APPLE’S BATTERY BROUHAHA

It was for your own good!

OLD IPHONES can get slow, and the suspicion was always that Apple was deliberately throttling them to push upgrades. The iPhone 6 seemed particularly prone to this. Tempers shortened, forums filled with complaints, and rumors passed back and forth. At least four class action lawsuits were filed. Third-party testing revealed that the slowdown was real: Old iPhone’s are having their processors slowed down by the OS. Apple finally admitted what it was up to.

Apple issued a statement just before the New Year confirming that a software upgrade last year (iOS 10.2.1) does indeed detect a battery with degraded performance, and slow things down if power demand is too high. It did have reasonable technical arguments for this: Old batteries can’t reliably supply the peak power of a fresh one; if it drops too far below requirements, your phone simply shuts down, which you don’t want. That’s why iPhone 6 users would see their phone go black at 30–40 percent charge for no apparent reason. It wasn’t being mean, just practical.

In response, Apple has cut the cost of a new battery kit for out-of-warranty iPhones from $79 to $29—a welcome move. This will have your phone running at tip-top speed again. Though you have to wonder why it charged $79 in the first place…. It also promises to add tools that enable you to get a better picture of your battery’s condition. So, it’s not a diabolical conspiracy to get you to upgrade, just an inept company that won’t admit what it’s doing until threatened with lawsuits, and a lot of unhappy customers.

One reason this has surfaced is the slowing rate of upgrades—people are hanging on to iPhones for longer than they used to; witness the sluggish sales of the iPhone X. The iPhone 6 has the basic functions you need, and a headphone jack to boot. A surprising number of people are still rocking one, it seems.