Apple fined for slowing old iphones

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
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Seems this stems from the 2017 scandal and their unwillingness to share that replacing the battery would fix the issue.



With their history of milking customers for more dollars, who believes their BS excuses anymore? Oh, maybe the remaining market share who still buy them.

$27M fine. That's only 27 thousand $1k monitor stands.
 
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Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
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It kills me when these big corps get fines that are so small as be laughable. It only encourages corruption and a total lack of accountability for abusing customers, employees, etc. I remember the initial fines by Dupont over PFOA/C8 poisoning and directly causing the deaths of large numbers of people who worked for them and in wider communities via poisoned water amounted to virtually nothing, less than a day's profits, and even that they reneged on and proceeded to further infiltrate and corrupt the regulatory infrastructure.
 
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Amol S.

Platinum Member
Mar 14, 2015
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Well, that is probably an anticipated act on part of Apple. Considering that their revenue is actually going down from the past years. Windows has been the leader over the desktop market. Then there is Android, which unlike iOS that has apps whose development required paying Apple. In Android, you do not need to pay Google to put your app on the Google play store, or to get the app signed.

Mobile Operating System statistics:

Desktop/Laptop Operating System statistics:

Then there are those restrictions on usability that are much tighter on iOS devices, like you can only take and place photos on an iPhone via USB, everything else must be download or cloud. Seriously, that is device security gone too far. I do not see iPhone's being the thing that will replace tablets, it will be either Android or Windows Phone/Mobile(if Microsoft goes back at it again).
 

mrochester

Senior member
Aug 16, 2014
471
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Seems this stems from the 2017 scandal and their unwillingness to share that replacing the battery would fix the issue.



With their history of milking customers for more dollars, who believes their BS excuses anymore? Oh, maybe the remaining market share who still buy them.

$27M fine. That's only 27 thousand $1k monitor stands.

The trouble, as usual, is there is no better alternative. If you are an iOS user your ONLY choice of alternative operating system is android, which many people do not like or want (hence they bought iOS in the first place!).

it’s the lack of competition in the smartphone operating system market that is really causing the market to be so stagnant and uncompetitive. We can thank google for ending up in this situation with their anti-competitive business practices.
 

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
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The unexpected shut-down issue due to degraded battery was a HUGE problem for me. Slowing the phone literally extended the useful lifetime of the phone for people who were otherwise unwilling to pay Apple's high battery replacement fee. It's difficult to see this as a money grabbing move by Apple. Making the battery a non-user-serviceable component is the part that deserves criticism.
 

mrochester

Senior member
Aug 16, 2014
471
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The unexpected shut-down issue due to degraded battery was a HUGE problem for me. Slowing the phone literally extended the useful lifetime of the phone for people who were otherwise unwilling to pay Apple's high battery replacement fee. It's difficult to see this as a money grabbing move by Apple. Making the battery a non-user-serviceable component is the part that deserves criticism.

I wonder how many people didn’t upgrade their phone after the update was released (because the phone continued to work rather than shutting down)? It would seem to me if Apple weren’t interested in doing what was best for their customers then they wouldn’t have issued this update and allowed peoples phones to continue randomly turning off. That would have guaranteed them many new sales.
 

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
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I wonder how many people didn’t upgrade their phone after the update was released (because the phone continued to work rather than shutting down)? It would seem to me if Apple weren’t interested in doing what was best for their customers then they wouldn’t have issued this update and allowed peoples phones to continue randomly turning off. That would have guaranteed them many new sales.
Exactly. That's how it was for years. Then they silently made the phones limit performance so voltage draw wouldn't exceed what the degraded battery could provide. Then it became a scandal even though it allowed people to keep using phones they otherwise wouldn't use (probably).
 

mrochester

Senior member
Aug 16, 2014
471
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Exactly. That's how it was for years. Then they silently made the phones limit performance so voltage draw wouldn't exceed what the degraded battery could provide. Then it became a scandal even though it allowed people to keep using phones they otherwise wouldn't use (probably).

‘I’ve never understood why so many people get this backwards as if a fast phone that shuts off randomly is better than a slower phone that doesn’t.

is it just wilful ignorance/stupidity because it’s Apple we’re talking about?
 
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Amol S.

Platinum Member
Mar 14, 2015
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The unexpected shut-down issue due to degraded battery was a HUGE problem for me. Slowing the phone literally extended the useful lifetime of the phone for people who were otherwise unwilling to pay Apple's high battery replacement fee. It's difficult to see this as a money grabbing move by Apple. Making the battery a non-user-serviceable component is the part that deserves criticism.

Phone manufacturers should just move back to making smartphones with removable batteries.
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
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lol apples lawyers fee's alone probably cost more then 27 million.
France needed to add an extra 0 at the end to make it meaningful.

Phone manufacturers should just move back to making smartphones with removable batteries.

While i agree but this would make the phone not only lose the IP65 rating, but would also open a new can of worms.
Also Apple would never do it.
They even make there MAC's close to impossible to service.
 
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Ravynmagi

Diamond Member
Jun 16, 2007
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Apple probably should have been more open about this kind of change. But I think they did good making up for it once it was exposed.
 

Oyeve

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Oct 18, 1999
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