Apple finally admitted it slows down Iphones as they get older

[Zontar]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/apple-iphones-slow-down-old-models-smartphone-speed-ios-updates-a8121906.html

So the day has finally come and Apple has admitted they slow down their Iphones as they get older. This isn't a surprised, planned obsolescence is something consumers know about so well we created a term specifically for it.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Didn't read the article. Saw it on the news at work. They said it's to save battery life on ageing batteries.

Load. Of. Crap.

Yes, they are doing it to mask what would otherwise be a <50$ part replacement and it just so happens to push people toward buying another $600+ dollar phone.

Do they think we're stupid? (Don't answer that)

 

[Ravinoff]

Didn't read the article. Saw it on the news at work. They said it's to save battery life on ageing batteries.

Load. Of. Crap.

Yes, they are doing it to mask what would otherwise be a >50$ part replacement and it just so happens to push people toward buying another $600+ dollar phone.

Do they think we're stupid? (Don't answer that)

Not to mention that they make the $50 replacement part not user-serviceable so we can't just buy a battery off Amazon and swap it out in five minutes (like I could with the first cell phone I ever saw, a Motorola Microtac, AKA "a literal fucking brick").

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Mod edit - Please do not post autoplay videos, thank you

 

[Arnoxthe1]

But... What's a computer?

-

autoplay=1

 

[Akytalusia]

this is interesting. but i have no comment on the topic at this time. i did comment earlier, but i changed my mind and am currently editing that post. though as i have an obligation to spend a certain character length on my post, and with no other topical information to offer, i'll just have to explain myself in completely unnecessary detail.
or, is that arbitrary limit even still a thing? man, i don't post often enough to keep track of these things. whatever. aky out.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

I needed to convey the utter shock, surprise, and righteous disbelief that Apple actively tries to screw with its consumers to get them to buy new iPhones ever year.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Thanks for giving me even more incentive to stick with my Android phone.

 

[Drathnoxis]

this is interesting. but i have no comment on the topic at this time. i did comment earlier, but i changed my mind and am currently editing that post. though as i have an obligation to spend a certain character length on my post, and with no other topical information to offer, i'll just have to explain myself in completely unnecessary detail.
or, is that arbitrary limit even still a thing? man, i don't post often enough to keep track of these things. whatever. aky out.

No. Low content rule was repealed ages ago.

 

[Zontar]

autoplay=1

snip

bluegate's EscapistPlus addon has a pretty useful feature to prevent autoplay

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Didn't read the article. Saw it on the news at work. They said it's to save battery life on ageing batteries.

Load. Of. Crap.

Yes, they are doing it to mask what would otherwise be a >50$ part replacement and it just so happens to push people toward buying another $600+ dollar phone.

Do they think we're stupid? (Don't answer that)

Apple products are always designed way harder to replace parts or fix than their counterparts. Replacing a keyboard on a MacBook is quite the process vs most laptops that just basically pull right off.

The funniest thing is people don't even need expensive phones, a low to mid-tier phone will do everything you need and more. My free phone (for switching carriers without even signing a contract) does everything AND IT HAS A REMOVABLE BATTERY. And, my phone is currently $75 at Walmart. High-end phones almost exclusively don't have removable batteries.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I needed to convey the utter shock, surprise, and righteous disbelief that Apple actively tries to screw with its consumers to get them to buy new iPhones ever year.

The video is great. Autoplay is not. Remember, autoplay is Satan's work.

bluegate's EscapistPlus addon has a pretty useful feature to prevent autoplay

Oh I'm actually using the old Disable Autoplay function on Chrome. It's not supported anymore per se, but it still works pretty good. Also, once the next Chrome version comes out of beta, we'll have in-built autoplay-disabling functionality.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

From what I've read it's actually a battery issue [https://www.vox.com/2017/12/22/16807056/apple-slow-iphone-batteries]. Apple isn't slowing down people's phones to make them buy new ones; they're slowing down people's phones to stop them from crashing due to an aging battery.

Basically, as the phone's battery ages - all batteries age, but lithium ion batteries age in a particularly inconvenient [https://phys.org/news/2015-11-neutrons-aging-lithium-ion-batteries.html] way - it can't keep up with the phone when the phone is running at or near to its maximum processing capacity. The iPhone's battery in particular was causing the whole phone to crash [http://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-6-6s-sudden-shutdown-weve-almost-fully-cured-issue-with-ios-10-2-1-says-apple/] unexpectedly whenever people ran several apps at once.

Apple released a software patch to fix the crashing issue, but it fixed it largely by imposing artificial limits [https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16800058/apple-iphone-slow-fix-battery-life-capacity] on the processing power of the phone. That is to say, slowing the phone down.

So, not a great move by Apple; they could've been more open about the causes of the problem, and they probably could've avoided building a phone whose power demands would exceed its projected capacity in the first place. From their perspective, they probably decided that slowing down older phones was better for the consumer than either letting the problem go unaddressed or telling consumers to shell out for a new battery.

Not to mention that they make the $50 replacement part not user-serviceable so we can't just buy a battery off Amazon and swap it out in five minutes (like I could with the first cell phone I ever saw, a Motorola Microtac, AKA "a literal fucking brick").

Yeah, this part's especially dumb. Apple has always had a systematic aversion to letting its customers fuck around the insides of their hardware, which leads to decisions like making it stupidly complicated [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgmtNJuqEHI] to remove a battery on your own.

My old Galaxy phone, I can just pop the case off with my thumb and swap out the battery. For an iPhone you need a goddamn specialised screwdriver and you need to take out like a dozen tiny screws. It's daft.

 

[wizzy555]

Except their batteries are 'aging' after 1 year.

 

[sanquin]

Except their batteries are 'aging' after 1 year.

The same generally happens on android phones. Battery life generally starts to go down after about a year. Still isn't a good reason to slow down old phones though. As said above, I'm surprised a lawsuit wasn't started over this yet. Surely artificial devaluing of products that were already bought is against the law?

 

[Marik2]

Didn't read the article. Saw it on the news at work. They said it's to save battery life on ageing batteries.

Load. Of. Crap.

Yes, they are doing it to mask what would otherwise be a <50$ part replacement and it just so happens to push people toward buying another $600+ dollar phone.

Do they think we're stupid? (Don't answer that)

Yes they do.

 

[Zeraki]

I never understood why people buy apple phones in the first place.

The fact that you can't upgrade your storage capacity is in itself total BS.