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Apple Batterygate Apology From Tim Cook
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Posted on 01/18/2018 10:20:59 AM PST by Swordmaker
In a recent interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledges the company should have been clearer with iPhone owners.
The iPhone throttling issue that Apple brought upon itself last year shows no signs of going away any time soon, but Apple CEO Tim Cook finally acknowledges that the company should have been clearer with iPhone owners.
For those of you who aren't following the story closely, it all started back in July of last year, when Apple released iOS 10.2.1 following reports that iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and iPhone SE handsets were shutting down randomly due to cold weather, low battery charge, or battery aging.
The release notes for this update had the following to say:
Improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns.
Doesn't say an awful lot, does it?
(Excerpt) Read more at zdnet.com ...
It actually worked quite well for what it was intended to prevent: unexpected shut downs instigated from the depleted batteries, which could only be restarted after the device was placed back on a charger, which was often not available to people away from home leaving them without a way communicating, perhaps in an emergency.
Does the iPhone have a built-in volt meter or ammeter to monitor battery condition or is it just a age thing?...................
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No, because Apple users aren’t smart enough to manage these things themselves, that’s why they are Apple users. As Archie Bunker used to say, “ipso fatso”!
You did nothing wrong. You should have made the slowdown an option, with default “OFF”, and told people about it, and why.
No reason for lawsuits. The leftist media was irresponsible in blaming the left-oriented capitalist company for “cheating” customers.
The batteries themselves have built-in condition circuitry that can be polled and the iPhone is constantly checking that. It checks the number of full charge cycles, battery charge depth, amps, volts, temperature, etc. The battery itself does it to, and if certain criteria are met, the battery will shutdown all output due to overheating, overdraft, etc., to prevent damage to the device. That was what was happening in the unexpected shutdowns. Before power would flow from the battery again, it had to be placed back on a charger for the internal circuitry to be reset.
There are free and paid apps on the Apple App Store that allow users to see the condition of the battery and all those statistics. One I use is "Battery Life." It's free.
I need some back ground...
Do the IOS updates automatically slow down older I-phones? Why? Is there a way to turn off the throttling to get the fastest speed? Even if it affects the battery life?
Thanks.
There was actually no winning in this situation. There were threatened class action lawsuits in the unexpected shutdown situation as well which Apple was trying to prevent.
Sued if you did, sued if you didn't. That's our litigious society these days.
There's a guy on Seeking Alpha who has been writing a series of articles maintaining that the iPhones have a inherent design flaw in that the BATTERIES are insufficiently powerful enough to last the lifetime of the iPhone.
He's an idiot. No Lithium-Ion battery will last more than 500 to 700 charge cycles. It's the technology of the beast. The chemistry depletes after that many charge cycles. If a user recharges their device every day, that's the equivalent of 17 to 23 months of life before the battery is considered chemically depleted. When you reach that many charge cycles, the battery will charge to full voltage, but the depth of charge is no longer the same as new and the length it will hold that charge and how long it can provide a full flow of energy on demand is shortened.
There is no way with current technology to change that. . . but this Seeking Alpha idiot thinks that if the iPhone will last five years, the battery should be able to last five years at full charge capability without replacement as well, and since it doesn't, that's a "design flaw" on Apple's part. He maintains that Apple could have solved the problem by just putting a lot bigger battery in the iPhone, not understanding at all that bigger doesn't solve the charge cycle issue no matter how many times technical people tell him differently. . . and that Apple should be forced by the courts to refund the entire purchase price to all buyers of these "Flawed iPhones." He's written at least ten articles with that thesis.
Wonder if there is an app that can accurately tell you what kind of shape your battery is in. I know that I’ve been affected by this throttling. It’s actually been pretty apparent, so I’m wondering if that is indicative of actual battery issues, or if it’s just normal age wear/tear.
That’s why this whole thing will end in a grumble: once presented with the “slowdown” as an option, vanishingly few users will actually turn it off once they realize how short the battery will last without the previously-automatic management - and how little beneficial performance they will receive by disabling it.
The battery really does have a finite lifespan, with aggressively diminishing usability once certain performance characteristics are reached. Sure, we could leave that “speed or runtime” option to the user, and news media & naysayers are compelling the option, but I expect users will find that their choice will be “full power when you don’t need it, battery lasts minutes” vs “negligible decrease in speed, battery lasts hours”, and those who turn the switch off will either sheepishly turn it back on (not really telling anyone), or will leave it off and b!tch loudly about the crummy performance (having forgotten they _chose_ to turn it off).
Naysayers are accusing Apple of not trusting users to manage the issue. Apple has succeeded in no small part because they _don’t_ trust users to manage many issues, because millions of users _can’t_ manage such issues.
When you get the option to enable/disable battery-saving throttling, report back. We’ll very much like to know whether turning it off really helps vs shortened battery life.
Shouldn't you be over on YouTube with Qanon saving the world?
Should have read down the thread before my last post. The app you mentioned shows my "Wear Level" as "Very High" (31%)
The term “lifetime of the phone” is user subjective, cannot be a universal measurement.
No, it only slows down the older iPhones that have chemically depleted batteries IF an application is making an extraordinary demand on the battery by putting a large demand on the processor or GPUs. These are the power-hungry components of the mobile devices. . . and a chemically depleted battery cannot supply the demands that it once could when new. It rapidly reaches its ability to do a phase-change. It WILL keep providing the amperage draw, but to do that the VOLTAGE drops, causing heat in the battery to rise. The internal circuitry of the battery will note these imbalances and will eventually shut down the battery to prevent swelling and/or fire, cutting off all power to the device.
Apple inserted an algorithm to monitor this power draw of processor/GPU intensive apps and to prevent these over-drafts, spread their processing out over a longer period of time to prevent these shutdowns. This has the effect of making these particular apps run slower so they will not draw as much power from that depleted batter. Replace the battery with a new one and the algorithm will not see an overdraft condition reported from the battery so it will not need to spread that app's processing out over time. This is exactly what has been reported every time a chemically depleted battery has been replaced with a new battery.
Yes, it is possible to make this a user selectable option IN ADVANCE of the shutdown event, but not a choice at the time of a shutdown, because there is no warning when the battery decides to shutdown. That is something where no warning is given to the device. That happens entirely internally in the battery. Once decided, it is the default position of the device.
Once the device is shutdown by the battery, it will NOT restart until the device is placed on a charger for a few seconds to reset the internal battery circuitry. The batteries that shutdown in this manner usually have an adequate charge in them to run normal apps. . . it is just the over drafting of power by these processor/GPU intensive applications that cause the shutdowns.
One of the reasons for that is that older devices were built with dual core processors and a single GPU. Later devices have four to six core processors and multiple GPUs with multiple cores, all of which are between four to eight times faster than the older devices.
Developers create or update existing apps to take advantage of these more powerful processors and GPUs with multiple cores, and even the upgraded iOS is so upgraded. . . and expects to do much more in processing and moving graphics around more quickly. The older devices do what they can to do the same, but try to do those jobs with a double core and a single GPU what the newer devices are easily handling with multiple cores and multiple GPUs. . . and to do that the older less efficient devices demands more power from a depleted, older battery that just cannot provide it anymore. The battery tries to do it, but can't and shuts down.
Ironically, the very test that demonstrates the speed of these devices, GeekBench Testing, stresses the processor and GPUs in exactly the same way as the worst of these processor/GPUs intensive applications do. . . in fact, it is designed intentionally to do just that. Ergo, Geekbench will trigger Apple's algorithm to throttle itself to spread the TEST out over time, showing the slowest processing to keep the device from shutting down due to battery overdraft. The very act of testing CAUSES the slowdown to occur. . . by design. This is Swordmaker's Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for iPhones. The test is part of the problem, because it creates the symptom!
So, if the user switches off the throttling, he is likely to wind up with a bricked device until he can put it on a charger to resurrect it. If he allows it to be throttled, it will work, but slower on some heavy duty apps (but more and more normal apps are becoming "heavy duty" as more bells and whistles are added by developers. Damn rock and hard places. The real solution is to replace the battery.
See my reply #6 to Red Badger. There are quite a few battery condition apps. Just do a search in the App Store.
What's your recharge cycle count? Does it say? I think 31% is probably about 1000 charge cycles.
No good deed goes unpunished. Damned if you do, and damned if ya don’t.
The whole deal should have been handled better, especially on something like this.
A little pre-publicity and the reasons why would have went a long ways to maintaining customer integrity and trust. Or better yet, just give the customer the option originally and let em run the damn batteries into oblivion. Live and learn.
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