Apple has found itself in a crisis over the last month over power management in older iPhones. We reported in December about an apparent flaw that meant iPhones were slowing down as a battery life degraded. However, it turned out to not be a flaw at all as Apple admitted it was a purposeful practice.
Since then, the folks at Cupertino have been scrambling to avoid a scandal. First was the suggestion other companies do the same, which was quickly outright denied by Samsung and others. This left Apple’s practice looking a bit more nefarious and threats of lawsuits quickly followed.
The clear fact is, as an older iPhone (7 Plus and lower) will get slower as it and the battery ages. Apple, in an effort to appease consumers, slashed the cost of replacement batteries from $79 to $29. Customers with iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone SE can take this deal.
Updating iOS
Now the company says new iOS updates will give users control over the power management. In other words, you will be able to choose whether your iPhone will get worse as it ages. Tim Cook confirmed the new policy in an interview with ABC News:
“We’re also going to… first in a developer release that happens next month, we’re going to give people the visibility of the health of their battery. So it’s very, very transparent. This hasn’t been done before, but we’ve thought through this whole thing and learned everything we can learn from it.”
Cook suggested users would be wiser not to use the feature and let Apple’s system to continue. He said manually controlling power management could lead to device shutdowns and bugs:
“And in the situation… in what we will tell somebody saying you know we’re slightly reducing or we’re reducing your performance by some amount in order to not have an unexpected restart. And if you don’t want it, you can turn it off.”
