Apple settled long-standing conspiracy theories surrounding claims that the company was purposefully slowing down older iPhones in order to force people into buying newer models - and there's a "perfectly good" explanation.
Batteries
In early December, Reddit user TeckFire posted a report in the iPhone subreddit, noting that after experiencing a painful slowdown on his iPhone 6S, a brand new battery resulted in significant improvement in benchmark scores - as can be seen in photos posted to the thread:
After testing performed by Geekbench developer John Poole, it was indeed confirmed that iPhones were being throttled to preserve battery life or avoid unexpected shutdowns while the battery degrades.
So it's true Apple intentionally slow down old iPhones. Proof: My iPhone 6 was bought 3years ago and recently got really slow. APP 'CPU DasherX' shows iPhone CPU is under clocked running at 600MHz. After a iPhone battery replacement. CPU speed resumed to factory setting 1400MHz. pic.twitter.com/pML3y0Jkp2
— Sam_Si (@sam_siruomu) December 20, 2017
The Cupertino, CA company responded to the internet sleuths, admitting in a statement "Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components."
"Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future," said the company.
As TechCrunch explains:
Basically, iPhones were hitting peaks of processor power that the battery was unable to power and the phones were shutting off. Apple then added power management to all iPhones at the time that would “smooth out” those peaks by either capping the power available from the battery or by spreading power requests over several cycles. This is clearly shown in Poole’s charts in his post:
Many have pointed out how bad it looks for Apple - which has been accused of throttling older phones to make them buy new ones, was caught throttling phones. No matter how legitimate the reason, the fact that they were caught - and forced to admit - is going to fuel conspiracy theories for a while.
For years, we’ve reassured people that no, Apple doesn’t secretly slow down their older iPhones to make them buy new ones.
If this must be done, it should be a setting. If it’s on by default, the user should be alerted the first time it happens.https://t.co/kRRmd7mN72
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) December 20, 2017
The reputation damage from secretly slowing down old iPhones, regardless of the reason, will likely linger for a decade.
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) December 20, 2017
To recap: due to battery performance degradation issues, the power demands of the iPhone processor was causing shutoff issues. To solve this, Apple secretly throttled their phones in order to avoid the issue... and were caught by internet sleuths before issuing a statement with their tail between their legs. Was there any impact on the stock price? Of course not: after all 2018 is the year companies make buybacks great again.
Wonder if any other manufacturers have been doing this?
Nokia is throttling my flip phone.
Don't fucking update the iOS. Is always a bad ideea.
After 2.5 years and still with factory iOS 9.3.5 my iPhone SE is awesomely fast when loading leaked nude celebrities.
Videos too
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There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for lithium batteries to cost more than, say, alkaline batteries. NONE WHATSOEVER! If you recycle your old worn out lithium battery, where do you suppose the lithium went? Of course it is still right there in the old battery. It does not turn into pumpkin pulp or tritium gas (except under bombardment with fast neutrons that would kill you). So you can just trot down to your friendly neighborhood blacksmith, and with a trifling little bit of chemical wizardry and new packaging, your old lithium battery is brand-new again! So simple.
Now there might perhaps be patents and rights restrictions that make this a illegal. So what? Laws are like pie crusts, made to be broken. There's a nifty little underground economy just waiting to pop up here like a meadow full of beautiful little mushrooms.
My android phone became unusable because of this. Even as just a wifi device its all but unusable. It is a Motorola android razr.
The Google stops updating products around three years old so that they crash and malfunction often. You have to root your "older" device and install the OS updates yourself. I'll be doing that with my Samsung Android tablet soon.
Dont update. Updates are alomst never for users benefit. I dont want to lose jailbreak so I never update anyway.
I'm have a dilemma. My Yahoo Mail app keeps hanging/crashing on my tablet with the old Android OS (KitKat, I believe?). I was hoping that a new version of the OS would help stop the crashes.
Have suspected this for several years. Was jus discussing this issue with a buddy last week. Also have strong reason to suspect that the 'software updates' are also designed to screw with older phones.
Karl Denniger caught them out on their games, and explains why; simply to have the phone last juuuuuuust long enough before the user gets pissed that it’s out of warranty.
the ipads are worse - slower than the aecond coming of christ ..
the n5s is ok - way better than the 4 4s - thou this one drops to the ground a lot
shoulda waited till after christmas for dis bombshell !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a great way to destroy your reputation and credibility.
Nice work dumbshits.
What do you expect from a bunch of libtards?
Why not make batteries replaceble and at a fair price, not quadruple what thrid party outlets sell them for.
Exactly. There are so many reasons not to buy iShit, but the reason given for throttling the phone in a vacuum sounds reasonable to me. The alternative is a crashing phone. I suppose they could at least give the consumer the option to slow or risk crashing, but then they would have to admit that their phones are basically designed to become obsolete in a few years. The iPhone is the modern day equivalent of a Chrysler Cordoba, without the rich Corenthian leather.
Corinth is known for its leather!
I think you should know why
Because replaceable batteries are ANTI-SEMITIC! Plus they eat away at our profits.
Now see, if this would have happened under the benevolent watchful eye of Obama's Net Neutrality diktat, heads would have rolled!
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Man, tough crowd tonight.
How bout if Trump appoints a Battery Czar? ;-)
Plausible deniability at work. Buy whole new phone we fucked up on purpose instead of replacing just the battery, if you feel like it.
interesting as I read recent articles, I brought all this stuff up a decade ago. The day 911 is exposed will be the day I can die and die with a smile...and so sick and tired of chemtrails...gmo and vaccines come a close second. I can choose not to eat gmo or take vacccine, but stoip spraying the shit in the sky please...I will not ever support trump until he stops the chemtrails...period. and why the frick does alex jones use mainstream and government stats to promote trump when he said the mainstream and government stats were fraud when obama was president? I am so sick of most everyone.
Here, here. I've seen so many "alternative news" types suddenly change their tune on everything from government stats to the stock market (e.g., the Fed pumped up the market during Obama but now Trump gets credit), that there's hardly anyone I can stand reading/listening to anymore. Same thing happened on the left when Obama won. Suddenly the wars and droning etc were okay. ZH is one of the last sites I can still enjoy reading these days.
I am only here for people such as yourself that I can chat with...before I go insane :-)
This makes no sense to me. I thought Apple sought to profit by making its batteries replaceable only by Apple and at high cost. Why didn't Apple simply program the phones to say that it was time to get a new [obscenely-priced] battery?
its called 2clvrby1/2.exe
Yes. Make the batteries so expensive and impractical to change that the customer will choose to get a new phone instead. Got it.
Dupes deserve however they get treated by today's wicked companies. More and more I buy used stuff and leave my phone at home.
Why not just do without a smart phone? Learn to lead a more full life.
What you said. I have only a tracfone, $100 a year, and it stays in the car. And usually stays dead until I charge it up. And the only reason I have one is there aren't any phone booths anymore. If I need triple-A, I plug it in. I think it has 800 unread messages. I don't care.
They call them smart phones....not smart owners. Not smart users. Always wondered what happens when a device that will answer any question, make any calculation, point you to any direction, and remind you of every little thing you ever wanted to remember.....what happens when it starts lying to you? What if it's been lying to you all along? That's why the phones are smart, not the owners.
I have a five year old Android phone, yeah the battery doesn't last as long as it once did, but the phone still performs as fast as it always did.
The entire battery can't supply the juice for the processor is total BS. If that was the case, the battery was never capable of running Apple's shit processor.
But that is what you get for buying an $80 phone that sells for $800.
When people don't give themselves altetnative ways to accomplish something, the corporations will take a big fcking shit on their customers. Cause the truth of the matter is businesses don't give a fck about customers.
Apple inc just keeping your iPhone "safe" and "secure" from outdated hardware!
No associated "Net Neutrality" issues here folks... Run along!...
Is that straight from Cooks mouth...c'mon, add some verifiable link :/
I believe the definition is "extortion"... And "YES" when you have people like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVpSBUgbxBU) that got you to THIS PLACE...at the highest level(s) of your government that haven't been skinned and de-boned on a "spit" for the worst treason 16 years later...
The taxpayer is their "oyster"!
How does this impact the Falkland Islands?
LMMFAO!
The Falkland Islands' chief export is high quality wool. Throttled iPhones with shitty batteries will throw off less heat, thereby decreasing demand for high quality wool.
Falklands are fucked.
Laughing apple snobs got ass-fucked by their brand worship.
Just wait till the snobs find out what "advanced safety features" actually means in their 2018 Prius' ;-)
And y'all goyim thought we created non-removeable batteries for your convenience, didn't you.
this is benevolence of elites and soft tech; they dont even give you a battery haha, i dont see the problem; all the hand wringing is silly; if you own one, youre owned and clueless anyway...good outrage though for alex jones ratfuckt drudge paranoid abcmedia douchebag lunatics
sue now
My Nexus P6 is slow as balls and keeps dying with battery left...hmmm
Everybody I know who owns an Iphone are pretty much dumb sonofabitches who have their heads in their asshoIes.
Apple, FFS man!
I had an IPhone once! Fckng joke!
Humiliation? This is criminal.
Yea they pull the EXACT SAME SHIT with the fucking macs.
Have an older Mac (not REALLY old just a few years) and are FORCED to do an upgrade due to a bug or a critical software upgrade, and BOOM! 25% performance loss :(
Had this happen multiple times already.