O: Apple admits deliberately slowing phones and devices

[Tickdoc]

I knew it. You can try to explain it from an engineering standpoint, but you cannot explain why every fall when a new device is introduced why your old device suddenly slows down.

sumbitches.

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-slow...ttery-issues/#

[Cicli]

I need a new iPhone. Just because.

[fa63]

My iPhone 5s is still going strong. The battery life sucks, but haven’t noticed it slow down.

[dgauthier]

My iPhone 4S (purchased in January 2012!) is still going strong. End-of-day battery life is still around 40-60%. Still on iOS 7. Works better than my wife's 6S running iOS 10. Steve Jobs is dead.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by dgauthier

Steve Jobs is dead.

This is true. The software updates mostly don't improve the user experience. They make it more complex.

I'm a big podcast guy and the podcast format that was included a few updates ago stinks.

And no this isn't a conspiracy with tin foil hats. It's easily documented and Apple even admits they are doing it. I think their excuse is total and complete BS.

My 5S is old and I'll be the first to admit it but it should be my choice to upgrade to a new model, not something forced upon me because Apple thinks it's time.

This is worse than planned obsolescence.

How would (will?) owners react if Tesla decides it's time for the owners to get a new car so they reduce functionality via a software update? That's exactly what Apple is doing.

[benb]

Definitely a balance... would you rather your phone slows down somewhat and lasts all day or would you rather it's dead at 11AM in the morning because it's been burning away with the CPU clocked up to its maximum clock setting?

Androids all try to manage this dynamically too...

And it also helps avoid battery damage that can cause fires.

I had a battery failure on a macbook pro at work a couple months ago.. it didn't burst & burn but it was well on it's way and was pretty scary.. it bent the metal case of the laptop like it was a tin can.

[weisan]

Originally Posted by benb

Definitely a balance... would you rather your phone slows down somewhat and lasts all day or would you rather it's dead at 11AM in the morning because it's been burning away with the CPU clocked up to its maximum clock setting?

Androids all try to manage this dynamically too...

And it also helps avoid battery damage that can cause fires.

I had a battery failure on a macbook pro at work a couple months ago.. it didn't burst & burn but it was well on it's way and was pretty scary.. it bent the metal case of the laptop like it was a tin can.

Good point.

Not everything can be explained away by the Conspiracy Theory.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by benb

Definitely a balance... would you rather your phone slows down somewhat and lasts all day or would you rather it's dead at 11AM in the morning because it's been burning away with the CPU clocked up to its maximum clock setting?

Androids all try to manage this dynamically too...

And it also helps avoid battery damage that can cause fires.

I had a battery failure on a macbook pro at work a couple months ago.. it didn't burst & burn but it was well on it's way and was pretty scary.. it bent the metal case of the laptop like it was a tin can.

I would most like my iPhone 5S to work as close as realistically possible to the way it worked when it was new. I completely understand that battery life will change and degrade over time. But I would like the software updates be specific to each model and if that means I don't get the latest and greatest on the newest models I'm 100% OK with that.

Frankly, if all they ever did were incremental security updates that would be fine.

Rant over. This is not a gigantic deal and I need a new phone soon anyway. I'm an Apple guy but I do agree that Steve Jobs' mantra of defining the products by the end user experience has been discarded. Now they seem to be trying to stay even with their competition through gimmickry rather than defining the market.

[MattTuck]

Originally Posted by benb

Definitely a balance... would you rather your phone slows down somewhat and lasts all day or would you rather it's dead at 11AM in the morning because it's been burning away with the CPU clocked up to its maximum clock setting?

Androids all try to manage this dynamically too...

And it also helps avoid battery damage that can cause fires.

I had a battery failure on a macbook pro at work a couple months ago.. it didn't burst & burn but it was well on it's way and was pretty scary.. it bent the metal case of the laptop like it was a tin can.

ben, your probably know more about this than most. But there seems to have been a shift over time. Early on in the time of computers, storage and processing power was very limited, so there was a real push to have efficient and economic programs that did not utilize system resources unnecessarily. As processing power and storage became cheaper, those pressures were largely alleviated and developers emphasized economic programming less.

Now, with smart phones and batteries, it appears the focus on efficiency should return. I remember reading an article a while ago talking about how apps (the article was focused on facebook's app) keep getting more bloated, and requiring more cached storage and processing power. Why do some updates for seemingly simple apps take up megabytes of space?

Anyway, there is a generation of programmers who could write inefficient code without any consequences. I'm not sure if new developers have efficiency and small footprint as points of emphasis in their education.

[commonguy001]

The change in my 6 was super noticeable after the update they are talking about. We decided it was time after 3 years and did new iPhone 8 Plus phones. This one is water resistant so I'm pretty happy about that.

I figured they did it on purpose when they stopped signing (whatever that means) the old iOS certificate so you couldn't roll it back.

[Mikej]

Oh yeah, now I remember- Apple had like a trillion in the bank...that’s why we need to slow down 2year old phones, so they can have 2trillion in the bank-

[CiclistiCliff]

I’ve been postponing the OS update on my iPhone for about 3 months. At 12:01am on Thursday, the speakers stopped working. Hard reboot didn’t work. Nothing did. Reluctantly updated the OS and magically everything works great again.

I worked for a ODD manufacturer. We knew when products were going to fail...

[Jeff N.]

My 4S went to lunch...very slow...not alerting texts....got a new 8s. Problem solved.

[CunegoFan]

Originally Posted by saab2000

This is true. The software updates mostly don't improve the user experience. They make it more complex.

I'm a big podcast guy and the podcast format that was included a few updates ago stinks.

And no this isn't a conspiracy with tin foil hats. It's easily documented and Apple even admits they are doing it. I think their excuse is total and complete BS.

My 5S is old and I'll be the first to admit it but it should be my choice to upgrade to a new model, not something forced upon me because Apple thinks it's time.

This is worse than planned obsolescence.

How would (will?) owners react if Tesla decides it's time for the owners to get a new car so they reduce functionality via a software update? That's exactly what Apple is doing.

Get a grip and a clue.

As explained by TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino:
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.
When an iPhone's battery ages, there may come a point when it can't provide the processor with enough power to reach a peak of power, and thus it spreads the requests out "over a few cycles," resulting in the peaks and perceived lower scores on benchmarking tests. As Panzarino points out, benchmarking tests are not reflective of real world usage and will artificially trigger the power management features in the iPhone.

"In other words, you're always going to be triggering this when you run a benchmark, but you definitely will not always trigger this effect when you're using your iPhone like normal," writes Panzarino.

The slowdown of older models is due to limited RAM, which Apple has always been stingy with, the addition of features to new versions of the OS, and Apple designing new OS versions for its current halo model rather than models that are three generations old. App size bloat over time exacerbates the problem; you may think you are doing the same thing you always were with that Facebook app, but the app has grown immensely and now strains the resources of your phone. Not everything is a conspiracy by The Man.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by CunegoFan

Get a grip and a clue.....

Not everything is a conspiracy by The Man.

Dude, chill. I get that there are things going on with RAM and app size. And I also get that my phone is old.

But when Apple admits throttling speed it's not really a conspiracy.

There is no doubt that my phone has slowed down to a nearly unusable crawl with the past couple software updates.