Apple might have to pay in “batterygate” class action lawsuit

[Obioban]

2 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

Proof needed.

Prior to the update, devices that were asking for more voltage than the batteries could deliver were crashing/restarting. After the update they were not. Not sure what more proof you want.

[HenrySalayne]

4 minutes ago, Obioban said:

Prior to the update, devices that were asking for more voltage than the batteries could deliver were crashing/restarting. After the update they were not. Not sure what more proof you want.

You personally checked that every device being throttled had problems with crashes? I kind of doubt that...

 

[Issac Zachary]

5 minutes ago, Obioban said:

Prior to the update, devices that were asking for more voltage than the batteries could deliver were crashing/restarting. After the update they were not. Not sure what more proof you want.

A referrence to who that was happening to would be nice. Some sort of testimony of many people affected rather than a personal observation of a single individual claiming what happened to several.

 

I didn't know a single person back then who had their iPhones crashing even when purposely avoiding the last update. But that's just my observation which is very limited.

[Obioban]

10 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

You personally checked that every device being throttled had problems with crashes? I kind of doubt that...

 

No, but that doesn't seem like a reasonable expectation

[Obioban]

12 minutes ago, Issac Zachary said:

A referrence to who that was happening to would be nice. Some sort of testimony of many people affected rather than a personal observation of a single individual claiming what happened to several.

 

I didn't know a single person back then who had their iPhones crashing even when purposely avoiding the last update. But that's just my observation which is very limited.

The update didn't slow down all phones. It only slowed down phones that's batteries were too weak to power full processor speed-- including restoring full speed if the battery was replaced.

 

If your friends batteries weren't cycled out, they would not have been slowed down by the update, or have experienced crashes without it.

[Blademaster91]

20 minutes ago, Obioban said:

it was customer friendly

Throttling devices with no communication to the consumer isn't consumer friendly at all, and yes they do deserve to be criticized for slowing down phones when that isn't a fix for a defective battery.

22 minutes ago, Obioban said:

it made devices working better for longer.

Throttling doesn't make it work better,just longer, which again isn't fix as the batteries still needed replacing.

[Issac Zachary]

3 minutes ago, Obioban said:

The update didn't slow down all phones. It only slowed down phones that's batteries were too weak to power full processor speed-- including restoring full speed if the battery was replaced.

 

If your friends batteries weren't cycled out, they would not have been slowed down by the update, or have experienced crashes without it.

That sounds logical, but again, like @HenrySalayne said, where's the proof?

[Issac Zachary]

1 minute ago, Blademaster91 said:

Throttling doesn't make it work better,just longer, which again isn't fix as the batteries still needed replacing.

This seems to kind of make sense. Bad batteries will both run out of juice more quickly in the day and also degrade faster. Throttling the phone should help both of those problems.

However, it's hard to say it was done out of concern for the costumer. Even if the reasons were communicated to customers, while having a battery that still lasts all day is a plus, I'm sure many customers would have preferred to just plug in more often and have a faster phone.

[Obioban]

16 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Throttling devices with no communication to the consumer isn't consumer friendly at all, and yes they do deserve to be criticized for slowing down phones when that isn't a fix for a defective battery.

Throttling doesn't make it work better,just longer, which again isn't fix as the batteries still needed replacing.

That's not a "defective battery"-- that's just how battery chemistry works.

 

Throttling does make it work better-- not randomly restarting is better than randomly restarting. Without the update, the batteries absolutely need to be replaced-- restarts under load are not a viable ownership experience. A device being slower, but functioning, is a viable ownership experience.

 

Failure to communicate is what they deserve to be criticized for here.

[Obioban]

6 minutes ago, Issac Zachary said:

This seems to kind of make sense. Bad batteries will both run out of juice more quickly in the day and also degrade faster. Throttling the phone should help both of those problems.

However, it's hard to say it was done out of concern for the costumer. Even if the reasons were communicated to customers, while having a battery that still lasts all day is a plus, I'm sure many customers would have preferred to just plug in more often and have a faster phone.

This had nothing at all to do with battery life (getting through a day). It was to prevent crashes (restarts) when the battery could deliver the voltage required by the phone. The update decreased the voltage the phone could demand from the battery to what the battery could supply-- and the way it decreased voltage demanded was by throttling the processor.

[Obioban]

  

19 minutes ago, Issac Zachary said:

That sounds logical, but again, like @HenrySalayne said, where's the proof?

Worth reminding everyone that after this issue blew up in the media (because who doesn't love a pile on Apple story), Apple issued an update that added a toggle that disabled the throttling-- which nobody in their right mind used, because then the phone would randomly restart under load, which is far worse than being slower under load. 

[Blademaster91]

31 minutes ago, Issac Zachary said:

This seems to kind of make sense. Bad batteries will both run out of juice more quickly in the day and also degrade faster. Throttling the phone should help both of those problems.

However, it's hard to say it was done out of concern for the costumer. Even if the reasons were communicated to customers, while having a battery that still lasts all day is a plus, I'm sure many customers would have preferred to just plug in more often and have a faster phone.

Throttling the phone would help the phone last longer if the battery is so degraded it doesn't last a whole day, although IMO the lack of communication was very anti-consumer and consumers deserve the class action from it.

And as weird as it might sound I'd rather have a phone that just shuts off if the battery is bad than my phone getting throttled with no indication of why it is suddenly running slowly. Because at least the phone crashing or shutting down tells me something is wrong with the device.

On 1/8/2024 at 1:18 AM, Issac Zachary said:

My thoughts are:

if you don't like Apple, THEN buy something else! Sheesh!

I would rather buy something else because of the anti-consumer tactics apple has on repair, but buying something else doesn't always work when other companies are copying apple on a lot of things like non-replaceable batteries.

[Issac Zachary]

18 minutes ago, Obioban said:

This had nothing at all to do with battery life (getting through a day). It was to prevent crashes (restarts) when the battery could deliver the voltage required by the phone [current required by the phone]. The update decreased the voltage [the current] the phone could demand from the battery to what the battery could supply-- and the way it decreased voltage demanded [current demanded] was by throttling the processor.

As someone who's familiar with electronics, this still doesn't make sense.

 

• You charge your degraded battery up to 4.2V.
• You turn on the phone and start playing, so the CPU starts demanding more current (not voltage), so the the CPU (and other components) start to ramp up current draw as the phone is being used.
• As current increases the voltage then starts to drop. Obviously there's a voltage at which the battery is considered dead, around 2.5V, which would trigger the phone to shut off (aka: crash).
• But what doesn't make sense is why the switch for choosing all or nothing? There's no reason that I know of why they couldn't program into the firmware a way to throttle with voltage.
  • Say the phone is hot and just fully charged: voltage will tend not to sag as much even with a degraded battery. As long as it stays above, say 3V, why throttle it?? What's the point?? Why couldn't Apple make the phone determine the maximum current it can draw based on the voltage sag so as to allow for maximum performance without allowing the voltage to sag too low?????????
  • The phone is cold or partially discharged and with it's degraded battery the voltage tends to sag a lot under load. Ok, that's a good time to throttle it. Why not make it auto throttle at this point????????????

I don't get it? Doesn't Apple know how to design phones and other electronic hardware as well as their firmware and other software if it were for preventing crashes?????

 

I don't buy preventing crashes at all. What might make sense is that it was for better battery life, but even then I don't see it as pro-consumer.

[Blademaster91]

30 minutes ago, Obioban said:

That's not a "defective battery"-- that's just how battery chemistry works.

 

Throttling does make it work better-- not randomly restarting is better than randomly restarting. Without the update, the batteries absolutely need to be replaced-- restarts under load are not a viable ownership experience. A device being slower, but functioning, is a viable ownership experience.

 

Failure to communicate is what they deserve to be criticized for here.

That is a defective battery if the battery cannot provide the necessary voltage so the phone can function as it was designed to, if it has to be throttled then the device no longer functions as it was advertised to the consumer. Throttling doesn't make it work any better as its now slower, you only get a device that works longer even though it might be painfully slow to use, that isn't a viable ownership experience if the device is suddenly slower for no reason. The average consumer isn't going to realize their phone needs a new battery which is why the communication is important, a suddenly slow phone is going to get people to buy a new phone, not replace the battery which is an anti-consumer move.

The failure to communicate is the main reason apple got sued for it, yet people here still want to insist apple did nothing wrong.

26 minutes ago, Obioban said:

  

Worth reminding everyone that after this issue blew up in the media (because who doesn't love a pile on Apple story), Apple issued an update that added a toggle that disabled the throttling-- which nobody in their right mind used, because then the phone would randomly restart under load, which is far worse than being slower under load. 

Ah yes, when apple does something wrong, it's a "media pile on" not the media doing their job to report on the news. /s

 

As for a toggle being in the settings, of course no apple user would actually use it as apple users don't go poking around in the settings.

[HenrySalayne]

Just now, Obioban said:

Failure to communicate is what they deserve to be criticized for here.

No. Apple deserves to be criticised for  everything they done here. It's completely unknown and intransparent if this benefited the majority of users or if they were impacted negatively.

 

In the wake of Dieselgate manufacturers claimed they had to switch off exhaust gas cleaning systems outside of certain temperature windows to prevent damage to the engine. Those cars would drive around 80% of the time without the required exhaust gas cleaning because the temperature window was tiny. This lame excuse got completely demolished and they had to recall and fix the vehicles.

 

Apple is acting in a similar manner here. Throttling might improve stability on unstable systems, but every stable system can be throttled and it is still a stable system. It doesn't fix anything if there is nothing to fix.

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

You personally checked that every device being throttled had problems with crashes? I kind of doubt that...

 

No, but this is basic battery chemistry and circuit knowledge that you learn in your second year of EE. 

I know of many Iphones of that generation that would crash when say, opening up Snapchat and the processor would turbo out of idle and start running image processing and pulling from the network at the same time. Im not about to go and find a pre updated phone with a 70% degraded battery to test out for you.

The circuits would pull enough current that the voltage output of the battery would drop below the minimum specification of the chips.

Take ANY battery, pull a current, voltage DROPS.
if the voltage drop is low enough, (hell you can do this with an old desktop PSU as well) the system CRASHES.

[Issac Zachary]

6 minutes ago, starsmine said:

No, but this is basic battery chemistry and circuit knowledge that you learn in your second year of EE. 

Wrong. This would be like Apple severly throttling their laptops all the time because they could get too hot.

 

A proper throttling system throttles when it's needed, it doesn't throttle 100% of the time for a just-in-case scenario.

 

Apple has done this quite well with thermal throttling. The CPU gets to a certain temp and it starts getting slower. The same with battery voltage and current: Voltage sags to a certain point, then throttle back current.

[starsmine]

6 minutes ago, Issac Zachary said:

Wrong. This would be like Apple severly throttling their laptops all the time because they could get too hot.

 

A proper throttling system throttles when it's needed, it doesn't throttl 100% of the time for a just-in-case scenario.

 

Apple has done this quite well with thermal throttling. The CPU gets to a certain temp and it starts getting slower. The same with battery voltage and current: Voltage sags to a certain point, then throttle back current.

This is not a THERMAL issue. this is a chemistry issue. 
The phones were not throttling 100% of the time, it was changing the max current draw of the entire system when the battery could no longer provide that current without dropping voltage below a set value. For normal day-to-day operations, nothing changed.

[Issac Zachary]

4 minutes ago, starsmine said:

This is not a THERMAL issue. this is a chemistry issue. 
The phones were not throttling 100% of the time, it was changing the max current draw of the entire system when the battery could no longer provide that current without dropping voltage below a set value. 

 

I don't buy that explanation. If that were true then the throttling would be nonexistant when the phone was fully charged and then throttle more and more as the phone is used and the battery charge is depleted. I have never heard of the Apple iPhone throttling issue actually working like that, so no, it was not throttling current to keep the voltages from dropping below it a set value. Instead it was throttling the entire time.

 

If that were true then we would have heard of thousands of iPhone owners vouching for keeping the battery charge up as high as possible all the time in order to avoid the throttling.

 

Also, was there any report of the throttling going away when the phone was plugged in?

[HenrySalayne]

8 hours ago, starsmine said:

Take ANY battery, pull a current, voltage DROPS.

And water is wet...

What is your point here? It's out of the question that throttling COULD help in certain situations to prevent crashes. If you still make that argument, you missed the point.

 

If you want your narrative of "friendly Apple helps their costumers to use their phone longer" to be true, you need to proof that throttling benefitted the majority of users. It's not enough to show this did help on a single device, but it needs to be shown this benefitted the majority of affected devices.

Apple could not do that and so could nobody else. I wish you good luck.

[starsmine]

13 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

And water is wet...

What is your point here? It's out of the question that throttling COULD help in certain situations to prevent crashes. If you still make that argument, you missed the point.

 

If you want your narrative of "friendly Apple helps their costumers to use their phone longer" to be true, you need to proof that throttling benefitted the majority of users. It's not enough to show this did help on a single device, but it needs to be shown this benefitted the majority of affected devices.

Apple could not do that and so could nobody else. I wish you good luck.

the trigger for the throttle was the first crash.

[HenrySalayne]

6 minutes ago, starsmine said:

the trigger for the throttle was the first crash.

Any source for that?

[Issac Zachary]

There are a lot of theories about why Apple throttled the iPhones, puts so little RAM into things, etc., but there's no evidence for any of it, and it frankly doesn't make all that sense.

 

As an Android user I've never heard of Android phones constantly crashing from bad batteries. My first Android phone I kept for some 6 and a half years and I don't remember it crashing when the battery capacity was getting really low and needed replacment.

 

It sounds to me that someone is just trying to cover for Apple.

 

Not that we should all hate Apple. Just stop trying to convince everyone that everything Apple does is good and justifiable.

[starsmine]

18 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

Any source for that?

Just the phones my family all had at the time. 

[Issac Zachary]

8 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Just the phones my family all had at the time. 

Um. Ok...

So you're saying your family all had by chance a bunch of iPhones, and all kept those iPhones until the last update, and you were able to test each one of them and determine when they first crashed and that before those first crashes they weren't throttling and afterwords they were and were no longer crashing?

 

Those are a lot of events that would still require a conciencious effort to track and compile and by your answer seem to be more of an interpretation of what you think happened rather than an actual investigation that took place those many years ago.

 

Sorry, maybe you did decide to invetigate it back then, but that's not the way it sounds.