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Comment by throwGuardian | Hacker News Reader

Too little! The cost of replacing an iPhone dwarfs $25.

The reason they settled was likely due to guilt, because proving innocence is cheaper than $500M. They should not be allowed to get away with a slap on the wrist

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They made a decision to try to keep battery life closer to constant at the expense of performance, believing it was a better UX (slow phone > no phone).

I think this was totally defensible, and I also think that the people who claim it's some sort of malicious activity are unhinged. That said, it makes sense to avoid a lawsuit where you'll spend a fortune in legal fees, then roll the dice on the verdict possibly losing _billions_ instead, and definitely earning a lot of ongoing PR along the way. Better to just pay it once, get one more round of dumb "Apple slowed their phones because they're evil hurr durr" commentary out, and then get back to business.

This. Apple invests in build quality more than any other smartphone manufacturers. A much easier way for Apple to push obsolescence would be to not support older iPhones with software updates but Apple supports phone longer than anyone else.

As I recall, it wasn’t even about maintaining constant battery life, it was about preventing the phone from unexpectedly shutting down due to insufficient battery current.

My take is this was happening to phones in warranty. If it was only happening to phones out of warranty, they could have advised users to purchase new batteries.

Apple made a choice to lie about it and mislead people, leading people to buy new iPhones when they could just replace the battery.

If someone crippled your car and told you: 'just buy a new one from me' while knowing there's a far cheaper fix - I'm sure you'd call it fraud too.

The argument, I think, is more nearly that they should have either slowed down the phone from day one (never promised more than it could be certain to deliver after a couple years) or made the phone bigger (include enough battery to maintain the promised performance indefinitely). In engineering, the goal is often to observe failure as close as possible to the computed target, as that shows you are minimizing waste and designing optimally. But doing the worst possible design that meets the goals, while generally understood the engineering goal, may still be counter to the expectations and understanding of the consumer. But I'm also a fan of my iDevices.

Lying was not totally defensible, and was in itself malicious.

All Apple had to do was tell people.

Why not notify people their battery was old and had to be replaced, and then slow the phone down? I think that's the bit people are upset about. Given a choice between a new phone or a battery replacement, many more people would have gone for the replacement, if they knew it would restore the performance of their device.

The issue is that they kept this all a big secret. A decision which indisputably goes against their customers best interest and (perhaps coincidentally) enhances their bottom line.

I'm otherwise a huge Apple fan, but people defending this completely baffles me. Especially since Apple themselves have admitted it was a mistake to not inform the customer (a key fact that you conveniently left out of your rant).

It's amazing that defenders changed their response from "Apple would never slow their phones, you're unhinged!" to "Apple did it in your best interest! You don't understand technology!" without skipping a beat. Just. Stop.

Batteries degrade over time. It's an inherit limit of the technology. That's fine. Let me decide what to do about it.

I understand that you claim that it enhanced their bottom line, but that makes no sense.

I (and many others) will _immediately replace_ a phone that routinely turns itself off under load. I will limp along, for quite a while, with a phone that is a bit slow. Every piece of evidence supports the notion that it was a well-intentioned decision that turned out to be not ideal.

And yet all you unhinged haters are _STILL COMPLAINING_ two years after Apple apologized for the decision, explained it, built features to expose the battery health, cut battery replacement costs down to zero-margin levels, and have now agreed to pay a settlement on top of that. To quote you: "Just. Stop."

I see you deleted your first highly abusive comment and re-wrote it to be (only slightly) less so. I hope you see the irony in doing that while at the same time calling out other people for being "unhinged".

Remember to breathe.

> Apple apologized for the decision

That's an informal admission of guilt

> explained it, built features to expose the battery health, cut battery replacement costs down to zero-margin levels

That's steps to attempt to regain customer trust, having broken it with the previous decision

> have now agreed to pay a settlement on top of that

That's a penalty for the informal admission of guilt

A wrong was committed, and steps have been taken to try and right that wrong.

In the interim, a number of people saw their phone experience degrade, and didn't know it was down to their battery health. A number of those people bought new iPhones, in some cases at 10x the price of a replacement battery. In some of those cases, those customers, had they known about the issue, would have purchased a new battery instead of a new phone.

I wasn't personally one of those people, as Apple hasn't released a phone that fits my needs since the iPhone SE. My family members are definitely those people, having purchased iPhone 7s when their 6/6s performance degraded, unbeknown to them that it was due to battery health, and could have been resolved with a replacement battery instead of a replacement phone.

This is a company that screwed up, and is now attempting to regain customer trust. This isn't a 'hater' situation. This shouldn't be a 'fanboy' situation. Trust is difficult to rebuild after it has been broken. This is normal human behaviour.

Interesting strategy of name-calling people with opposing opinions, without offering a shred of evidence in favor of your argument. And somehow, that isn't unhinged, for society has to believe in the intrinsic benevolence of a trillion dollar super-secretive mega-corp with such a chronic history of victim shaming that their "excuses" are literal memes [1]

[1]: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=You%27re%20H...

When there’s no good reason for silence and that silence financially benefits you, I don’t think it’s unhinged to be skeptical of the true motives behind the action.

Given that there were people financially benefiting from the false ‘Apple slows down phones to force upgrades’ narrative, it is completely understandable that they would be cautious.

Almost anything they said was going to lead to lawsuits.

The cost of proving innocence may be less than $500M. The risk of the ruling going against you even if innocent resulting in a higher penalty still exists. The calculus needs to also include that. $500M settlement is probably cheaper than the risk of court not ruling your way and being left with a larger penalty.

Agreed that the penalty is too little. $25 doesn't even cover the cost of replacing a battery one time.

This is a civil case. There’s no guarantee the plaintiffs would be able to prove guilt here. They’re not under any obligation to settle if they thought Apple was clearly in the wrong.

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