Apple Shoots Itself in the Foot ... Again

This has not been a great month for Apple. There have been a number of software slip-ups, several security related, on both iOS and MacOS that have caused people to wonder whether Apple is loosing it's focus. 

The latest one, the slowing down of older iPhones to preserve battery has challenged Apple's credibility. Basically as lithium ion batteries age, at somewhere around the 3 year mark, they are considered degraded because they can only be charged to about 80% of capacity. All smartphones at times need surges of energy to complete processor intensive tasks. It's at these times that these demands may not be able to be met and in order to prevent damage to its electronics, the smartphone will freeze or shut down. 

Apple engineers figured out a way to prevent this from happening by slowing down the iPhone during these power draining spikes. This is a good thing because the task gets completed, albeit a little slower, but you're not left in the lurch with an uncompleted task or worse yet, to have to reboot your iPhone. 

What Apple didn't do was tell users about this, which raised all kinds of suspicions and spawned lots of conspiracy theories that Apple was doing this intentionally to get users to buy a new iPhone. Had they just touted these power management capabilities as providing a better user experience, users would have praised them rather than condemned them. After all isn't Apple always stressing that it provides a better user experience? Apple could have said that it has found ways of extending the life of it's products, not obsoleting them. You don't need a new iPhone; You just need a new battery. With a new battery your processor returns to fully functionality. 

Check the link below for more on this issue.     


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/technology/iphone-battery-problem-slow.html

-Bill

Apple has officially apologized for it's transgression though it has not admitted to any ill intent. If you have an iPhone 6/6S and maybe even iPhone 7/7S, you may be eligible for a $29 (944 baht) replacement battery down from the normal $79 (2573 baht) charge.  Terms apply starting sometime in January 2018 and will good for the entire year.

Where can you get this done? Certainly at the official AppleCare repair facilities in Thailand. These may also include Studio 7 outlets offering iCare, but that remains to be verified. Stay tuned.

http://tinyurl.com/ybguz3st

-Bill