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Comment by pseudosavant | Hacker News Reader

What about when that “support” is to brick your battery so your phone lasts hours because they know it is defective but don’t want to fix it?

Google’s hardware track record is a joke compared to Apple.

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Not arguing with your point about Google, but isn't Apple very often accused of forced obsolescence through updates to their phones? Is there any truth to the accusations of "running slower and dying faster" after a new model releases?

Nothing at all like what Google has done for the Pixel 4a and 6a. They intentionally make the battery life so short after 400 charge cycles (maybe a year's worth of charging?) that it only lasts a few hours. They'll replace the battery only "in eligible locations and while battery supplies last."

For Apple, each iOS release is more demanding than the last. Then compound that with batteries produce less current as they age. So, the CPU can't run quite as fast because it can't draw as high of current for older batteries. The alternative is to let the CPU try to ramp to max and cause the CPU to error/crash. It was mostly a messaging failure, and the battery health info/settings got significantly improved because of it.

Here is Google's page on it: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/16340779

> They'll replace the battery only "in eligible locations and while battery supplies last.

And if you aren't in an eligible location they'll pay you cash or give you a discount on a new phone. I'm really unclear what seems so terrible here.

Communication wise, the whole thing (4a in my case, but the others seemed similar) was a disaster. But they offered to fix it for free (via battery swap)

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