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First post, by 640K!enough

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Does anyone have any opinions about the battery situation with modern devices? Quite recently, most of us have probably read about Apple's performance-reduction scandal. The claim was that they had to reduce the clock speed of their older mobile devices to prevent spontaneous reboots and/or shut-downs due to ageing batteries. When challenged, the response seemed to be shut up and accept it, because it will be gradually coming to the rest of the product line (meaning more recent devices).

We are mostly somewhat technical people here, so I'm hoping that logic and objectivity will trump any undying love for all things Apple, and allow a mature discussion. Does anyone actually believe that line? If so, why? It seems more like an arrogant, mostly nonsensical lie to me. Of course, it's impossible to say for certain without partially reverse-engineering iOS and/or the hardware, but it seems like it's caused by a bug that they can't be bothered to fix properly or a hardware design flaw/choice.

Why would I say this? My reasoning is simple: Apple isn't the only one building or selling such devices, so why are they the only ones with this problem to any significant extent? Others sell more devices, both cheaper and similarly-priced, both less and more powerful. Are the people at Apple the only ones malevolent enough to knowingly under-size their batteries for the sake of thinness, or is there something else we're missing?

At this very moment, I'm typing this on a BlackBerry PlayBook that is about 7 years old. In that time, is has been used and charged almost daily, yet with light usage I don't really have to charge it every day. It doesn't crash, unexpectedly power down or reboot, nor is it slower than when new. If lowly BlackBerry could manage that, what is Apple doing wrong, or is it just unbridled, shameless greed taking over?

As another example, I also had old Sony and Compaq laptops. Both had batteries that eventually died, but it took more than a couple of years, and both of those devices would have been more demanding of their batteries than an iPhone. In both cases, even as the batteries were dying, I never had a shut-down without enough warning that I could have done it safely. I ignored the low battery warnings a few times, to the detriment of the work I was doing, but the warnings were still there. With new batteries, both were like new; no software slow-downs necessary.

Reply 1 of 7, by lvader

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Before they did the software change, my Iphone 6 would occationally die before the battery reached 0%. I’ve had many other devices includeing laptops do the same thing on occations. I don’t think Apple have worse batteries, the technology is pretty similar across the board. The software fix is a typlical software engineer thing i.e. to try to fix something that didn’t need fixing in software and introduce something worse.

Reply 2 of 7, by CrossBow777

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My only issue with batteries in the modern world is Duracell batteries. Seems like every single thing I have in the house with a duracell in it will start to leak acid before the battery is even dead! A clock that I'm having to clean out now only had the battery in it for like 6 months before I noticed the clock was off on its time and took it off the wall to replace the battery only to find a corel reef of acid all around the negative end of the battery. Then 2 weeks later I see the same thing from another clock in the house that also had a Duracell AA in it leaking from the same spot.

Then this past weekend, my wife brought my utility flash light over to me because and says "Is that what I think it is..." and sure enough from around one of its three feet was a ring of battery acid leakage. This flash light was really cool because you can put 2 batteries into each leg of the tripod stand. It will run on just 2 in one leg or 6 in all three. Anyway, the leg with the most recent duracells in it was the one leaking. I tossed the light because I couldn't clean up the acid enough to free the battery from the tripod leg.

So...yeah that is my recent story involving batteries in modern day stuff. Duracell apparently makes shite batteries. I've got energizers that I've found that had to be over 20 years old in some old electronics that never leaked?! What gives!

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Reply 3 of 7, by badmojo

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My whole wife has an iPhone 6 and has experienced this slowing effect, much to her disgust. I’ve been using a second hand iPhone 5 for what seems like forever and have had no issues with it - I replaced the battery with a cheap after market one a couple of years ago but I don’t think that’s relevant.

So based on that and the headlines I’ve read I concluded that it was a design floor and that Apple were spinning it. But haven’t they been doing that a lot lately? This keyboard issue on Mac books, etc. I don’t follow this stuff closely but yeah, it’s pretty crap behaviour for such a profitable company.

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 4 of 7, by 640K!enough

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lvader wrote:

Before they did the software change, my Iphone 6 would occationally die before the battery reached 0%. I’ve had many other devices includeing laptops do the same thing on occations. I don’t think Apple have worse batteries, the technology is pretty similar across the board. The software fix is a typlical software engineer thing i.e. to try to fix something that didn’t need fixing in software and introduce something worse.

That's part of the question, though; were they really trying to solve a problem, or was it a deliberate reduction in performance on older devices to encourage "upgrades"? They may well have thought that nobody would notice the reason the devices were slower, just the unacceptable performance. Result: buy a new phone — an iPhone, of course, by their reasoning — and Apple wins. How else do you explain the reports of people going to Apple stores, and the "technician" testing and refusing to replace the battery, saying, effectively, "Your battery is fine; we won't replace it. If you want a phone that isn't slow, buy a new one.".

They could be using sub-standard batteries, but the main issue is very likely that they used batteries of insufficient capacity for practical, long-term usage.

No battery ever really reaches 0% charge without some amount of damage. It's all a question of calibration of the "fuel gauge" and other power-related chips. Every battery-powered device I have ever used starts to issue increasing warnings around the 10-20% range, and will forcibly power off at about 3-5%. Even with failing batteries, my previous laptops would reach the point of warning sooner, but would not power off or restart without warning.

badmojo wrote:

So based on that and the headlines I’ve read I concluded that it was a design floor and that Apple were spinning it. But haven’t they been doing that a lot lately? This keyboard issue on Mac books, etc. I don’t follow this stuff closely but yeah, it’s pretty crap behaviour for such a profitable company.

That was effectively my conclusion. Objectively, they are defective units; whether that's through incompetent design, arrogant disregard for their customers or some combination of both can still be debated. No other company seems to have this much battery trouble, and the timing is especially suspect. If this is a problem that they now know about, does that mean that the same battery-checking routines and clock-speed management code are already present in the iPhone X, ready to wreak havoc on those devices when necessary, or will the "fix" be applied as an update, only once the iPhone X S+, or whatever they're going to call it, happens to be available?

To be perfectly honest, there is no way I'd be able to justify laptop prices for a phone that is virtually guaranteed to be slowed to a crawl within a year — or two, at most — even if I could afford it. At this point, I don't trust Apple as far as I could throw their new headquarters, and I assure you that I can't even lift Phil Schiller, let alone the whole building. As long as the faithful masses still buy the new model, despite their whining, Apple is unlikely to put any real effort into solving the problems or changing their behaviour; they're too busy counting their money.

Can anyone offer a credible explanation for their apparent battery woes?

Reply 5 of 7, by lvader

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640K!enough wrote:

How else do you explain the reports of people going to Apple stores, and the "technician" testing and refusing to replace the battery, saying, effectively, "Your battery is fine; we won't replace it. If you want a phone that isn't slow, buy a new one.".

Easily explainable that there are hundred of millions of Iphones, and for sure there will be a few people with newer phones that think their battery might be a bit less than 100% optimal and are trying to get a new battery so the iphone lasts longer. I’ve instructed my whole family with older iphones to get the battery replaced because regardless of faults, batteries don’t last forever and its a good deal.

There are plenty of reports that Samsung phones slowdown even after just a few months. Probbaly not battery related because they normally prewarn you with smoke. 🤣

Reply 6 of 7, by nforce4max

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The truth of it is that Apple's hardware is shit and only gets worse where past generations were either decent to very good but anything in the last few years is complete junk. I really like their software but their hardware is well proven to be garbage, wouldn't surprise me the Chinese knockoffs are probably made better at this point because Apple cheeps out on the materials where ever possible.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 7 of 7, by 640K!enough

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nforce4max wrote:

The truth of it is that Apple's hardware is shit and only gets worse where past generations were either decent to very good but anything in the last few years is complete junk.

It is clear to me that their products have been dropping in quality for years. While Amelio was CEO, they seemed to be working to change for the better where quality is concerned. Following the return of Jobs, they seemed to be making things only as well as they had to, while still getting the necessary approvals and having them sell.

nforce4max wrote:

I really like their software but their hardware is well proven to be garbage, wouldn't surprise me the Chinese knockoffs are probably made better at this point because Apple cheeps out on the materials where ever possible.

Their software has been on a decline, too, sadly. It's almost as if they think that they are so good, they don't need QA or code reviews.

Playing with iPhone battery life and performance as they have been is asking for trouble. It is their biggest cash cow, and even they can't afford to lose that. If they keep this up, sooner or later, even their most loyal customers will get tired of it or run out of money sooner or later.