Apple Slows Down Your Phone Over Time

Over the past week, it has essentially been confirmed that Apple slows down your device as your battery wears to avoid early shutdowns and just longer runtime in general. This seems like a good idea, so if you feel the performance of your phone slowing down, maybe that means it’s just time to replace the battery! $80 done by Apple vs several hundred dollars for a new phone.

What do you all think about this?

Source: https://youtu.be/FkEN7rJMhFI

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If what that guy in the video is saying, is true, then I can see Apple throttling your iPhone down. But then again, if your battery is wearing down, I can also see your iPhone not working as fast and efficiently as it should. I have an iPhone 6s that is now 2 years old and I haven’t notice any slow down besides my carrier’s bad connection at times.

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A similar article was posted on Macrumors a week ago after a Reddit post lit the so called controversy flame;

Not really news to hardcore Apple users as every new ‘iOS’ update seems to bring a performance degrade (iOS 9 was an exception for me :smile:) alongside the addition of new functions unlikely to be used and removal/changing of features found useful…

I watched that video myself this morning. I haven’t noticed that myself but I have friends who have mentioned a similar issue, so I will have to say to them about changing the battery.

But I don’t think it’s a negative criticism on Apple as they are in essence trying to help prolong the use of the phone. Yes it may run slower but atleast it’s not constantly crashing when battery gets to like 30%

My first iPhone 6S was recalled because of the battery issue. Before I knew about the recall, I was out hiking and my phone shut down at 45% when I tried to take a picture. If I had a choice of a throttled CPU or a dead phone, I would have chose the throttled CPU so I could have taken the picture. :rage:
Apple’s customer service was great about the issue and overnighted me a replacement phone. :smile:

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Simple solution is not to upgrade iOS if you can help it. Those annoying update notices do not make it any easier to ignore.

I agree, not negative toward Apple, but I wish they weren’t so secretive about what they do. Maybe give us the option?

I tested out Geekbench and noticed about a 30-40% reduction in speed, so I may get my replaced, too.

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Yeah, I really started to notice after the 3 year mark. My iPhone 6 is really slowing down.

As if we all didn’t know it would come to this…now at lawsuit stage…

Yup, there’s curently 3 pending class action lawsuits now citing owners would have opted to replace the battery than buy a new phone.
Apple claims they only started this last year, but many claim its been ongoing since the iPhone 3 or 4

Here’s a “solution” for you all:

If you believe that your iPhone may be affected, reach out to Apple customer support via live chat. They will run diagnostics and let you know your battery wear level.

In my case, I am suffering extremely short battery life with my iPhone 6 (3 hours screen on time with light to moderate usage), and my battery is apparently still healthy, so we have determined that it is a software issue. Thanks Apple.

Check out Coconut Battery. It’s a Mac-only app and it will read the battery stats for your iPhone and show your wear level. It can vary each time you check it, so I usually do several readings over the course of a day and average them out.

If this app shows a problem with your battery, keep trying Apple Support. The battery problems on my 6S did not show up until the third time they ran a diagnostic.

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I read that there is now about 8 lawsuits against them, one of which is a staggering $999 Billion lawsuit.:scream:

Are people wanting Apple to just remove the “slow down” feature and let people’s batteries drain and crash in no time at all. Just doesn’t make sense to me.

Think majority of people are more irked that Apple were not forthcoming with what they were doing, resulting in many feeling based on device slowness vs age etc that the upgrade option was the only route, rather than a battery replacement at a tenth of the cost…

Doubt they will have to pay more than a few million in a settlement, alongside free or reduced price replacement of batteries for those who still have devices…

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That’s true, suppose a small mention somewhere at the time would’ve negated any future issues.

Don’t see this happening :joy: but it would be nice.

I stand corrected!

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£25 for a replacement battery in UK. I may have to use that myself as mine can often drain 1% a min during usage.

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Messed up…it is reasonable for them to do it I guess but messed up that they did this behind closed doors.

Recently I had an issue talking to an apple tech about a battery issue with my uncle’s phone. My uncle had a 6s and his performance was tanking…it was real bad. So I called and said his battery cycle was 400+ and to my surprise, the apple tec said that due to environmental reasons, they will not replace my battery unless the status goes from “normal” to “service”

BS!!! Mind you this was before this whole fiasco…and this apple tec was 3 levels escalated in position.

Because of this experience, I hate apple even more…

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Thank you for this recommendation! I tried Apple Support 2 times, and apparently both returned good condition. However, when I tried Coconut Battery, it was something like 55%! And I’m still getting unexpected shutdowns… Yikes! Ouch!

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