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posted by janrinok on Tuesday December 19 2017, @07:45PM   Printer-friendly

Apple has been accused of slowing down old iPhones by tying performance to battery condition. This could cause some users to upgrade to a newer model rather than get the battery replaced:

Apple may be slowing down older iPhones in order to counteract problems with decreased battery capacity, according to Primate Labs founder John Poole. The news could add fuel to the conversation around planned obsolescence—the idea that tech companies purposely slow down older devices to encourage users to buy new models. Claims of planned obsolescence have hit almost all the big firms, and have reached the status of a major conspiracy theory in many tech circles.

In a recent blog post, Poole, whose company created the Geekbench benchmarking system, set out to detail the data behind a particular Reddit post claiming that Apple was slowing down iPhones with low-capacity batteries. The user was getting lower-than-expected scores on Geekbench, which improved after they replaced the battery in their iPhone 6S.

[...] Of course, part of the battery issues have to do with the changes that came with iOS 10.2.1, Poole wrote. Apple introduced the update to combat a bug causing the sudden shutdown of iPhone 6 and 6S models. "I believe (as do others) that Apple introduced a change to limit performance when battery condition decreases past a certain point," Poole wrote in the post.


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  • (Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:02PM (2 children)

    by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:02PM (#611937)

    So you could just flash a warning once a day, or maybe whenever you plug/unplug it from power; "This device's battery no longer meets the recommended minimum quality for optimal performance. We recommend replacing the battery to get the most out of your Apple device. Click here to see a few suggestions on how to arrange this quickly, or click here to disable this warning forever."

    It's such a simple thing they could do, and still gain sales and keep users, I doubt they intentionally did this to obsolete the old devices. I think it's a little paranoid to assume they did.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:08PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:08PM (#611944) Journal

    Why prompt the user to get the battery replaced when you can prompt them to buying a new phone?

    If Apple wanted users replacing batteries, they would have made the battery easily replaceable. Like other phones. (or explode like Samsung.)

    Replacing the battery doesn't lead to new phone sails.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:47PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday December 19 2017, @08:47PM (#611967)

      *Must ... Resist ... *

      At the rate the phone are growing, you can surely plan to use them as Sails by the end of the decade !

      *shame, shame shame*