This is an insanely complex story and to me, really harkens back to the time of the Gizmodo story and All Things D talk with Steve Jobs about the “stolen” prototype iPhone. I absolutely cannot wait to see some of my favorite journalists get directly into the weeds on this for the next year and hopefully get to discuss it with some of Apple’s executives.
From my research – this starts even before the iOS 10.2.1 Update – but back in the era of iOS 9, back in late 2015.
Its a time where we are well steeped with the evergreen rumors that Apple secretly slows their devices to force users to upgrade their hardware.
In my experience working on a bevy of commercial software sometimes when new features and updates are made they come at a cost. As a decision maker you need to review and weight he pros and cons of what those costs will be, in terms of time spent working through changes or new hardware required to handle what you want done.
This is nothing new to me but getting a regular smart phone, tablet, laptop – user – used to this idea, well, I think we’re seeing what the fallout of not effectively communicating what those “costs” are – not only to Apple but to their customers.
As an IT person – inconsistent “slowness” without plotted data or the ability to chart data is infuriating. These are some of the hardest issues to resolve for customers and cause some of the most heartache for all parties. There is zero ability to see this performance data in iOS easily.
When it comes to perceived slowness – when many people can describe an issue(s) but have difficulty documenting it – you can’t ignore it. It can’t be swept under the rug – but that’s what was seemingly happening and the only way to get your issues resolved were really in the hands of Apple’s Geniuses support and diagnostic tools. Sure; Geekbench was (and thankfully still is) a thing but its not automated, regular, or comprehensive and you had to know what it was showing you to even matter. I know people and customers that I supported often asked me how to keep their iOS phones and tablets running smooth and fast. Sometimes it was watching or knowing about battery hogging apps, background application updates or simply how long their OS had gone since a total wipe and build from scratch which had been pretty consistent advice since around 2011 with the iPhone 4s but it was all pretty anecdotal with only so many avenues to check before – yup you’re gonna need to take it in or nuke it from orbit and start over – both were a pretty even toss up.
Back to 2015.
It brought the release of iOS 9 which brought about a lot of people’s ultimate feature “Low Power Mode” and the release of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Then an anomaly appeared in the product line up – the Apple Smart Battery Case. Love it for the capacity, hate it for the bump or the fact they only released it for the non-plus models forevermore – it was here to stay but why? Why during this product timeline was it released? I’m not trying to add misdirection but I think it bears questioning.
The iPhone 6 was a year old at this point and Apple had never cared about addressing this problem before. This product also integrated the battery into the OS much like Bluetooth devices like the Apple Watch or AirPods do today.
To me – the inclusion of Low Power Mode and addition of the Smart Battery Case are the first subtle admissions to larger shortcomings of iOS devices’ batteries for the short-term and over time. Were these effective steps to stave off battery issues? Not really but I can’t be sure they were really intended to resolve those long term issues but the timing is incredible, now looking back.
In late 2016 both my wife’s and my own iPhone 6s Pluses started shutting down randomly under what I would consider regular use for us as well as under heavy load. I would also consider both of us “Pro” or “Power” users of the platform – these are certainly our primary computing devices.
Allegedly a small subset of devices were know to be experiencing this issue. I contacted Apple about both but they were only interested in troubleshooting my wife’s; mine didn’t fit their criteria even though they both displayed the same issue. I performed some lengthy remote diagnostics with a lovely Apple Engineer but no fixes were applied and we had some follow up with nothing really changing. Admittedly – the shutdowns weren’t always repeatable despite my best efforts.
Eventually iOS 10.2.1 was released (Please note the change log – “Improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns.” ) and my wife’s phone was noticeably slower but she put up with it like a CHAMP awaiting the next hardware release to upgrade but it was a long wait from December. Mine got so bad with shutdowns, slowness, and had received some physical damage I gave up on it – none of my tricks and fixes made any difference. I had to replace it mid-cycle with a 7 Plus. My wife ultimately upgraded a few months ago to the 7s 8 Plus.
So as a customer and participant through this timeline – Apple’s statement and communication comes far, far too late and offers nothing to help me. I feel like I did everything right and my ONLY recourse was to purchase a new device to resolve my issues – which I did and that was totally my choice; no one forced me.
Did Apple intend to cause that? No. I honestly don’t think they’re that nefarious. Could they be? Sure, any entity could be but I don’t believe it. I think this was a perfectly unintended consequence that got them more business in the process.
Their ultimate failure was customer communication.
Explaining, educating, and being transparent about what was happening, how it was happening, how to address it, AND how customers could avoid it in the future would have made a great deal of difference to me as a customer and I think many many others.
Not to be misunderstood – I greatly appreciate their humility in communicating their shortcoming and their gesture of lowering the battery replacement cost – but like my wife and I – and probably many others fall into the gap where it doesn’t help us at all and there is nothing for us there.
If you’re murky on the gritty details – I recommend Daring Fireball’s or TechCrunch’s coverage to wrap your head around it – I won’t rehash it here.
I can’t wait to see what features they add for making these battery performance conditions transparent to the end-user; all things said – I would’ve gladly held onto my 6s Plus until the 8 Plus existed then upgraded at that time rather than off cycle.
jeremyxmentzell 