The riot broke out in iPhone users after, in a Reddit post, they discovered that Apple was decreasing performance devices that are two years old or older to “hide” a battery problem that affected some devices.
As reports of sluggishness of handsets are increasing, including readers of the , John Poole, from the famous Geekbench app, decided to research the issue further, performing several tests to see if the case was or not.
Thanks for the stuff! My iPhone 6 was 850 mhz, very slow.
I changed the battery, now another device! 1400 mhz all the time!
– Marcelo Vidal (@marceloluzvidal) December 19, 2017
To address these issues, I mapped in Geekbench 4 the kernel density score with single-core on an iPhone 6s and an iPhone 7 running different versions of iOS.
Results obtained in the low power mode are not included in the distribution.
Check out the results below:
Click / tap to enlarge.
As you can see from the graphs above, which show iPhone 6s running different systems, it is only on iOS 10.2.1 that in fact processing problems have started to appear.
This version of the system was such that Apple let go to fix the battery problem on several devices that shut down abruptly, but, as we recounted in this article, even if this issue was resolved, the iOS version greatly slowed down the performance of devices.
Performance worsened further in iOS version 11.2, according to Poole, as Apple would have “implemented a change to limit performance when battery condition decreases after a certain point”.
This theory was "proven" by our well-known counterpart. Guilherme Rambo, which found an element in iOS version 10.2.1 called powerd (from power daemon), which does exactly what Poole said:
It also controls CPU power based on thermal pressure.
So it's a very important system to make sure your phone doesn't catch on fire https://t.co/5q2ZVdEQxk
– Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) December 18, 2017
It seems that powerd is responsible for controlling the CPU / GPU speed and power usage based on iPhone battery health.
It also controls CPU power based on the heat pressure.
Therefore, a very important system to ensure that your phone does not catch fire.
THE tragic It is noteworthy that when we analyze the tests done on the iPhone 7 that a newer device and in theory would not have such a problem in the battery we will realize that everything seems normal until the latest version of the system, when the inconsistencies began to appear:
Click / tap to enlarge.
Some have even said that it is better to have a device with less performance, but still have it when necessary, than to have a device that we can barely use by randomly shutting down with 40% battery, for example.
But if the problem occurred on iPhones 6 / 6s and Apple knew it well, why on iPhone 7 does this keep happening on newer versions of iOS? Looks a bit suspicious
Apparently, the more “sturdy” the new system, the more it requires the battery.
And since there is a processing “limiter” directly related to the battery, less performance the device can deliver.
The big issue here, according to Poole, is that Ma doesn't make that clear to users, letting them believe that the problem with the whole device, not just the battery (which, being worn out, has actually made the iPhone more slow due to the limitation created by the software).
So instead of changing the battery (here in Brazil, something that costs $ 450 for all models of iPhones), people buy new handsets and "discard" the previous one.
That is, even if the attitude is right, as Rambo himself made clear (no one wants a phone going off in his hands), the fact that Apple doesn't warn exactly what's going on sounds to many like scheduled obsolescence, since the company would simply be tapping the processing power of iPhones and "forcing" people to buy a new device for lack of information.
For now, the company has not commented on the matter, but all this discussion can generate much faith for it.
Does the issue disappear for lack of pronunciation or will it only get worse over time? What's your bet?
via 9to5Mac
