But Apple decided now — it’s hard to think it’s not conscious — to [] up my old phone, which was OK the day before the upgrade to iOS 11, and now it’s a disaster. And I think this is mean, or careless, and wasteful, certainly not sustainability-friendly, and it makes me angry. iOS devices are now having enough processing power to be more like computers: no real need to replace them every year or even for a few years, if you don’t want the newest, fastest, shining thing. (Even my iPhone 6 is not slower on iOS 11 than on iOS 10 — it just doesn’t work as a mobile phone anymore…)
Note that not this is an extreme experience. But I remember getting a lot of pushback when I suggested that this might happen. And speaking of opinions for which I have received pushback,
Auto insurers are starting to offer discounts for drivers who enable the autonomous options on their vehicles. The latest is Britain’s largest motor insurer, Direct Line. According to Reuters it is now offering a 5 percent discount for turning on those features in a Tesla.
There is probably a bet to be made about when self-driving cars reach a particular milestone.
Typing this from new iPhone 8 that I didn’t want to buy, but the charger port on my 6 was barely even working and I wouldn’t even be able to charge if I could rat the phone just right. Not the first time I had to get a new phone because the old one broke. Planned obsolescence seems to hit every two years though sometimes you can stretch to 3.
Problem is I had way more defect problems with non Apple products. So don’t see a lot of great options.
How about these milestones for the self-driving car? https://m.xkcd.com/1925/
My understanding on battery problems with iOS is it rebuilds all the indexes, esp if you a lot of photos. So it goes away after a couple of days. A lot of people complained about it.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.imore.com/how-to-fix-iphone-battery-life-problems%3famp
Now. One could attribute this to lack of focus on old versus new. Or as a deliberate plan to make old hardware do worse. Or maybe just a stressed out engineering team on a hard desdline doing the best they can to hit a deadline. Probably some of all three.
I’d bet that insurers would offer a much steeper discount if they could somehow get reliable assurance that the human driver would always obey all the laws which the autonomous system will be programmed to follow to the letter.
Oh wait, they do. Once they have enough of a driving record to judge one’s profile, for good drivers in good neighborhoods, rates go down a lot more than 5%.
Also, access to Tesla comprehensive telematics makes the jobs of insurance companies and police a lot easier, and when people eventually adjust to that realization, encourages more responsible driving because they know that the Eye is always upon them.
Obama’s Executive Order 13693 is already requiring telematics to be implemented across government fleets, and these capabilities will be coming soon to all new US vehicles soon enough. New telematics suites are much more capable than the existing “black box” systems which have been in US cars for a while and which are hardly secret but which most people don’t know about for some reason.
Although I am very much in favour of autonomous cars, I think it a bad idea to accept any discount on insurance if you turn on or otherwise use some feature. This includes window locks or alarms on houses. The reason for this is that there is a finite chance that when you make a claim the feature may not be in use, and the insurance company’s lawyers will advise them that they need not pay the claim.
If telematics have been installed by the insurance company and can’t be turned off, then that is a different matter. It also has the advantage that users of some schemes can use a website to improve their driving skills.
Regarding iOS performance, 11 was a particularly rough release but at the current version 11.2 I can honestly say my very notable performance woes have finally cleared up as far as I can tell.
I don’t think it’s a matter of planning to slow older devices just that tight software schedules = bugs, and Apple is simply moving seemingly too fast at times (though then you see the state of non-Google software on Android, plus total lack of ongoing support from the hardware ecosystem with no incentive to keep things up to date so Apple must be doing something right)
Also mobile chips are still leapfrogging the generation before it so as they build or the latest and greatest phone there’s less attention to whatever costly migration processes the newer chips can handle way better anyway
Autonomous vehicles will be very costly to the local economy. I read once of the severe impact if they ever slowed the Atlanta beltway down to the posted speed. I do know when the troopers set up side by side to slow the traffic, they cause a 10 mile back up.
The right to ‘upgrade’ a key part of an expensive device at a whim is essentially the right to change what you own arbitrarily. That will always end up being a problem for the party not holding that right.
iOS 11 has finally been mostly tamed with the 11.2 release. iOS 11 made many iPhones perform sub optimally. Lots of bugs, not one of apple’s best efforts unless you think they were deliberately trying to make all iPhones run poorly…
It isn’t clear what Apple would gain by deliberately making people’s iPhones not work well. The author even said it is making him think of switching to Android. Surely that is the reasonable thing if a company deliberately crippling your hardware.
The reason you got pushback is because it is a paranoid conspiracy theory. It is widespread enough that it has been tested, and debunked.
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Benchmarking-tests-reveal-that-Apple-is-not-slowing-down-older-iPhone-models_id98719
Best advice is to avoid updating until the internet gives the all clear and not judge performance and battery life for a day or 2. That gives it time to re-index and settle in.
Apple doesn’t really need to break old iPhones with iOS upgrades. The cost and hassle of replacing the battery will eventually induce most users to upgrade anyway. And putting glass now on both front AND back? Genius!
People above have said something similar, but you should look through the responses to the Medium post you linked to about his battery problems. Lots and lots and lots of people are running iOS 11 on an iPhone 6 without problems. The first iOS 11 releases had a handful of battery issues, and those were patched, but none are what he’s describing. It’s much more likely that there’s an app on his phone that wasn’t updated by its developer for the iOS 11 release, and a bug in that is draining the batter, or he’s encountered the photo re-indexing mentioned above, which is necessary in order to make iOS 11 handle photos better than prior releases.
The original post is a great example of a common theme: Non-techie people find that something’s weird with their tech, don’t understand what’s happening, and assume a nefarious purpose behind it. That’s not evidence of Apple trying to screw over its customers. It’s evidence that a great many people just haven’t caught up to the technological curve that’s reshaped our world.
The original post is a great example of a common theme: Non-techie people find that something’s weird with their tech, don’t understand what’s happening, and assume a nefarious purpose behind it.
+1
You probably saw it, but there’s been more detective work done on the slowdown of older iOS devices. It appears to be deliberate, and the reasoning is it’s designed to slow battery drain.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-addresses-why-people-are-saying-their-iphones-with-older-batteries-are-running-slower/
Also see
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2017/12/what_s_wrong_with_apple_slowing_down_older_iphones.html
I think you’re “I told you so” argument is much stronger now with these latest updates from past few days.
Yup, they have been slowing down iPhones and yup, older ones are more susceptible to it but I still maintain that Apple doing this to force people to buy new iPhones is still a crazy conspiracy theory. Also keep in mind that this seems to have started with iOS 10 so previous claims of Apple doing this don’t seem to hold up. If anything, this is allowing iPhones to be used for a longer period of time.
In any case, the theory that intentionally making your product work less well in order to spur more purchases still doesn’t make any sense. That is still a crazy thought.
I know plenty of people still using the iPhone 5 (2012) with no complaints. I’m writing this on an iPad circa 2013…it’s not as fast as it used to be, but don’t see any reason to upgrade.
I remember when laptops used to lag big time after about a year.