Steve Smith talks about Apple's underclocking solution for aged and worn batteries, and the solution to remedy the lower processor clock speeds.
Episode #8-19 released on December 31, 2017
Battery Life, a very hot topic when it comes to smart phones, tablets and laptops. This week, we are focusing on the iPhone, and more specifically what Apple is doing to their line of iPhones in response to battery life, age, and wear.
Apple is openly admitted to slowing down iPhones with aged and worn batteries, and this is understandably making quite a few people angry. It used to be that someone would simply presume that their iPhone was getting slower with each new patch, or operating system, but it turns out that Apple has been slowly down their phones in response to several factors that they claim would lead to errors and phones crashing.
How is it possible for Apple to do this, and how can we test for this?
The employed method of slowing down iPhones by Apple is called underclocking, the mirror opposite of overclocking. Lowering the clock speed by reducing voltage of any processor normally slows it down, and in the case of mobile devices, also, increases the battery life of the device. Because the processor is using less power, the phone is effectively more power efficient. So, severely degraded batteries can last longer, as a result, without the risk of premature power failure of the phone, like some Android phones suffer.
Now, Apple doesn't outright tell you, yet, if your iPhone is being underclocked but fortunately you can test for it, and compare your results against other known normal results, both available in my show notes. The method of testing that you can use to see if your iPhone stacks up against the norm is a program called Geekbench 4. It is currently $0.99USD or $1.29CDN in Apple's App Store. With Geekbench 4, you can test the battery, the processor and compute ability. You can then compare the results with others on Geekbench web-site which will give you an idea of how your iPhone stacks up against the same make and model of others for Single-Core, Multi-core and Metal performance. The application will, also, provide a battery rating in a form of confidence, with a score. That test comes in two flavors and will take a long time to run, as well.
Now, as of early January, Apple has stated that the cost of changing the battery $29, which probably the USD price, and it is still less than half of other places. And, it has been shown that a new battery in the iPhone will result in better performance of your iPhone. While, it may be considered a little underhanded of Apple to underclock a processor without notifying you. Consider this, the age and wear of the battery can be related to reliability, and device security. People would be outraged if any phone ever caught fire, and yet, people are, also, outraged that Apple has decidedly put the brakes on processing power that can, also, harm the phone if not mitigated. The solution is a new battery, pure and simple. Now, if only manufactures made phones with removable batteries, we would all be set.
Host : Steve Smith | Music : | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Dot Net