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Comment by ch4s3 | Hacker News Reader

They absolutely do, but batteries have physical limitations that result in lower power output over time. Under those conditions, the phone can either intermittently crash as older Android phones do, or adjust CPU power draw which will slow down the device. The only other options are to replace the battery or the device. There’s no free lunch to be had here.

IMHO, Apple’s “crime” here is bad communication.

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> The only other options are to replace the battery or the device.

And battery replacement has been made to be as inconvenient as possible. 15 years ago, swapping the battery was a 15-second task that required no tools. Pull off the backing, pull out the battery, push in a new battery. Before Apple's response to bad press, it was $80 to have a battery swapped. Aftermarket kits were $30, so that is $50 on labor and markup. $50 to do what used to take 15 seconds by an untrained user.

This is a problem of Apple's making, by their design decisions.

Ease of battery replacement is another set of tradeoffs. 15 years ago, phones were bulkier and weren't as water resistant. Some phones still have easily replaceable batteries. Other phones, like the iPhone and Pixel optimize for form factor above ease of service - which is not surprising given that they're on the top end of the price scale. Nobody bats an eye about the fact that it's more expensive to service a Mercedes than a Toyota. iPhones are the Mercedes of smart phones.

> They absolutely do, but batteries have physical limitations that result in lower power output over time.

The same can be said of SSD media. It's well-known that flash memory is under-provisioned to allow for inevitable degradation: Defective sectors are flagged and re-mapped. This so that your 500GB SSD still has 500GB in 5 years.

This can be applied to battery tech as well. However, that would require either thicker, heavier phones, or less run-time between charges.

I would say Apple's "crime" is producing hardware where one particular component has a well-known failure mode that makes the entire device virtually useless after 3 years of moderate to heavy use.

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