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Apple's John Ternus says that removable batteries will reduce durability of iPhones (www.ghacks.net)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/hardware@lemmy.ml
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[–] 8 points 3 years ago* (5 children)

To be fair, their software/security support is longer than any others that I'm aware of. They beat out even Samsung in that regard.
Only one that's close/better is Fairphone and they still have a looong way to go before they can compete in terms of quality and audience.

But I agree that their physical durability and repairability could seriously improve.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Well, supporting also means, not making older phones slower with new updates on purpose.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    When have they done that? Most throttling over time is due to 2 reasons:

    1. batteries degrading over time store less energy, so there’s less energy for the internal components. Workarounds can involve software throttling to avoid shutdown issues (which can corrupt your data) but the ultimate solution is a battery replacement. This isn’t inherent to software updates, it’s a consequence of a physical component breaking down over time.

    2. engineers can choose to spend time maintaining compatibility with each new software release, or focus on optimizing for new hardware, or a little of both. Over time it’s possible later OS’ are less optimized than newer devices but this is not exclusive to Apple, and as many here have already pointed out Apple is way ahead of the competition in legacy device support already.

    Can you prove that Apple has ever intentionally “slowed down older phones” in any other situation?

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Do lightning cables still break if you look at them funny? I remember all the "hack" videos that involved taping a spring to the end of them...

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I’ve owned almost every iPhone since iPhone 4, multiple iPods before that, and have never had a lightning or 30-pin cable break down for me. Maybe yellowed a bit but never full on breaking like I’ve seen.

    I suspect it’s because I’ve never allowed the cable to bend excessively from the port. I’ll bet everyone who complains about the cable longevity does the thing where the cable is cinched between the connector and whatever surface they’re propping their phone on. That causes cable strain and prematurely kills the cable.

    In any case, your cable is covered by your phone’s limited warranty (or AppleCare), so as long as you have a device that takes that type of cable, Apple will replace for free.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Like how my iPhone 4S became unusable after the iOS 7 "upgrade?"

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Wasn't Apple accused of intentionally slowing down older phones as a tactic to get consumers to upgrade? IIRC they paid a huge settlement in court over it. Which I guess isn't necessarily an admission of guilt, but it doesnt look very good.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    The issue really is less “evil” than that. They keep adding features running in the background which add to the load on a CPU. Combine that with some of those new features running better with newer versions of microcode and it quickly makes it appear as though they are intentionally slowing it down, while in reality they are just adding more shit to the system to run on top of your day to day workload.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    Early iPhones were known to randomly shut off after years of use at like 30%, which is NOT unusual or specific to iPhones, and was a consequence of old batteries not being able to meet the power demands of the phone any longer due to natural degradation.

    Apple pushed an iOS update to mitigate these shutdowns by temporarily slowing the phone as needed and match the energy capabilities of the battery, to avoid these random shutdowns (and data loss, as random shutdowns can corrupt data and cause you to lose important files).

    Where they messed up was in the messaging. They assumed most users wouldn’t notice/care, and just added a little bullet point in the release notes for that particular version. Welp, people noticed, articles were written and shared on social media, and yeah they had to pay a settlement about it.

    They messed up in the communication, but the public messed up big time by overreacting, assuming Apple was just slowing your phone to make you buy a new one when instead, they were trying to make it so your phone would last longer.

    It’s a good study on pr and mass hysteria.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    Never really had an issue with iPhone outside of the glass screen, but more recent Gorilla Glass offerings have mostly fixed that issue for me. I do love what Fairphone is doing.

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