDIT: Also note that Apple as of today is offering battery replacement services themselves at $29. [1]
[1]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/12/30/29-battery-repl...
I'd also query the batteries more directly anyway though - if throttling is needed this aggressively, that _may_ indicate they aren't really up to the task (e.g. they don't have enough capacity to allow for the natural dip without it being an issue / Apple are claiming battery life figures that are basically unattainable in the real world, and propping them up by slowing the device).
Apple has always relied on third parties to make their platforms viable and useful to consumers. The relationship is symbiotic, not destructive. Apple should be encouraging stronger cooperation between it and these third parties.
I'm losing respect for Apples mobile hardware line. So what if their SoC is amazing, if it is downclocked every month. Review benchmarks are dishonest if not taking this into account.
The release you'll have to sign indemnifying Apple against past or future battery related issues or lawsuits will probably be permanent though.
Honestly I'd be surprised if there weren't some sort of indemnification as it's so common practice with everything today.
What's NOT reasonable is Apple CONCEALING this behavior. This led people to believe that they needed a new $1000 phone, instead of a $79 battery replacement.
Something about replacing the battery would have been perfectly reasonable for Apple to have suggested similarly, since we know the hardware can detect poor battery performance. Of course, we know why they didn't do this; it would cut into sales of new models.
The kicker? They try really hard to sell me on paying for iCloud.
Scammy?
Absolutely.
Someone who is NOT computer literate will likely pay for iCloud storage based on false information.
And that’s not with the ‘benefit of the doubt’, either. If you’ve run out of disk/swap space, then it doesn’t matter how much iCloud storage you have, your Mac will still be slow.
I doubt the PM, UI, or otherwise responsible person made the decision to include this warning in MacOS as a way to dissuade me from purchasing a new laptop, just as I doubt that the responsible person intentionally omitted the feature from iOS (when the performance/battery feature was introduced in 10.2.1).
> Of course, we know why they didn't do this; it would cut into sales of new models.
We don't _know_. Many people have suspicions.
> I am certain there is too much certainty in the world - Michael Crichton
Why they wouldn't also do this on their phones is mighty suspicious.
And my understanding is that there is no explicit mention in the changelog, just an opaque mention of new power management feature. But again, no one reads changelogs and the folks at Apple know that.
”iOS 10.2.1
iOS 10.2.1 includes bug fixes and improves the security of your iPhone or iPad.
It also improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone.
For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit this website: https://support.apple.com/HT201222 ”
They mention it, and an investigative journalist could have dug deeper based on it, but as is, that’s fairly vague.
The warranty only covers defects, not "wear from normal use". Unless your battery fails completely, Apple aren't going to replace it under warranty.
This worked for me twice.
Ironically, I stopped getting it because the batteries seemed to get better and better every year.
"Failing to disclose" is a better description of what happened.
Companies don’t typically tell you the bad news.
We should push companies for the right to repair:
With the technological advances of recent years they might even be able to do it on MacBooks too.
/Sarcasm
If you have been experiencing slowdowns prior to that, then it seems like it would be a different issue?
Launching apps on my iPhone 6 (which needs a new battery) takes for ages (even when compared to my older but less used iPhone 5S). I can't imagine that the extended "screen lit"-time does not have a big impact as well.
Also: I am one of the few users who would be totally fine with the iPhone shutting down at 20% or so (if I have the full performance as I used to) because my iPhone is rarely going near 20%. At work I can charge. At home I can charge. When I am on the go I usually am not using the phone that much... However playing hearthstone when I am in bed, loading the phone, everything takes much longer as well which makes playing games less fun...
As I understand it, as batteries degrade it's not only the total capacity that drops, but also the voltage the battery can deliver and the CPU requires a certain voltage to run at a higher frequency.
So, a fully charged, yet degraded battery, may have the overall energy needed to run a CPU at normal Mhz, but may not be able to deliver that energy fast enough.
- Apple makes phones that have batteries normal owners can't replace.
- When the battery degrades the phone's performance degrades.
- Users either pay for a new phone or were paying $80 for new batteries.
- Apple admits the ruse, lowers the replacement cost to $30, basically admitting that $50 was profit.
- Turns out another company already did replacements for $30 and was probably making money on it. So Apple's still likely making money on it.
- Users get upset but line up around the block to buy whatever Apple puts out anyways -- sight unseen.
We get the behavior we incentivize. In this case we get planned obsolescence and shakedowns for repair. Until consumers vote with their wallets, all this kvetching doesn't mean shit.
£30, which is $40.
But this whole controversy reminds me of a few years ago. When people were very happy with their iPhones (including some of my friends), because they manifested and maintained "battery life" that their friends' Android phones did not.
Maybe Apple shouldn't have hidden what they're doing. Maybe it's arguably a legitimate trade secret (I'd hardly be in favor of "patenting" the functionality).
Anyway, now Apple's "shit" for how they manage battery degradation. A couple of years ago, or whenever, before all this upset: They were "the shit" with respect to battery durability -- as perceived by users in their charge lifetimes. At least, among some of my friends. And some press, IIRC. And whatever.
Apple's not magic. Their batteries degrade, too. On the other hand, the vertical integration and efficiencies they are engineering into their newer chipsets? Pretty amazing.
P.S. I'm no Apple Fanboy. Just recalling how perspectives change.
All of that is still the case. What changed is that "I think my iPhone is getting slower, but I'm going to replace it with a new one anyway" is not interesting news, but "it's been proven why it's getting slower, now I feel ripped off because I didn't actually need to upgrade the whole phone, just the battery" is interesting.
Regarding the latter, I generally agree. I'd much rather know what's going on and have the choice of spending circa $100 (supposedly formerly $80, now $30 for a year), to replace the battery. (And a separate pox on "thin" making all these batteries unremovable; but I guess that's my personal preference.)
Maybe Apple knowingly benefited from uninformed user upgrading. How much of that was battery/throttling, and how much of that was Apple users wanting to have the latest and greatest -- for functionality and performance, or just for status? We may never know.
But, as I mentioned, the perceived charge lifetime and durability of same, were -- as far as I saw -- major marketing/selling points of iPhones. And I recall myself grumbling about how my Android phones' charge lifetimes were decreasing, mere months into the devices lives.
I don't know whether this could have been patented (like stupid rounded-corners patents and so many other things). But, it wasn't. Was Apple obligated to reveal this "secret sauce"? I don't know.
For most people, the implementation seemed to work out fine. Friends with 3 and 4 year old iPhones, while many Android users could barely make it to 2 years (for multiple factors, not just charge lifetime -- e.g. timely and ongoing updates, anyone?).
I wish there was a phone that wasn't so wholly owned by big corporations. As opposed to its users. But it seems to be the nature of our world.
IMHO throttling the phones was the correct decision for the vast majority of their users. Warning about degraded battery performance would be preferable, but when do you do this? If this is an adaptive behavior, it may be throttling to 99% early on in the phone's life — so when do you alert? At 95% two months in? At 80% performance a year in? Apple can make another decision here, but people will still find ways to argue about the specifics.
So no slow down on this model. Battery capacity it as 87%.
So this sounds like a worst case scenario. Actual use can be completely different.
Not defending Apple though. This complete lack of communication over an obviously controversial choice is amateurish. So much of this could have been easily avoided by clearly mentioning it in a Beta release, along with of course implmenting an on/off switch!
Correct me if I'm wrong.
So returning to the base point, any reduction in boost frequency in -normal- usage (seperate from benchmarking) will cause (machine) measureable (but maybe not perceived) performance loss because everything is built around trying to crank out work as quickly as possible for as short of a time as possible.
If they started after the original forum post, they should have a pretty good idea already.
I wonder if the comparable battery performance gaps perceived by for many Android users will be seen as closer than we thought - of Android devices secretly dialed down its devices would they have much better battery life.
I think what Apple changed these days is that the latest version of iOS works both on 5+, while I remember my iPhone 4 was stuck with old version and I was never able to upgrade it.
Single Core Score 1518, Multicore 2607
These are better than the 0 day scores in that article, which seems weird. My phone must have close to 900 charging cycles by now, if not more.
It would seem as an engineer, if your boss told you to write code that intentionally slowed a user's device down (for ANY reason), wouldn't the proper response be "Will do, but how do we inform the user so they can avoid it?"
What frustrates me most is Apple won't learn a lesson from this, they just merely "got caught" this time.
Not that the engineers are the ones at fault, it just seems that a culture change is needed to get everyone to care more about the customer.
I think they care a great deal, but arrogance (as so often) leads them to lack judgement. Their ‘care’ has become a patrician “we know what’s best” (cf. not permitting MacBook Pro customers to have real keyboards because wanky Ikeabot Jony Ive finds them messy).
all cpu faults if undervolted. tipically the more the clock speed, the higher the voltage needed so that transistor keep working correctly.
on a mobile device battery degradation is normal, with that comes less viable battery life but also a lower voltage
when you put togheter the two things you just need to plan accordingly. that's what was the whole kerfuffle: they didn't
it doesn't help that they use short lived batteries in iphones (go check it, ipads are rated twice the cycles) but the whole issue comes from bad engineering of the cpu/gpu or whatever they put into that doesn't work with the degrading battery output the device should have been built to cope with
If the battery was easily replaceable, then I doubt there would be much outrage about this issue. But with the iPhone, device and battery are fused together and are thus seen as a single unit.