Apple Apologizes for iPhone Battery Issue -- Update
December 28 2017 - 6:33PM
Dow Jones News
By Robert McMillan
Apple Inc. issued an unusual apology for its handling of
concerns about performance issues in iPhones with older batteries
in the wake of a wave of consumer complaints.
"We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down," Apple
said in a note posted to its website on Thursday. "We
apologize."
The company said it will slash prices of replacement batteries
and add, in the coming year, software that gives insight into the
health of an iPhone battery.
Apple has been under fire since early December from users and
tech analysts who said they had noticed a slowdown in the
performance of older iPhones. The criticism was fueled further last
week when John Poole, founder of the computer-performance testing
group Geekbench, wrote a blog post speculating that Apple was
intentionally throttling performance on phones with older
batteries.
Apple said last week it slowed the phone's performance as
batteries age to prevent the iPhone from unexpectedly shutting
down. When it is struggling to meet power demands, the phone can
suddenly shut down to protect its "electronic components," the
company said. Apple initially slowed older phones, including the
iPhone 6, 6s and SE, but recently extended the throttling to newer
iPhone 7 models.
Apple was quickly criticized by bloggers and technology pundits
for not disclosing this behavior sooner, and the incident has
caused some users to question the quality of Apple's devices, and
the motivation behind Apple's choice to curb performance. The
company also is facing numerous lawsuits over the issue.
"We have never -- and would never -- do anything to
intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the
user experience to drive customer upgrades," Apple said
Thursday.
The company said it would reduce the out-of-warranty cost of
battery replacement to $29 from $79 for customers with an iPhone 6
or later model. Apple said it plans to introduce an update to its
mobile operating system in early 2018 that reveals the health of a
phone's battery.
Reduced battery replacement costs may cause people to hold on to
their devices longer. Customers increasingly hold on to smartphones
for longer, pushing the time between device upgrades toward three
years from two years, according to Guggenheim Partners. Those
trends have slowed iPhone volume growth in recent years. Shipments
of iPhones peaked at 231 million units in fiscal 2015 and fell to
216 million units in fiscal 2017.
Apple seldom apologizes. In 2010, co-founder and former Chief
Executive Steve Jobs apologized for an antenna issue on the iPhone
4 that affected phone calls but stopped short of saying Apple's
design was to blame. His successor, Tim Cook, has been more
inclined to apologize. In 2012, he responded to customer complaints
about the company's Maps app with a letter of apology.
--Tripp Mickle contributed to this article.
Write to Robert McMillan at Robert.Mcmillan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 28, 2017 18:18 ET (23:18 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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