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They did absolutely slow down their older phones, but it comes down to whether you believe that their explanation of why was the whole truth. https://techcrunch

They did absolutely slow down their older phones, but it comes down to whether you believe that their explanation of why was the whole truth. https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/02/apple-agrees-to-settlement-of-up-to-500-million-from-lawsuit-alleging-it-throttled-older-phones/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/02/apple-agrees-to-settlement... I'm not an Apple hater or a fanboy. I've owned a number of Apple devices in the past. However, they have their issues just like any other tech company, but their devoted following does seem to be more cultish than that of, say, Microsoft or Google.

judge2020 6y ago
You could ask any non-Apple industry personnel about what happens to batteries after years of constant usage and all of them will agree that eventually you eventually won't be able to pull the power you need to keep the phone running fast. Getting a new battery always fixed this, Apple just was performing this power management without telling the user before ios 12.1.
- derivagral 6y ago
  A big point of this is how user-hostile replacing a battery on a phone has become for flagship mobile devices, which makes this situation a bit worse IMO.
- thebean11 6y ago
  But if I'm an average user and my phone is slow, my first thought isn't "hey I should get the battery replaced". It's perfectly reasonable to assume the phone would still be slow, so why not just buy a newer model? It's a lie of omission, which you could reasonably interpret as a trick to get people to upgrade.
  - Lownin 6y ago
    If you're an average user and your phone is spontaneously rebooting, you probably think to replace it even more.
    - thebean11 6y ago
      If the battery is dying at <5% I think it's pretty obvious. But I think the real solution is the throttling behavior PLUS a "service battery" notification.
  - hwbehrens 6y ago
    If Apple had done nothing, then that same user's phone would randomly start switching off at non-0 battery levels (the un-throttled behavior) when brownouts occurred. Wouldn't the same user still come to the same conclusion, that their phone has some problem and needs to be replaced? In general, the mobile phone industry has done a pretty good job encouraging their userbase to forget that their batteries are replaceable, so I don't think that most users would consider that as a remediation step off the top of their head. I think it's plain that the best solution would be informing the user of the problem and letting them choose between behaviors (or, you know, replace the battery), but between slow usage and random shutdowns, I would personally choose the former. I wonder if there have been any studies on how many users, once the toggle had been added, switched it from the (default) throttling behavior to the shutdown behavior? I'd be curious to see if I'm in the minority there.
    - thebean11 6y ago
      > If Apple had done nothing, then that same user's phone would randomly start switching off at non-0 battery levels (the un-throttled behavior) when brownouts occurred. Wouldn't the same user still come to the same conclusion, that their phone has some problem and needs to be replaced? No I actually think then the average person would assume it's a battery issue, or at least be able to google it. I'm not saying that this is actually better behavior (I would also choose slow mode over random shutoff mode), but it doesn't obfuscate the fact that the phone has a faulty battery. The reason I suspect that Apple did this maliciously is that "service battery" notifications are pretty standard behavior (including on their own laptops). It just seems like an intentional omission.
  - movedx 6y ago
    > It's a lie of omission I got an email well before the throttling "scandal" broke out telling me my battery could be replaced for free. It was, 16,000KMs away from home, for free. What was it Apple lied about?
    - thebean11 6y ago
      I didn't know about this email, but it still seems like a pretty bad way to communicate this no? How about a notification from the OS like in Apple's laptops?
      - movedx 6y ago
        I agree. They deffo dropped the ball on this one.
thebruce87m 6y ago
I know the intricacies of what they did. To summarise: some phones with older batteries would suffer brownouts because the internal resistance of the battery was too high. They updated the OS to detect the brownout and throttle the CPU to prevent it happening again. So they didn’t slow down all old phones, only ones that had the problem. They actually attempted to fix older models. To me this is the opposite of planned obsolescence and appeals to my environmental view that all manufacturers should be supporting their hardware as least as long as Apple currently does. Now they didn’t communicate, and were fined. I think that is fair enough, but I feel the size of the fine was quite excessive given they were trying to extend the life of their customers hardware. Note that the other phone manufacturers that have exactly the same problems did nothing and are actually better off because of it.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  Yeah, I had an old, slowed iPhone 5S and I had a third party shop replace the battery and when it can me back, it was significantly faster.
  - schadara 6y ago
    Supposedly, Apple didn't "implement" battery throttling on the iPhone 5S - Apple's discount battery replacement program only applied to the iPhone 6 and up. This suggests that Apple switched to a flawed battery technology in hardware starting in the iPhone 6 that wasn't realized until years later. And, instead of issuing a recall or repair program, they pushed a silent cover up in the software. Whatever the motive, they should have been more open about it. I had an iPhone 5S that ran ok until I upgraded to iOS 13, IIRC. After that, the frames started skipping and it became frustrating to use.
- mthoms 6y ago
  Your "summary" curiously omits one of the most important details — That the battery could be replaced and the phone would perform like new. If not, the ever deteriorating battery would result in a never ending arms race of throttling. Inevitably, that phone and battery would be in the landfill instead of just the latter. Whether or not the whole thing was intentionally nefarious I'm not convinced. But the episode looks way worse than your comment suggests.
jmull 6y ago
> their devoted following does seem to be more cultish I don't know about that. I seem to see a lot of irrational Apple hate, but not that much irrational Apple love. I think they are far from perfect in many, many ways. But so much criticism of them appears overblown, short-sighted, irrelevant to me, or just plain wrong. I look at it like this: all things considered, balancing various concerns, what's the best option for me for my given needs? Following that philosophy I've ended up with a lot of Apple gear. Am I a fanboy because a better alternative doesn't exist?
- sbuk 6y ago
  Exactly this. In fact, I’d suggest it’s a massive circular argument. A lot of the vehement ‘defence’ of Apple I see is usually in response to some outlandish claim being made against them, which is often made in response to a gushing anecdote of how great Apple are. It has been ever thus.

judge2020 6y ago

You could ask any non-Apple industry personnel about what happens to batteries after years of constant usage and all of them will agree that eventually you eventually won't be able to pull the power you need to keep the phone running fast. Getting a new battery always fixed this, Apple just was performing this power management without telling the user before ios 12.1.

derivagral 6y ago
A big point of this is how user-hostile replacing a battery on a phone has become for flagship mobile devices, which makes this situation a bit worse IMO.
thebean11 6y ago
But if I'm an average user and my phone is slow, my first thought isn't "hey I should get the battery replaced". It's perfectly reasonable to assume the phone would still be slow, so why not just buy a newer model? It's a lie of omission, which you could reasonably interpret as a trick to get people to upgrade.
- Lownin 6y ago
  If you're an average user and your phone is spontaneously rebooting, you probably think to replace it even more.
  - thebean11 6y ago
    If the battery is dying at <5% I think it's pretty obvious. But I think the real solution is the throttling behavior PLUS a "service battery" notification.
- hwbehrens 6y ago
  If Apple had done nothing, then that same user's phone would randomly start switching off at non-0 battery levels (the un-throttled behavior) when brownouts occurred. Wouldn't the same user still come to the same conclusion, that their phone has some problem and needs to be replaced? In general, the mobile phone industry has done a pretty good job encouraging their userbase to forget that their batteries are replaceable, so I don't think that most users would consider that as a remediation step off the top of their head. I think it's plain that the best solution would be informing the user of the problem and letting them choose between behaviors (or, you know, replace the battery), but between slow usage and random shutdowns, I would personally choose the former. I wonder if there have been any studies on how many users, once the toggle had been added, switched it from the (default) throttling behavior to the shutdown behavior? I'd be curious to see if I'm in the minority there.
  - thebean11 6y ago
    > If Apple had done nothing, then that same user's phone would randomly start switching off at non-0 battery levels (the un-throttled behavior) when brownouts occurred. Wouldn't the same user still come to the same conclusion, that their phone has some problem and needs to be replaced? No I actually think then the average person would assume it's a battery issue, or at least be able to google it. I'm not saying that this is actually better behavior (I would also choose slow mode over random shutoff mode), but it doesn't obfuscate the fact that the phone has a faulty battery. The reason I suspect that Apple did this maliciously is that "service battery" notifications are pretty standard behavior (including on their own laptops). It just seems like an intentional omission.
- movedx 6y ago
  > It's a lie of omission I got an email well before the throttling "scandal" broke out telling me my battery could be replaced for free. It was, 16,000KMs away from home, for free. What was it Apple lied about?
  - thebean11 6y ago
    I didn't know about this email, but it still seems like a pretty bad way to communicate this no? How about a notification from the OS like in Apple's laptops?
    - movedx 6y ago
      I agree. They deffo dropped the ball on this one.

thebruce87m 6y ago

I know the intricacies of what they did. To summarise: some phones with older batteries would suffer brownouts because the internal resistance of the battery was too high. They updated the OS to detect the brownout and throttle the CPU to prevent it happening again. So they didn’t slow down all old phones, only ones that had the problem. They actually attempted to fix older models. To me this is the opposite of planned obsolescence and appeals to my environmental view that all manufacturers should be supporting their hardware as least as long as Apple currently does. Now they didn’t communicate, and were fined. I think that is fair enough, but I feel the size of the fine was quite excessive given they were trying to extend the life of their customers hardware. Note that the other phone manufacturers that have exactly the same problems did nothing and are actually better off because of it.

fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
Yeah, I had an old, slowed iPhone 5S and I had a third party shop replace the battery and when it can me back, it was significantly faster.
- schadara 6y ago
  Supposedly, Apple didn't "implement" battery throttling on the iPhone 5S - Apple's discount battery replacement program only applied to the iPhone 6 and up. This suggests that Apple switched to a flawed battery technology in hardware starting in the iPhone 6 that wasn't realized until years later. And, instead of issuing a recall or repair program, they pushed a silent cover up in the software. Whatever the motive, they should have been more open about it. I had an iPhone 5S that ran ok until I upgraded to iOS 13, IIRC. After that, the frames started skipping and it became frustrating to use.
mthoms 6y ago
Your "summary" curiously omits one of the most important details — That the battery could be replaced and the phone would perform like new. If not, the ever deteriorating battery would result in a never ending arms race of throttling. Inevitably, that phone and battery would be in the landfill instead of just the latter. Whether or not the whole thing was intentionally nefarious I'm not convinced. But the episode looks way worse than your comment suggests.

jmull 6y ago

> their devoted following does seem to be more cultish I don't know about that. I seem to see a lot of irrational Apple hate, but not that much irrational Apple love. I think they are far from perfect in many, many ways. But so much criticism of them appears overblown, short-sighted, irrelevant to me, or just plain wrong. I look at it like this: all things considered, balancing various concerns, what's the best option for me for my given needs? Following that philosophy I've ended up with a lot of Apple gear. Am I a fanboy because a better alternative doesn't exist?

sbuk 6y ago
Exactly this. In fact, I’d suggest it’s a massive circular argument. A lot of the vehement ‘defence’ of Apple I see is usually in response to some outlandish claim being made against them, which is often made in response to a gushing anecdote of how great Apple are. It has been ever thus.