After going through a lot of drama over iPhone slowdown, the iPhone maker has issued a letter to customers apologizing for the “misunderstanding” around older iPhones being slowed down. The company recently admitted to slowing down older iPhones intentionally to compensate for degrading batteries. “We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down,” Apple says. “We apologize.”
In its letter, Apple said that batteries are “consumable components,” and is now offering anyone with an iPhone 6 or later a battery replacement for $29 starting in late January through December 2018. This is a steep discount of $50 from what the usual battery replacement cost.
In addition to offering a discount on battery replacement, Apple said that it promises to add features to iOS that provide information about the battery health in early 2018 so that users are aware of when their batteries are no longer capable of having the maximum battery life and performance. This is an interesting move because when Apple first came out with the iPhone a decade ago, the company said that it iPhone users would never need to replace their phone’s batteries.
Since coming out, Apple has been hit with lawsuits for artificially slowing down older phones to drive new sales. Once Apple admitted to slowing down, that added even more fuel to the fire that lead to more bad press and lawsuits.
Talking about the iPhone 6, 6S, SE, and 7, they have much slower peak performance as they get older and their batteries aren’t able to provide the same capacity and power to the processor onboard. Even though Apple has been caught intentionally slowing down iPhones, they continue to insist that it’s never artificially slowed down iPhones, rather it’s aggressively managing phone performance to maximize the lifespan of the batteries on the phones. “This feature’s only intent is to prevent unexpected shutdowns so that the iPhone can still be used,” according to a new knowledge base article published by Apple alongside today’s letter.
Apple now has to recover from the damage it experienced through this battery life fiasco. The story broke well into tech press and even his morning shows and other local news about “smoothing instantaneous peaks” and battery chemistry degradation. Many already had previously believed that Apple was intentionally slowing down their iPhones, and when this broke out, it confirmed e everything. Apple in its letter says “we’ve always wanted our customers to be able to use their iPhones as long as possible.”
