Other Apple is slowing down older iPhones based on battery wear level [MERGED]

[Blaze4G]

Good grief. People make a big deal about battery life. Apple sees an issue that affects battery life as devices age. Do something about it. People freak out and cry "conspiracy!" How about those who believe that just, I don't know, grow up? After over 3 years the battery in my iPad is down 26.4% according to the Battery life app. What's more important, how long between charges or processing power? After about 3 years, by the way. The iPad isn't affected by this, but still.

APPLE IS STILL THE BEST COMPANY OUT THERE who supports equipment over a year old.

So why didn't apple be transparent and let their customers know?

I would much rather have all the processing power and charge more often. I would prefer to use a fast, smooth phone for 4 hours than a laggy, slow phone for 8 hours. That would just infuriate me and cause me to upgrade...oh wait! That's what apple wanted. Planned obsolescence.

 

[newellj]

Battery charge state for me as in battery percentage. Wear level may also have an effect.

That's an interesting finding, but it's not what the reddit thread is about, or what this thread started out about.

The reddit thread argues that Apple is using the firmware/OS to throttle the SoC based on battery capacity in order to reduce claims about battery wear and avoid random system shutdowns. If it's true, that's a really big deal because it's arguably fraudulent: Apple sold a defective device and covered up the defect with a firmware patch, rather than fixing the defect (at possibly great cost and certainly great embarrassment). The potential liability for that could be enormous.

What you're saying is very different. You're saying that below some level of battery charge (say, 50%) the system slows down. Why? Apple's response would presumably be: to preserve battery power. It's a sort of involuntary low-power mode. Could this be very annoying to you? Yes, it definitely could. Is this a fraudulent attempt to hide a defective phone? Not at all. Restoring normal speed system operation is as easy plugging the phone in and charging the battery back up. That is not the case with the reddit complaint, which can only be fixed with a battery replacement, and note that part of the fraud claim against Apple would be that Apple hid poor battery performance that would have required Apple to replace batteries by using a firmware patch.

Again, I get it that you might want to run the phone at full power all the way down to a dead battery. But that's qualitatively different than the reddit issue.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

You can’t be for real.

If they slow down the processor, they should let us know it’s time for a new battery.
My iPhone 6S has been slow for some time and according to Geekbench, it now has about the same performance as my iPhone 6. I bought the 6S for its faster processor.


Also, where did you get the 3 years figure. There are people on here with a 6month old iPhone 7 reporting big this problem.
The 6S is about 2 years on the market and the majority of people complaining own a 6S.

What are you even talking about???

I'll believe it when I see it. Having a 7 plus myself I'll let the battery drain and see if it happens. The 3 years came from having many devices years old and in my experience, it's taken over 3 years for batteries to drop below 80% capacity.

 

[chillip]

I also think this is only since 11.2. I Geekbench a lot and only noticed it after 11.2
[doublepost=1512996633][/doublepost]Maybe a new thread is needed for my discovery?

 

[TroyBoy30]

never keep a phone that long so

 

[Jmausmuc]

I'll believe it when I see it. Having a 7 plus myself I'll let the battery drain and see if it happens. The 3 years came from having many devices years old and in my experience, it's taken over 3 years for batteries to drop below 80% capacity.

Try it. My 6S is less than two years old and is having this issue.
[doublepost=1512997010][/doublepost]

I also think this is only since 11.2. I Geekbench a lot and only noticed it after 11.2
[doublepost=1512996633][/doublepost]Maybe a new thread is needed for my discovery?

On Reddit and on here, people have been reporting that both things affect the performance.

Most people think it’s related to voltage. If your battery is new, voltage will be high enough for full performance the entire way down to 1%, if it degrades, voltage can be too low for full performance starting at a certain percentage.

On some batteries, voltage seems to be to low even at 100%.

I must say, it doesn’t look very good right now. Throttling phones without telling the customer is not what I expect from a company that makes high prices premium devices.

The phone specifically asks if I want to turn on low power mode at 20%, so why would I want it to use a low power sweeting without telling me about it before even reaching 20%?
[doublepost=1512997058][/doublepost]

Try it. My 6S is less than two years old and is having this issue.
[doublepost=1512997010][/doublepost]

On Reddit and on here, people have been reporting that both things affect the performance.

Most people think it’s related to voltage. If your battery is new, voltage will be high enough for full performance the entire way down to 1%, if it degrades, voltage can be too low for full performance starting at a certain percentage.

On some batteries, voltage seems to be to low even at 100%.

I must say, it doesn’t look very good right now. Throttling phones without telling the customer is not what I expect from a company that makes high prices premium devices.

The phone specifically asks if I want to turn on low power mode at 20%, so why would I want it to use a low power setting without telling me about it before even reaching 20%?

 

[chillip]

This is different from the battery wear level thread. Mods should not delete.

I believe I have discovered an issue, possible since iOS 11.2 that the CPU is throttled when the battery % level drops below a certain level, such as 50%.

Benchmark shows the score at 100%(bottom) and at 43% top.

Would be interesting to see other scores from a variety of iPhones. This is pretty shocking of Apple if proved true.

 

[chillip]

I have created a separate thread to avoid confusion of the issue I have found.
[doublepost=1512997179][/doublepost]https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-battery-drops-below-a-certain-level.2094353/

 

[pixel_junkie]

If this is true - it's genius! Also shady as f., very wrong and not in the least surprising (Apple = GREED)

 

[conifer]

I think this is the nexus point/conflict of multiple Apple strategic marketing claims:

1. Apple wants to be able to say their batteries last 2-3 years (to "80%")
2. Apple wants to be able to say that most users have migrated to their latest iOS, and they do this through constant badgering for iOS upgrades
3. Apple wants to be able to say the experience of iOS is the best (smooth, clean efficient, etc.)

The problem here -- and I can't imagine they anticipated/thought this through -- is that the iP6/6+ architecture and battery was fine for supporting the original battery as it degraded to 80%, on the iOS they were launched with, with a good experience.

For whatever reason, the later versions of iOS do not do so well with the 6/6s battery as they degrade. Apple down clocked the CPU to keep the 80% claim intact. If the battery is fresh, it's likely a good (or reasonably good) experience. But when the battery weakens, they cannot maintain #3, and because of #2, you are forced into a bad experience on an older battery.

Apple would have been better off announcing lack of support for the 6 and 6s in iOS11. It would have been much cleaner, though they might not have realized all this at the time.

How Apple responds will be interesting. Do they suggest the 6/6s shouldn't upgrade to 11? Do they give coupons for battery replacement (either discount or warranty coverage), do they offer a trade in rate for 6/6s for upgrades? Or maybe they just release an unmarked service bulletin for future support calls.

Not sure this is true. I think some 6s batteries were starting to shut down in spring summer a year after intro but stil on a version of 9x, which is what they shipped with. They announced batter replacement program a year later, when the 6s was on a version of 10.

 

[akash.nu]

Why’s it shocking? Throttling CPU means prolonged battery life. It’s stupid to keep it at the same level when the phone doesn’t need it. Then people moan about the battery not lasting long enough.

 

[chillip]

That’s what low power mode is for. They shouldn’t force you to accept less performance!
[doublepost=1513000575][/doublepost]More proof. Look at the cpu frequency when battery level is low.

 

[Blaze4G]

I'll believe it when I see it. Having a 7 plus myself I'll let the battery drain and see if it happens. The 3 years came from having many devices years old and in my experience, it's taken over 3 years for batteries to drop below 80% capacity.

That's your experience. You do realize everybody is different right? So stating 3 years as a fact is simply not. Apple says you should get 500 cycles of full charges before it drops below 80%. You do realize people charge their phone twice a day, especially the smaller versions. So that would be over 700 cycles in a year.

But I bet you're going to find a next excuse for Apple, such as people shouldn't use their phone that often because you don't.

 

[hamiltonDSi]

I’m almost 100% sure that plus sized phones are not affected at all, neither should 7’s.

One of the reasons I exchanged my 6s Plus for an 8 Plus was b/c of the battery. It shut down at 20% sometimes. The battery health was at ~60% and the battery life was almost half after 23 months of daily usage (checked via CoconutBattery)

After iOS 10.2.1 It stopped shutting down, but it got super slow at times.
So based on my usage I can only confirm that the Plus models are affected as well.

 

[Count Blah]

I'll believe it when I see it. Having a 7 plus myself I'll let the battery drain and see if it happens. The 3 years came from having many devices years old and in my experience, it's taken over 3 years for batteries to drop below 80% capacity.

That's not the issue. The issue deals with the remaining QUALITY of the battery, not the percent charge remaining of a given cycle. Some folks have phones that run at half speed or less, the entire time.

Please stop trying to excuse/minimize this issue.

 

[conifer]

Wow. Thanks for sharing. That's a bad Apple rep.

Apple really doesn't have any incentive for anyone to keep their old devices. It brings them little money compared to a new phone purchase.

Apple will be your savior if you buy their latest at top dollar, and they will bless you with top-notch (heh) devices.
[doublepost=1512961720][/doublepost]
They did. The article said that 10.2 did that.

Not 10.2, I think starting with 10.2.1. Apple replaced my 6s battery last year as I was part of the small group they said had a defective batch from get-go. But they said at the time that there was a chance the Genius could screw up the replacement and therefore trash the phone. So it seems a design flaw makes battery replacement risky?

 

[Strelok]

One of the reasons I exchanged my 6s Plus for an 8 Plus was b/c of the battery. It shut down at 20% sometimes. The battery health was at ~60% and the battery life was almost half after 23 months of daily usage (checked via CoconutBattery)

After iOS 10.2.1 It stopped shutting down, but it got super slow at times.
So based on my usage I can only confirm that the Plus models are affected as well.

That should have been a free swap with Apple. They say normal battery level after 2 years is about 80%. I’m pretty sure it would be covered even out of warranty.

 

[JM]

You must have missed my other posts.

Yep. Sho nuff. Reading them now.

 

[Blaze4G]

Yep. Sho nuff. Reading them now.

Save yourself the trouble. They are all excuses defending apple based on his preference.

 

[v1597psh]

iPhone SE. Recently I began to wonder why my iPhone SE is as slow as iPhone 6 on running the same iOS 11.2. Now I know why! Will be replacing my battery ASAP! Thanks everyone!

 

[joeblow7777]

It's part of planned obsolescence by Apple.
This is not only about Apple slowing the phone down past an 80% battery capacity.
They Put out newer iOS updates and slow down the processor performance to a crawl to force customers to upgrade their phones more often.
Hope some investigation comes out cause they been doing it for years and not only on the iPhone 6 and 6S.

People complain, they say they hate it, they condemn Apple, and then they rush out to buy the new iPhone every year.

I’m neither defending nor condemning Apple or their practices, but I will say that people need to put their money where there mouth is. The only way to get Apple or any other company to change the practices that you disagree with is to vote with your wallet and not keep buying their products.

 

[Jmausmuc]

I have read posts from people with batteries at 93% health claiming their processor was throttled.

There are people on the reddit thread with 6-12 month old phones already being throttled.

I really want to know what is going on an after what time an average user can expect to be throttled.

 

[conifer]

I sill don't get why this is being debated. Yes, Apple optimizes iOS for older devices, hence less features for devices that cannot support advanced animations, gestures, etc.

In the end the result is the same: buy an iPhone or don't. Other device manufacturers won't bother to optimize anything, not even for new devices. (I believe I posted a while ago about having to literally throw an Andoid tablet away because there was no way to update/restore).

Technology is volatile. You can't just buy a device and expect it to last forever.

Not expecting forever. My device wore down to 87 percent , 430 cycles after a year. Based on this thread, I should be anticipating my device could slow down as much as half within the two year cycle of new battery if I was at 10.2.or above. That is important to know when paying upfront for device. Also Apple would replace when I got to 80 percent but if they are slowing so I stay a long time at 81 -83 percent level, say, I can’t seek a fix from Apple even if I pay.

 

[Vorkeyjones]

I still have a 4S with a battery capacity of 93%.

Do Apple just make crap batteries these days?

 

[conifer]

My friend has a 5s with 96percent going into its fourth year. She only used it for phone text and occasionally safari and a short video from the news or whatever. Emails came in but she didn’t read them on the phone.