O: Apple admits deliberately slowing phones and devices

[cnighbor1]

I have noticed that recently

[tylercheung]

Apple’s built-in podcast app has always been quirky, I use Overcast which has been much, much better..

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.

[paredown]

Originally Posted by benb

...

I have not bought a Mac in years, partly because I bought a Mac Pro in 2006... great machine, got great use of it.

Apple prematurely dropped support for those machines in late 2011. Mine was still more powerful than brand new machines that they were selling in 2013-2014.

That was a really expensive machine. I had about $3k in mine including upgrades but some people probably had $5k in them. Of course the people who put $5k into them were probably also the type who "had to" buy another $5k one 2 years later.

We were still using it somewhat till pretty recently when the hard drive died.. if I put a new hard drive in it we could probably get some additional good use out of it with Linux or something. It's still a pretty powerful machine. 1GB video card, 12GB ram, terabytes of disc space, 2.66Ghz Xeon machine with 4 cores.

Not to hijack completely, but the Mac Pro that I have here is just a couple of years later (3,1) and it is only now unable to run the latest version of OS X without some serious hacking. You are right, they are beautiful machines.

[Climb01742]

A good explanation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/t...-article-click

A new battery, not a new phone, is a solution.

[Tony T]

iFixit has kits: https://www.ifixit.com/Kits/iPhone-Battery-Kits

[572cv]

The batteries used in phones, like any battery, eventually fail. It's a chemistry problem. As they age, their voltage becomes somewhat unpredictable. The battery level indicator becomes something of a black magic scale, and your phone, which likes a consistent power source, can simply shut off, even if it appears to have plenty of power. The battery indicator says its ok, but its not.

There appear to be three options.
-Get a new battery installed; not a cheap option.
-Operate the phone at full power, knowing that it will likely shut off unpredictably.
- Slow down the operation of the phone so the battery will last longer.

Arguably, in a phone, the last is the right choice. Its a phone. You might have an emergency, god forbid, and need to reach someone. The problem Apple created for itself was in a) setting expectations and b) making the choice for the owner. But Apple is a notably secretive company, so this decision fit their culture, and became a PR problem. I really don't thing they did anything 'wrong', but they certainly didn't think it through very well.

[verticaldoug]

Doesn't matter, two lawsuits already filed asking for class action status.

It will follow on the back of Apple slowing Facetime on older phone class action suit. I see a pattern.

They already had their hand held in the fire once, you'd think they learn.

[Climb01742]

It's probably not technically possible, but it would be nice if Apple said, hey if you want, revert to an older version of the iOS to unimprove our 'improvements'.

What should at least be possible (and helpful and transparent) is when they send out an iOS update, state clearly and simply any downsides to installing the update. Let us know the trade-offs. While it's hard to pass up security updates and bug fixes, if we as users knew the downsides, we could at least choose.

[Mikej]

Originally Posted by 572cv

The batteries used in phones, like any battery, eventually fail. It's a chemistry problem. As they age, their voltage becomes somewhat unpredictable. The battery level indicator becomes something of a black magic scale, and your phone, which likes a consistent power source, can simply shut off, even if it appears to have plenty of power. The battery indicator says its ok, but its not.

There appear to be three options.
-Get a new battery installed; not a cheap option.
-Operate the phone at full power, knowing that it will likely shut off unpredictably.
- Slow down the operation of the phone so the battery will last longer.

Arguably, in a phone, the last is the right choice. Its a phone. You might have an emergency, god forbid, and need to reach someone. The problem Apple created for itself was in a) setting expectations and b) making the choice for the owner. But Apple is a notably secretive company, so this decision fit their culture, and became a PR problem. I really don't thing they did anything 'wrong', but they certainly didn't think it through very well.

Or warning that one more app opened up will crash this thing?

[MattTuck]

I've been a casual observer of the free and open software movement for a number of years. At some point, I think this becomes a related question.

You buy a piece of hardware and there is a legal question about whether you control what happens on that piece of hardware, or even if you have a right to know. If we view apple as a paternalistic force, their actions could be described as "working to protect the hardware against inevitable degradation". On the other hand, if I view it as a property rights issue, namely that if I paid for the phone, and I want it to run at a speed that was advertised, I should have that ability -- even if it is detrimental to the battery life and the phone itself.

Transparency, disclosure, and opt-in are probably most of the solution. Hiding this kind of thing from consumers is not really in the spirit of competition. And that goes for Apple, Android, Samsung, .... whoever.

There is an interesting case out there about seeking public access to the computer code used in DNA sequencing machines. Namely, that if citizens/consumers cannot audit the code, how can we trust that it is doing what it says it is doing.

Interesting times.

[Climb01742]

Given that iPhones comprise nearly 70% of Apple's revenue, you'd think they might want to treat those users with greater transparency and care. Granted, the Apple universe is awfully 'sticky' so maybe outright defections might be low but deferred upgrades feel pretty real, says the guy still using his 5S phone.

[shovelhd]

Originally Posted by Climb01742

Granted, the Apple universe is awfully 'sticky' so maybe outright defections might be low but deferred upgrades feel pretty real, says the guy still using his 5S phone.

Except for the blip surrounding the iPhone 7, the iPhone has been steadily losing market share for at least the last five years.

[jlwdm]

Originally Posted by verticaldoug

Doesn't matter, two lawsuits already filed asking for class action status.

It will follow on the back of Apple slowing Facetime on older phone class action suit. I see a pattern.

They already had their hand held in the fire once, you'd think they learn.

Sad society we live in when we have these potential class action suits already. I have a 6S and use it constantly with no issue. I also recognize that with technology advances you can't keep using old technology and get everything available with new technology.

Jeff

[verticaldoug]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

There is an interesting case out there about seeking public access to the computer code used in DNA sequencing machines. Namely, that if citizens/consumers cannot audit the code, how can we trust that it is doing what it says it is doing.

Interesting times.

I'll take your thread drift and run with it.

Competition and reproducibility is your best defense here. Although Theranos was not a NGS company, the lack of reproducibility sunk the system.

For NGS, Illumina has dominate market share, but it is not the only supplier. Everyone is constantly benchmarking. If Oxford Nanopore or Pacific Biosciences found any inconsistencies in data from Illumina , you can bet they'd be publishing those results everywhere.

If you go a step higher into the software of deNovo assembly of full genomes , or looking at subsets of data, most research is required to keep the raw data files from the NGS machines, so subsequent researchers can reproduce to verify the results. Software systems like GATK from Broad is open source and available on the cloud. Again, it is not the only game in town, and researchers are constantly running comparison tests of different software systems.

Where it gets really hard is when Google who supports Broad Institute on its cloud platform takes the data a step farther and turns it into a picture and then trains its Machine Learning Vision system to recognize images. Because the software is just weights in a neural net, how it gets it's answer is anyones guess. (BTW, Google and Broad just released a paper on this system as superior to GATK) So again the only verification is reproducibility and comparing to other existing systems. At the end of the day, this is just not a data science problem, it is a real science problem with verifiable answers. Thankfully, a lot of the research has been gov sponsored and the software programs are often open sourced.

I think a harder problem is private software making arbitrary recommendations. A case I heard about last year concerned a Prisoner Parole System produced by consultants is used for parole or sentencing recommendations by judges. The algorithm is tagged proprietary by the firm who wrote it and black boxed. This system comes with all the built in biases with no checks or balances. This is the bigger problem. You take something that isn't scientific but more subjective, make it into an algorithm and all of a sudden it is written in stone.

[Climb01742]

Originally Posted by shovelhd

Except for the blip surrounding the iPhone 7, the iPhone has been steadily losing market share for at least the last five years.

Sales look healthy to me:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...-quarter-2007/

As does their market cap.