Apple face 2 class action suits in USA over slowing down iPhones

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It is wrong to not disclose a change in function or behavior of a device a customer owns without telling them re: the point about release notes. Worthless if they are not accurate.

 

 

And illegal in most countries, probably even in the US.   I guess this lawsuit will determine that.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

Not really, if successful it will force them to re think their next anti-consumer activity and it will force them to make the update optional.

 

 

 

The thing is you have to prove that what Apple did is anti-consumer and going off Apples statments on this issue, that is going to be very hard to prove. 

[leadeater]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

No its not. Should they tell them? It depends on what was in the update and this is something I don't think the user really needed to know about. 

And if Microsoft did it to Windows 10 without stating they were doing it and millions of 1-2 year old laptops suddenly got slower and certain applications were now unusable while on battery due to the degradation of performance you are going to stick with it was not necessary to inform people of the change and make them figure it out by themselves?

[DrMacintosh]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

And if Microsoft did it to Windows 10 without stating they were doing it and millions of 1-2 year old laptops suddenly got slower and certain applications were now unusable while on battery due to the degradation of performance you are going to stick with it was not necessary to inform people of the change and make them figure it out by themselves?

Yes. 

 

Although your timeline doesn't really work since laptop batteries take a lot longer to have any noticable loss in power output, but if a battery was so far gone that throttling the CPU back so the thing could run would be acceptable to me and would be doing me a favor, not a disservice. 

[Dabombinable]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

Well they don't, and the batteries degrade for a number of reasons. 

 

Every device that has ever had a lith-Ion battery ever goes through the things Apple has prevented by throttling phones with degraded batteries. 

The batteries in their devices degrade far sooner than they should. I've got a 2012 Nexus that's had heavy use for the past 5 years, and it still gets 5-6 hours out of the original 8-9 (depending on what I'm doing)-this tablet was originally in the same class as the first iPad mini BTW.

[Dabombinable]

4 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Where did you get the idea that Apple is using NiCad or NiMH? Those have been made obsolete for decades already and there’s simply no practical or beneficial reason for a smartphone OEM including Apple to use Nickel based batteries as they need to be fully discharged unlike Lithium-Ion/Lithium Polymer batteries. Lithium Ion batteries have a fixed charging cycles until it degrades which is usually 1000 charging cycles. 

Read.

8 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Note to Apple: Stop using shit batteries in your iPhones (and other products for that matter)-they might as well be NiMH or NiCad batteries with how they degrade.

 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, hey_yo_ said:

Where did you get the idea that Apple is using NiCad or NiMH? Those have been made obsolete for decades already and there’s simply no practical or beneficial reason for a smartphone OEM including Apple to use Nickel based batteries as they need to be fully discharged unlike Lithium-Ion/Lithium Polymer batteries. Lithium Ion batteries have a fixed charging cycles until it degrades which is usually 1000 charging cycles. 

He didn't say they used NiCad or NiMH, he said they may as well if they are going to use a battery too small for the job.

 

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

The thing is you have to prove that what Apple did is anti-consumer and going off Apples statments on this issue, that is going to be very hard to prove. 

Hard to prove? they admitted they did it, they installed software that reduces the performance of the device without telling the owner. They were either hiding a fault or unnecessarily retarding the device.  Both of which can be interpreted as anti-consumer because it was not transparent and was not optional.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Dabombinable said:

The batteries in their devices degrade far sooner than they should.

Can you prove that outside of a reddit post and questionable user reported data? 

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Where did you get the idea that Apple is using NiCad or NiMH? Those have been made obsolete for decades already and there’s simply no practical or beneficial reason for a smartphone OEM including Apple to use Nickel based batteries as they need to be fully discharged unlike Lithium-Ion/Lithium Polymer batteries. Lithium Ion batteries have a fixed charging cycles until it degrades which is usually 1000 charging cycles. 

It was a joke, and there are much better Lithium based battery technologies that can be used other than standard Lithium-Ion, like Lithium Iron Phosphate.

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Hard to prove? they admitted they did it, they installed software that reduces the performance of the device without telling the owner. They were either hiding a fault or unnecessarily retarding the device. 

Ahahah

 

You never even read the statement Apple released on this issue and are actually commenting about it 

 

Oh man that's a doozey 

[Dabombinable]

Just now, mr moose said:

He didn't say they used NiCad or NiMH, he said they may as well if they are going to use a battery too small for the job.

 

Hard to prove? they admitted they did it, they installed software that reduces the performance of the device without telling the owner. They were either hiding a fault or unnecessarily retarding the device.  Both of which can be interpreted as anti-consumer because it was not transparent and was not optional.

I'd say its more of a case of hiding a fault. And extremely low battery longevity in earlier iPod Nano is what initiated their battery replacement policy. Lithium ion or polymer batteris should not die/degrade badly within 2 years. The degradation should really start becoming apparent at around 4 years. Because the batteries technology means that are supposed to have 10's of thousands of charge cycles, not only a few thousand.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Although your timeline doesn't really work since laptop batteries take a lot longer to have any noticable loss in power output, but if a battery was so far gone that throttling the CPU back so the thing could run would be acceptable to me and would be doing me a favor, not a disservice. 

It's the same battery technology so the degradation is at the same rate if not faster due to the higher current demand from laptops at peak usage. My laptop only has a 2390mAh battery, lower than many phones.

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

I'd say its more of a case of hiding a fault.

There is no fault

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Lithium ion or polymer batteris should not die/degrade badly within 2 years.

They don't 

 

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

The degradation should really start becoming apparent at around 4 years.

And that is about right. 

 

Do you know why Apple is throttling? Or even the extent?

[XenosTech]

16 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's not a water is wet issue, nobody was suspecting the battery as the cause of the slowness and nobody expected a battery replacement to fix it. That's why the person made the reddit post in the first place because it was such new and interesting information worth telling other people. If it were water is wet the reddit post would never have been created and replacing batteries in old iPhones would be common.

 

I don't think it needs to be in the EULA or written on the box or something in the box, putting it in the release notes of the software is all that is required. Release notes are supposed to list the changes and fixes with the version being release so people can track changes and identify issues or spot important features or security updates they need to apply.

 

It is wrong to not disclose a change in function or behavior of a device a customer owns without telling them re: the point about release notes. Worthless if they are not accurate.

 

Apple has done nothing wrong other than not saying what they were doing, no matter how good the intentions were for the change in iOS. Many bad things have come about from good intentions and much more have come from trying to do good in secret.

 

This class action is pointless and not necessary and Apple should not be put through any legal proceedings for this at all, to do so is not a productive course of action but Apple was still wrong for not stating what they were doing.

And these are the same people who would shit on windows or android for excluding changes in their patch notes.

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, leadeater said:

My laptop only has a 2390mAh battery, lower than many phones.

wtf is that laptop, a Atom based Chromebook? 

[XenosTech]

7 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Yes. 

 

Although your timeline doesn't really work since laptop batteries take a lot longer to have any noticable loss in power output, but if a battery was so far gone that throttling the CPU back so the thing could run would be acceptable to me and would be doing me a favor, not a disservice. 

OR you could just notify the user "Hey your battery is fucked up, time  to change it."

[leadeater]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

wtf is that laptop, a Atom based Chromebook? 

HP Pavilion Sleekbook 14.

[AlTech]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

wtf is that laptop, a Atom based Chromebook? 

Some laptops have a low mAh rating but higher Wh and different amount of battery cells.

[leadeater]

Just now, XenosTech said:

OR you could just notify the user "Hey your battery is fucked up, time  to change it."

Like Ubuntu has done for a long time now, and HP system utilities on Windows.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, XenosTech said:

OR you could just notify the user "Hey your battery is fucked up, time  to change it."

Maybe

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

It was a joke, and there are much better Lithium based battery technologies that can be used other than standard Lithium-Ion, like Lithium Iron Phosphate.

Fair enough. 

 

Though it makes me think when can we finally have nano-graphene based batteries which allows higher capacities and faster charging. Conventional Lithium Ion batteries charge each cell one at the time which requires longer duration and packing a Lithium iot battery requires extra space for it to expand to prevent explosion (just like Galaxy Note 7). Graphene based batteries can charge all cells at the same time and since it has something to do with nanotechnology, manufacturers can pack more capacities on a smaller form factor and produces less heat which makes them last longer than conventional Lithium Ion batteries. The problem of course is that no one has done standardization and mass production just yet for consumers. The technology has existed for years but hasn’t took off unfortunately. ☹️

[Dabombinable]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's the same battery technology so the degradation is at the same rate if not faster due to the higher current demand from laptops at peak usage. My laptop only has a 2390mAh battery, lower than many phones.

The battery in my ZTE 4G Fitsmart is only 2200mAh (and rather large for one of its capacity as well-hence why it doesn't get hot with high current chargers), and its still got just as much longevity as it did 2 years ago.

[captain_to_fire]

Just now, leadeater said:

Like Ubuntu has done for a long time now, and HP system utilities on Windows.

I wonder if Windows 10’s report of battery health is accurate especially after the Fall Creators Update. 

[XenosTech]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Like Ubuntu has done for a long time now, and HP system utilities on Windows.

Windows itself will tell you that you need to replace the battery since Vista was a thing. I know windows 7 did it for sure since I had like 4 faulty batteries with a laptop I bought in my first year of college.

[XenosTech]

7 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Maybe

There is no maybe. It's either you give your users the relevant information to make informed choices or get a ton of class action lawsuits against you repeatedly and regularly and lose business over time.