That was fast... unlike old iPhones: Apple sued for slowing down mobes

Re: That probably explains..

It is not a premium product... Well, if you define premium as something expensive that people want, yes, then it is. But neither of those two qualities are determined on how well made or useful a product is. Humans are exceptionally bad at assessing the value of something, we are however social and thus cheat by assessing what value other humans put on things. Why money works, marketing is more vital than engineering and capitalism doesn't really work (not saying that anything else works either).

So, premium in the sense that they are good at marketing, but not premium as in they are good at engineering.

MrK's law: The quality of a product is inversely proportional to the number of colours on the box.

Re: That probably explains..

I am sure that when the focus groups were asked What do you want most in a smartphone?", they all replied "A very thin phone" -NOT! Actually most iPhones from the 6 onwards are not actually 7mm, but something like 15 or 20mm, because if you want the thing to run for for a business day (that's about 10-12 hours) you will need an external battery case which more than doubles the thickness (and adds several layers).

And don't forget the "wet bar of soap" finish, which virtually guarantees the thing gets dropped regularly - unless you put a case on it.

A decent iPhone would be something like 12mm thick with a decent, non-slippery, scratch resistant finish. The battery would last something like 36 hours with reasonable use.

Probably on a sliding scale

I would have thought the degradation is scaled according to various factors, CPU model, phone model, battery age, battery discharge rate. They can't just put in a 50% cpu slow down on all models, the really old ones would be dead in the water. So a 6S might lose say 10%-15% CPU, the 5 might lose 15-20% and so on.

It depends on the number of charge/discharge cycles, plus presumably some manufacturing variation on the batteries they source.

Someone who is a heavy phone user who runs it near empty every day is going to age the phone a lot faster than a more moderate user. I usually charge my phone every other day so the battery in my 25 1/2 month old 6S plus I traded in last month was in the same shape as a heavy user's battery would be after only one year.

As for a "sliding scale" it sounds like they knock down the speed the weaker the battery gets, so it isn't a matter of this model gets X% slowdown and this gets Y%. If you read Poole's article there are multiple peaks shown for the same model, which represent greater and greater amounts of battery wear.

There are many reasons the battery is not easy replace. Creating a user serviceable battery compartment wastes valuable space inside the unit. The battery itself is usually a custom shape for greater efficiency. And warranties are harder to accidentally void by not being able to easily swap the battery with a non-standard replacement

"The fact that batteries get worse over time should be a clue that batteries should be not be considered safe to embed into a device..."

The hundreds of millions of devices with problem-free embedded LiIon cells would beg to differ with this statement.

Re: Planned obsolescence

Well that's want Apple want you to do, however have you personally felt the phone is more sluggish with each revision? Most people probably haven't notice, I know that's not the point and I'm not apologising for Apple as it was shitty thing to do to customers. However people are losing their marbles without thinking first, let's actually see the evidence and the figures first.

I suspect a patch will be released that allows you to decided if you want this CPU "feature" enabled or not.

Only a fool would throw it in a bin

You can still sell a 5S for about $100, and it would be refurbished with a new battery for a lot less than the $79 Apple charges. Or you could replace the battery yourself - I've done it for a couple friend's phones over the years, it is pretty simple. Perhaps not something an average person could handle, but something the average Reg reader could easily handle.

Re: Planned obsolescence

>I should just throw my 5S in the bin

Here in France you take old/broken electrical goods back to the place you bought them (or the municipal dump) for correct disposal. ;-)

;-)

Re: Planned obsolescence

"So by this standard, I should just throw my 5S in the bin...."

Replacing the battery on a 5S is a piece of piss. Replacing the battery in my son's RC car remote is harder.

And for an out-of-warranty 5S, there's no point paying for original Apple. A decent eBay battery will cost you $15 or so and your phone will be back to full speed in no time.

Re: Planned obsolescence

But the 5c (stuck on iOS 10.3.3) probably isn't affected...

Re: Not smart

False, the cpu throttling is not based on age at all.

Re: Not smart

"There are hard coded performance tables. If your phone is x months old, reduce CPU speed by y.

If your battery is outperforming its predicted performance, tough, its time to upgrade to anew iPhone..."

Utter bollocks. Go pimp your trash on Reddit where idiots might believe you.

That's what this lawsuit is all about - and they do have a point. It's not about whether Apple throttled the iPhone or not, or even whether they told people they were doing it; it's about whether it was made clear to punters that they could restore performance with a battery replacement rather than having to buy a new phone.

Re: Not a welcome opinion

Can you let me know what these mythical phones are?

I've a work supplied 2016 Samsung stuck on a 2015 OS and a early 2017 patch level.

Apple may slow down you phone, but at least they don't forget it exists 10 seconds after they have made it.

Re: Not a welcome opinion

Chillax Milton

Sent from my iPhone 7 Plus Jet Black 256GB #Boom

Re: Not a welcome opinion

There's an almost infinite range of phones out there costing far less, offering greater versatility, reliability and expandability

But are they as secure?

I treat android like windows, nothing goes on them that is worth taking.

Re: Not a welcome opinion

@Milton

Yeah - I don't really care how much my iPhone cost. It wasn't particularly expensive and I'll upgrade well before the battery wears out. I take the same approach to my TV, house and car. It turns out that an Audi is three times as expensive compared to a Nissan, but ultimately does the same thing.

Ironically it pays off, as I seem to always be listening to friends complaining about their problems with their 20% "cheaper" purchases.

What exactly are you saving £200 a phone for (heck - I've spent more on restaurants in a week)? Why not just get a better paying job if you're that skint? Or maybe don't get a smart phone at all, if that seems like a lot of money to you?

Re: Not a welcome opinion

"If you pay about three times as much for a phone than is necessary, largely because it's a status symbol, knowing perfectly well that without the slightest technical or engineering justification its battery cannot be simply swapped by you; not to mention that it will also lack the simple expandability and versatility of a uSD slot, again with no good reason; and for which the $23 actual difference between various models' storage levels is charged to you in a $200 increment ... well, you get what you deserve, don't you?"

Oh pish, dearest Milton. Any purchase of a luxury product is a combination of the commoditised cost, the perceived value-add layer, and the emotional desire component. Apple charges for perceived value-add and emotional desire, and gets away with it because people generally actually like the value for money (including emotional) that they get for it. It's not wrong, and it's not stupid just because you don't agree with it. I personally like a commodity kitchen (simple, no frills, gets the job done) and a luxury phone. Others may prefer this the other way round; it's every customers' individual choices and preferences at work.

And the $23 price you point at? Double pish. Integrated memory fast enough to not bottleneck the processor AND designed to last the life of the product being intensively read/written to every single day is not cheap. Certainly not $23 cheap.

Re: Not a welcome opinion

"There's an almost infinite range of phones out there costing far less, offering greater versatility, reliability and expandability, with batteries you can swap in 10 seconds flat, with operating systems *not* designed to steal from you, "

Phones with operating systems not designed to steal from me?

What is this mythical OS?

Surely you do not mean Android, for it is all about stealing from you. Your personal data is worth a lot, and Google just walks right up and takes it if it wants to, whether you approve of it or not. Taking something of value that does not belong to you without the consent of the person you're taking it from is theft. Google thrives on making off with your personal data, and the fine print in a 20 page EULA that the user may have clicked through doesn't change that. Google, Microsoft, Apple, and everyone else who writes such legalese are well aware that no one reads that stuff-- they count on it. It gives them an "out" if anyone gets testy about having their personal data stolen, but it's so long and technical that no regular user is ever going to try to read it. It's the little game they play... "It's not theft! You agreed to it!" It may work to keep them from having serious legal trouble, but other than that, it acts like a duck and it quacks like a duck (a duck being theft here).

South Park did a show about this, combining critique of the EULA "we can do anything, you agreed" bit with a parody of one of the least deserving movies to ever be made, Human Centipede. If you have a strong stomach, search for Human CentIpad on the web, and don't say I didn't warn you.