SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the a-suit-or-a-straightjacket? dept.
Apple is facing a class action lawsuit in California over slowing iPhone speeds as batteries age:
Residents of Los Angeles, Stefan Bogdanovich, and Dakota Speas have been represented by Wilshire Law Firm and both of them filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The plaintiffs are accusing Apple of slowing down their older iPhone models when newer models are released and this has been happening without their consent or approval.
Another class action lawsuit has been filed in Illinois [Ecmascript required]:
A day after Apple acknowledged that their software updates slow down older iPhone models, five customers have filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago against the tech giant for what they're calling "deceptive, immoral and unethical" practices that violate consumer protection laws.
The suit was filed Thursday by two Illinoisans along with Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina residents, who had a range of models from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 7. They claim that Apple's iOS updates "were engineered to purposefully slow down or 'throttle down' the performance speeds" of the iPhone 5, iPhone 6 and iPhone 7.
[...] Apple partially confirmed the theory on Wednesday, releasing a statement admitting updates would slow down phones, but only to prevent devices with old batteries "from unexpectedly shutting down."
TechCrunch's defense of Apple. Also at Business Insider.
(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday December 23 2017, @06:35PM (15 children)
If they're slowing down the phones with battery issues, well, that's one thing. If they're slowing down all phones of a particular generation, that's another thing. It's not clear from the articles exactly which method is being used.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 23 2017, @06:54PM (2 children)
But are these batteries that could be under warranty or Apple Care? Or are they all not under such stuff?
Otherwise this is like firmware that makes older Telsa cars accelerate slower because they have battery issues.
(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday December 23 2017, @07:08PM (1 child)
They are talking about iPhone 5. There's no way that they have a warranty of more than one year.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Sunday December 24 2017, @02:33AM
Are they talking about 5’s? Did Apple not say that they released the software to the 6’s and are now extending it to the 7’s? The 5’s don’t have a processor that draws sufficient power for this ever to become an issue.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 23 2017, @10:31PM (11 children)
Even for battery issues, this should be an informed choice: "Hey, we notice your battery is getting older, you have a choice here: A) or B), what would YOU like to do with YOUR phone?"
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by jmorris on Sunday December 24 2017, @01:15AM (10 children)
That is retarded. The internal resistance in the battery was more than expected when they aged so the voltage regulation was failing under heavy CPU load. There isn't a choice here, option a is throttle the CPU and option b is random lockups / shutdowns. This is basic electrical theory, power consumption is V*I and V has to rise with CPU frequency on current CPU tech and since the circuit resistance[1] doesn't change much I will rise with it and that is a square. Ever wondered why a 25% overclock on a PC can often require extreme cooling solutions? If the battery can no longer deliver the power you have to avoid that situation. The only other option is battery replacement and have you looked up how much Apple charges for that? These phones are out of warranty.
I hate on Apple more than the average user here (and have the -1 Troll mods to prove it) but this is a case of a rage mob of the ignorant getting out the torches when Apple did the only sensible thing possible from an engineering standpoint. Accelerated ageing and computer modeling only go so far, these batteries simply didn't hold up as well as expected when they got into the field for a few years. It isn't nearly bad enough to justify yet another battery related recall since there is no safety issue, especially in phones where the battery is not user replaceable. People who bought these phones KNEW they were buying a disposable phone with a non-replaceable battery to get the slim phone and the all important fruit logo. So now they can either suck it up and live with it or be good consumers and get in line for a new phone like they should have a year ago.
[1] Oversimplification. Throw out everything you learned in DC class, in a modern CPU operating at UHF / microwave frequencies there is almost nothing that is a pure resistance, it is all hard as hell to model complex impedance.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday December 24 2017, @02:09AM
Also worth noting the over-current protection circuits are likely insufficient if the batteries degrade to that extent which could lead to leaks, swellings and detonations.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 24 2017, @03:37AM (2 children)
Fair enough, pleading ignorance of this _specific_ Apple quality and customer service issue. If it is as you say it is (and I do believe you), then their technical communications and marketing departments should have gotten together and crafted a brief, informative, thoughtful mea-culpa notice to accompany the slowing update and made sure that the message reached the majority of affected users.
Past Apple quality issues I do have specific first hand knowledge of: 2006 MacBookPro exploding battery recall - experienced the puffer first-hand. Same 2006 MacBookPro thermal paste application error to the GPU leading to no display system failures within days after warranty expiration. iPad One - $800 device rendered brick-ish after non-optional OS updates less than 2 years after purchase. Later iPads built with decidely non-brick-like materials, cracking and crumbling screens again within weeks of the warranty expiration (granted: devices were abused by children, but so was the iPad One and Kindle Fire, and they have lasted without a blemish for years and years...)
Other than a later iPad, Apple products in our home have been financed by outsiders (won in contest, provided by work, etc.) and at this point, if I have any choice in the matter at all, we won't even be letting other people's money be spent on Apple products on our behalf.
For recent phone abuse, I go to Google/LG and the Nexus 5 / 5x - they have their own horror stories, but at least they're not priced at a 4x markup over similar devices.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday December 24 2017, @06:38AM (1 child)
I could have gotten a replacement for free but I wanted to save mine for canadas equivalent to the consumer product safety commission
Apple eventually issued a recall
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 24 2017, @02:45PM
Oh, yeah, MacBookPro "MagLock" power cords have been a joke since 2006. Colleague of mine shredded his, so I was EXTREMELY careful in how I used mine, always pulled out by the plug not the wire, laid flat not twisted, etc. to no avail - mine also shredded within about a year, obvious exposed conductor fire hazard.
The only thing that wore out on the iPad One was the 30 pin cable connector. When I took it to the Apple store to buy a replacement, the Genius on staff proceeded to berate me for having an aftermarket cord: "see here how the design is different on the Genuine Apple product?" A) no, other than the fact that the new one is new and not falling apart yet it's basically the same crappy excuse of a strain relief design, B) this is the original equipment that was packed in the box with our iPad when it was new, C) after having told him A) and B) he continued to insist that the broken cable was aftermarket, I didn't even try D) well, the device is 2 years old so if this WAS an aftermarket cable what do you think happened to the OEM one? Come to think of it, that was indeed the last time I set foot in an Apple store... many years ago now.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Sunday December 24 2017, @10:50AM
Since it was Apple's choice to make the battery non-removable, they should be forced to replace them for no more than the actual cost of the replacement battery, independent of warranty.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 24 2017, @02:35PM (1 child)
Hey, what's retarded, I couldn't figure that out.
Is that that Apple opted to not inform the user as to what was happening so that users could decide for themselves how they'd like to proceed with either a repair or degraded performance or rationalize it as a reason to purchase a new phone, or is what is retardted is that Apple put in a helpful feature that had a side effect of selling new phones and that you believe this is OK, because consumers are retarded and their ignorance is bliss?
It could be a brick of bullshit that powered the phone, technical reasons don't really matter as to my question.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday December 24 2017, @04:32PM
Apple tried to quietly deal with a problem and avoid a PR clusterfsck. In the age of the twitter ragemob. They will probably consider that retarded in hindsight. But I don't know what else would have worked in this situation in $current_year. Everybody loves piling onto a rage mob now. The other takeaway is that the Apple reality Distortion Field did die with Steve. Their Gay Diversity Hire lacks the charisma state to generate it, but it is doubtful anyone else could either.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @01:51PM (2 children)
Option b is how my Samsung works, and frankly I do think that's the better choice. Yes, sometimes the phone shuts down when it says 40% battery remaining if I'm using it heavily. That's fine, because *at least I know what the problem is*. If I need the battery to last longer, I can go into the settings and enable the power-saving features. If I want to actually fix the issue, I can go buy a new battery. But I'm not being tricked into thinking my processor is running slow and that I need to buy a whole new phone. Ultimately that's the main issue as far as I'm concerned -- they're not informing customers while making modifications to devices that have already been sold that will alter the device behavior.
What they should have done is included this modification as part of the standard power saving features. If they want, they can have it enable itself automatically, along with a pop-up warning explaining that it's been enabled due to poor battery performance. But doing it in a way that cannot be disabled, even when it's not needed, without even informing the customers is absolutely unacceptable.
From what I've read, there's no possible way to disable this "feature", and it's not intelligently applied -- so even if you're plugged in to a charger, you still lose performance. There's no technical reason for that, it's purely about trying to sell newer phones and kill the market for repairs by making it harder for people to know if any kind of repair is even possible.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:23PM (1 child)
Should they tell people when the battery is bad? Yes. But throttling IS the right solution to this particular battery fault. Unless iPhones are dumber than Android, it knows when a battery is bad. Try dialing "*#*#INFO#*#*" and pick Battery Info. Bet yours doesn't say "Battery Health: Good" All vendors should be exposing that information better. And yes, Samsung should be throttling yours to keep it from suddenly shutting down. That is called FAILURE and it is always a bad thing. It isn't something that should be in "power saving features" since those are to extend run time, this is a matter of slow down or fail right now because the device can no longer perform at original spec.
And plugging in not a cure all with a phone, they aren't laptops. When running heavy loads most will lose battery charge while connected to the charger. Almost none will even boot with the battery removed, again unlike a laptop. Their peak power demands exceed the charging current available via USB, often by a lot. Thus their power supply is designed so that they are always running from the battery. Batteries are the weak link in current technology, we just have to accept that until tech can advance to solve it. Designing phones with non-replaceable batteries is dumb in the current environment but everyone wants thin and/or water resistant which both tend to mandate sealed cases.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @06:37PM
Actually, that would be the responsibility of the devs over at LineageOS, as I wiped the Samsung software years ago. That stuff was trash. And I'm quite glad that LineageOS doesn't feel the need to fuck with my phone without my consent like you suggest they should. If I wanted it to stop shutting down, I know where the power saving features are. I don't enable them because I'd rather tolerate the instability than suffer degraded performance. If you disagree, you can go enable them on your phone, and we'd both be happy. That is an appropriate solution to this problem.
Right, the device can no longer perform at the original spec. That doesn't give the manufacturer permission to retroactively redefine the spec. If the battery degrades, let it degrade. My phone only gets one or two hours of battery life now, but that's fine. 20+ hours per day it's plugged in and it runs fine. If I need it to last all day, I grab an external battery pack. If that got too annoying, I'd replace the battery, but since I'm considering a new one soon I might as well wait. This change belongs under power saving features because that's what it's designed to do and because, frankly, that's the honest way to solve the problem. Maybe you'd rather dim the screen instead of throttling the processor, that's another way to reduce battery demand. Maybe you'd rather have some instability because you just can't do your work with the reduced processor speed. Maybe you're fine being tethered to the wall. These are all valid choices, and it would be great to let the user choose one. Picking one choice and forcing it on all users at all times is just scummy behavior.
True, but that depends on the charger. If I connect my phone to a ~500mA charger, it will lose charge while plugged in. If I connect to a 3A charger, it charges pretty damn quick no matter what I'm doing with it. But that charging-while-discharging issue also means the phone is clearly capable of sourcing power from both the charger and the battery at the same time, so if you're getting extra juice from the charger there's no reason it shouldn't be able to run full speed. Normally it can do that on battery alone, so a reduced battery should be able to make up the difference from the charger. It's not uncommon for me to walk around with my phone charging at 3 amps while the damn thing is stuffed in my pocket and that has always proven to be sufficient power to run it even when the battery shows 0%. But even if you've got an iPhone with a 10 amp battery bank supplying 3 amps of extra power, you're still going to be throttled the same as if you're running fully on battery.
Overall I'm fine with throttling *if it's explained*, and preferably voluntary. In this case they did neither, which leaves the users with no idea why their performance is degrading or how to fix it. In fact, it directly points them towards incorrect conclusions -- when Apple artificially limits the processor to preserve the battery, then of course the users are going to be looking for a problem with the processor rather than the battery, which is going to trick them into buying a new phone when they might be fine with a much cheaper battery replacement.
Personally, I'd rather have my phone crash than throttle, because when it flashes low battery and dies I know what caused it and I know how to throttle or upgrade as required to fix the issue. It's the usual performance vs stability argument, which comes with damn near any technology. But I'm fine with either solution as long as the reasons are transparent and configurable. Apple clearly put a lot of thought into this issue -- more than most manufacturers -- or they wouldn't have written the code to throttle. They clearly would have thought about how this change would impact the user. And they apparently decided they didn't need to inform anyone about those impacts. It's one thing for a company to do nothing and let their devices naturally degrade over time; it's quite another to actively try to obfuscate the true source of the problem. And THAT is the part that pisses me off the most about this.
OK, let's think about that for a minute.
Yes, they should be exposing that info better. Why? So people can be more informed about their devices.
What Apple has done here is going even further in the wrong direction. They're working harder to keep people in the dark, making it harder for the average user to understand their device, making it harder for them to properly maintain the thing and understand how their usage affects it. You're never going to get informed, competent users if you champion actions that are designed to keep those same users in the dark. Sure, there's a lot of people who will click 'ok' and read nothing and never look at the settings and never have a clue. But a few *will* read and understand and try to learn more. And for those who don't, at least the guy they ask to fix it can take a look at the settings and see the throttling enabled and have some hope of figuring out what's going on.
BTW -- I tried *#*#INFO#*#* and there's no battery info provided for my phone. The regular settings menu gives a pretty decent breakdown though.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday December 23 2017, @06:58PM (9 children)
It's fair enough for people to be annoyed - running your phone in some sort of power-saver mode ought to be an option (and *is* on Android, dunno about iOS). Fine, but...
...the speed with which these suits have been filed is evidence of greedy lawyers sensing a chance to extort a company with deep pockets. Any result will enrich said lawyers with millions, and get affected Apple users a couple for $1 off their next iPhone. Win for Apple, win for the lawyers, loss for the consumers.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday December 23 2017, @07:32PM (2 children)
The lawyers had to find enough people who were annoyed.
More likely, enoughannoyed people found lawyers.
It suggestes the slowing is bad enough to be noticed by enough people for them to bother with a law suit.
Besides, isn't a law suit the first step with American consumer problems?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 23 2017, @08:27PM (1 child)
Not really. They just needed more than one and the ability to prove that there exists a large enough class to potentially enlist others. Once they file the lawyers will advertise for other claimants. You can see many of these types of ads on the internet or TV regarding one medication or another.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 23 2017, @08:55PM
Not really. You know how anal Apple fanboys are. Day slowed down Muh iPhone!
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Saturday December 23 2017, @07:57PM (3 children)
Forced power save mode with an old battery is a fix for random shutdowns on a device with a worn-out battery. Yes, it'd be possible to place a disclaimer next to the option, to the effect "This battery is so old that turning off power save will cause random shutdowns, leaving you unable to receive calls or messages." But how would the ability to switch from power save to random shutdowns mode help the user use his phone?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by shortscreen on Saturday December 23 2017, @09:30PM (1 child)
Who cares? If the random shutdowns issue is real, why would Apple try to hide it behind a dumb workaround when they can just let it happen and prod the user to buy a new phone that much sooner?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Demena on Sunday December 24 2017, @02:25AM
Because they (Apple) are NOT out to get you. Because they are NOT trying to force you to upgrade to a new phone. Because they want you to get value for dollar?
Of course none of these things could possibly be true. After all this is Apple.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 24 2017, @05:31PM
Or, just a crazy notion, they could have a message saying "your battery is so far gone we've had to throttle your phone way back to avoid random crashes. If you don't like this new exciting slow mode, bring your phone and $783 to an Apple Store to get your battery replaced."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 23 2017, @10:34PM
I've been pissed off with Apple for similar issues dating back to when the iPad One was 2 years old and they nerfed it with OS upgrades until it was unusable.
My solution has been to cut them off, no more Apple products coming into the house, definitely not on my dime.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by EEMac on Sunday December 24 2017, @03:43PM
Settings -> Battery -> Low Power Mode [iphonehacks.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ledow on Saturday December 23 2017, @07:59PM (8 children)
Not a problem... just change your old battery for a new one...
Oh... yeah... Apple.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 23 2017, @08:34PM (7 children)
Oh ... yeah ... because all Android devices have user serviceable batteries.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 23 2017, @08:57PM (6 children)
I can point you to one current Android phone with a user-servicable battery. Can you point me to one current iPhone with a user-servicable battery?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 23 2017, @09:14PM (4 children)
One of the original signature features in Android phones is all but dead [businessinsider.com]
https://www.productchart.com/smartphones/sets/3 [productchart.com] (none with 4 GB RAM and 8 cores)
https://thedroidguy.com/2017/10/5-best-android-smartphones-with-removable-battery-in-2017-1062773 [thedroidguy.com]
LG V20 is a current-ish smartphone with a removable battery. But the newer LG V30 [wikipedia.org] ditched that feature.
At the end of the day, you are still right. There are plenty of Android phones with user replaceable batteries. They just won't be as "premium" as an iPhone. There are plenty of Android smartphone brands nobody here has ever heard of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_makers_by_country [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday December 24 2017, @01:24AM (3 children)
Stop only looking at overpriced flagship phones. Motorola makes phones NOW with replaceable batteries. I helped a cow-orker shop for one a few months ago. That was one of the features I was making sure it had since they are the sort who keeps a phone awhile. (The one being replaced was a slider.)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 24 2017, @01:31AM (1 child)
I arredy sed: "They just won't be as 'premium' as an iPhone."
We could compare apples to oranges and find that indeed, there are way more than 1 "current" Android phones with user-replaceable batteries. But at the premium iPhone-clone level, the batteries are getting locked in so they can advertise water resistance.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday December 24 2017, @06:55AM
As written (and with the BI quote) your post strongly implied the only Android phones left with replaceable batteries were the brands nobody has heard of. Moto is still a fairly good brand.... although if it keeps doing the "passing from charnel house to charnel house" bit, Netcraft might have to call a time of death soon.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday December 24 2017, @02:05AM
cow-orker [zazzle.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 23 2017, @10:21PM
So one Android phone? What you realy mean is all but one Android is now as bad as Apple. Color me not impressed.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Saturday December 23 2017, @10:34PM (4 children)
This is an easy fix for Apple, just add a setting somewhere that states
"When demand exceeds available power:
( ) Slow down
( ) Turn off"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 24 2017, @03:39AM (2 children)
Apparently the issue isn't that simple... the battery goes marginal, unable to deliver sufficient current for high frequency operation, so your options become: A) slow down, B) crash unpredictably, C) pay more to have the battery replaced than a new phone costs.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday December 24 2017, @06:57PM (1 child)
The truly amazing part is the battery problem only exists the millisecond the phone firmware/software is upgraded every time.
Apple seems to do this with mac mini's, when they're angry that you aren't upgrading the hardware, when you upgrade the version of the OS, it gets slower. You know, because CPU thermal paste wears out and they don't want to overheat the CPU.
The whole battery fiasco is just apple fan boy stuff mixed with corporate doublespeak along the lines of the classic "you're holding it wrong" from the old days.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 24 2017, @08:24PM
"You're holding it wrong" was not the old days.
The old days were when the ][ took unprintable escape command codes in its BASIC editor...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 24 2017, @02:38PM
but i don't want them to turn it off. I want these options to exist:
( ) Slow Down to make the most longevity of a degraded battery
( ) Run at regular speed for a shorter period due to chemistry/battery degrading problems that happen over time
they could even add power settings in phones, but I think MS figured out that in order to get anyone to even look at the features, they had to call the high performance "gaming mode".
maybe if these things came with a printed manual, a few people would read them. but since that'd affect shareholder value, we get lawsuits from people instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 24 2017, @01:19AM (1 child)
I'm having a hard time believing that Apple hasn't been making its customers agree not to file a class action lawsuit before selling them a phone ever since the supreme court ruled the practice constitutional.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 24 2017, @01:56AM
It might have something to do with the states/circuits the suits were brought in.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]