Snippet: Apple Clarifies Throttling Concerns on Devices with Aged Batteries ☇

Matthew Panzarino:

Here’s a statement that Apple provided when I inquired about the power profile that people were seeing when testing iPhones with older batteries:

“Our goal is to deliver the best experience for customers, which includes overall performance and prolonging the life of their devices. Lithium-ion batteries become less capable of supplying peak current demands when in cold conditions, have a low battery charge or as they age over time, which can result in the device unexpectedly shutting down to protect its electronic components.

Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We’ve now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future.”

The whole piece is pretty good and explains the choices Apple had to make when devices with older batteries were running into issues under heavy load. Inevitably, there will be people who think this is a conspiracy that Apple is trying to make them buy new phones, and what that argument fails to realize is that they may not buy new iPhones, but rather offerings from Samsung, LG, HTC, Google, or others.

Apple should’ve communicated this better, even with a “your battery is still functional, but not optimal. Here’s what that means” with a link. Either way, as others relating the story have pointed out, official replacement batteries are $79 from Apple (free with AppleCare) and have a warranty. If there was some kill-old-iPhones plot from Apple I doubt they’d let you get a new battery so easily.