So, Apple finally came clean with the battery stuff on older iPhones:
We’ve been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize. There’s been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes we’re making.
First and foremost, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that.
The situation isn’t ideal, in that they’ve annoyed, and probably confused some of their customers by not making it transparent from the start.
However, the actual power management feature that people are complaining about, actually seems like a really good idea.
About a year ago in iOS 10.2.1, we delivered a software update that improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE. With the update, iOS dynamically manages the maximum performance of some system components when needed to prevent a shutdown. While these changes may go unnoticed, in some cases users may experience longer launch times for apps and other reductions in performance.
I’ve seen a lot of news outlets saying that this is Apple trying to move people to newer iPhones, and even that it is causing iPhones to not last as long (Not the battery, but the actual device’s lifespan).
I can only see this update doing the exact opposite. It slowed down performance, but that is to extend the short term battery life, and also the long term life of the device.
The lack of communication is what messes everything up though. Even if you disregard the trust factor of Apple doing this without telling anybody, it leads users to believe that they are affected by it, when in some cases they might not be. So after seeing a small bit of news about Apple slowing down iPhones, someone with a completely unrelated device, or even an affected device with another issue, would more than likely blame this new power management update.
What Apple are doing about this, is actually quite impressive. They’re reducing the price of an out of warranty battery replacement by $50. But more importantly, they’re going to start making the battery heath more visible in iOS. It’s something you have on a Mac, and I will welcome it to iOS.
They could have avoided this whole situation though, as clearly they proved they can be transparent about this feature (although in this case it was forced). So why didn’t they write a small article about a “new power management feature” and how they’re extending the lifespans of older devices, and then just make the whole thing optional.