The year is 2016. You emerge from a matinee showing of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and squint through the sunlight at your compact flagship phone. A group of cheery, slightly condescending young adults corners you on the sidewalk, hungrily eyeing the iPhone 6s in your hand.
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Suddenly, one snatches your mobile device, pries it open, and deftly slaps in a pristine OEM battery (which you might not know you need), instantly restoring the 2015 flagship to new-level performance. They charge you $29 and retreat to the strip mall nearby. Was that planned? Did something suddenly become obsolete?
What Batterygate was really about
The day the phone stood still
Reports emerged in 2016 of numerous iPhone 6s handsets shutting down before their batteries ran empty. Obvious inconvenience aside, unexpected shutoffs can threaten hardware and data integrity, so Apple moved to mitigate the issue.
Had the era’s leading innovator handled the entire operation better, we’d praise it today for working against planned obsolescence.
Other than referencing vague bug fixes and a security patch, iOS 10.2.1’s main release note stated, “It also improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone.” Without explicitly saying, “We slowed down your ancient smartphone so it stops shutting off at 70%,” the change set countless consumers up for outrage when Geekbench exposed in 2017 a throttling scheme supposedly “based on battery life.”
How throttling old iPhones actually fought obsolescence
iPhones shut down without warning because their batteries couldn’t sustain the minimum current required to keep running. Apple’s throttling slashed occurrences by 80% in a month. An iPhone can’t utilize the technique until it suffers one such failure.
After that, it only kicks in with frigid temperatures, an extremely low charge, and excessive battery age, three significantly taxing conditions. Absent any notably resource-heavy activity, there’s no power drop. Phones with healthy batteries see no effects from Apple’s performance management.
By seemingly crossing its fingers and moving quietly, Apple may have tried to brush the whole thing under the rug. Had the era’s leading innovator handled the entire operation better, we’d praise it today for working against planned obsolescence instead of misunderstanding what that is. Suppose Apple could have fixed a known wear-and-tear issue without tipping off consumers or disrupting other experiences. In that case, the incident might teach a slightly different lesson in today’s collegiate PR courses.
Of course, that’s not what happened.
Why and how Apple got bruised
The massive costs behind the curtain
Apple didn’t reduce iPhone performance to sell suddenly dissatisfied owners new phones. It’s among tech’s most popular conspiracy theories, and it’s not true. Intentionally frustrating followers into buying another device doesn’t withstand scrutiny. Plus, Apple took losses exceeding $10.5 billion in combined revenue and a settlement for whatever difference that makes for a $3 trillion company.
Tim Cook and company screwed up. They broke trust by obscuring the problem’s cause and scope and hiding updated throttling behind a vague changelog. The release notes’ “power management” reference should have tipped off reasonably tech-savvy users. However, iPhones appeal to people partly by letting them mostly ignore those gritty details.
The industry leader hardly blinked at the financial aspect and responded appropriately to the debacle, including an open apology and denial of planned obsolescence. However, worldwide publicity via the Streisand Effect proved its worst nightmare. An enduring mantle of “the company secretly slowing down your phone” still haunts Apple when somebody rants about planned obsolescence on social media.
The intention behind tech development
And where planned obsolescence comes into play
Despite being the world’s largest company, Apple and its products remain beholden to the laws of physics. Current technology doesn’t allow for weightless circuits, paper-thin devices, or batteries that never wear out. Planned obsolescence is real and comes in a few distinct flavors. Still, there’s a difference between intentionally hamstringing a working device and an outdated product nearing its end-of-life. Apple’s long-term device support has always gotten it good press, too.
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Planned obsolescence first brings to mind contrived durability or intentionally reducing a product’s physical lifespan. Apple didn’t have magical, degradation-proof batteries, so that doesn’t apply. Programmed obsolescence refers to a developer purposely removing legacy support from newer devices. In other words, Batterygate’s opposite.
Ironically, proactively letting iPhone 6s owners reap more benefits without buying new stuff is exactly how Apple got into the mess, which patently discredits planned obsolescence allegations on its own.
The most complex variant, systemic obsolescence, doesn’t fully apply because Apple increased investment in the software rather than lowering it. The software lockout variety could be at play with throttling, but random battery death locks you out of your phone more effectively than a minor slowdown. Given Apple’s damage-control offer to replace even healthy iPhone batteries for $29 — while putting Genius Bar staff through the wringer — repair prevention isn’t it, either. Although it explains the weird security screws holding iPhones together.
Perceived obsolescence: The one that’s partly your fault
The Galaxy S24 family is barely distinguishable from the S23 lineup.
The average person has little control over Samsung and Google’s corporate whims, but personal responsibility still plays a role. Just like we insist on superfluous streams of free chargers alongside $1,000 phones, consumers demand upgrades and evolution, or we don’t stay loyal.
After the Galaxy S series went three years without major changes — the same as the average time between users replacing phones — Samsung caught so much flak that it publicly apologized for failing to innovate. The Galaxy S22 is still a great phone, but excited enthusiasts give the impression that it’s a paperweight today. Sometimes, people like exaggerating. Slide in a new battery, and 2020 flagships still work swimmingly.
In a vacuum, the iPhone’s battery degradation scandal was a nothingburger. Apple doesn’t foster responsibility for users who aren’t battery experts. On the other hand, committing to non-user-replaceable batteries implies that iPhone users may never need anybody to mess with their phone’s guts.
Maybe Apple didn’t even feel like selling all those batteries. The Genius Bar certainly got sick of explaining and installing them. Ironically, proactively letting iPhone 6s owners reap more benefits without buying new stuff is exactly how Apple got into the mess, which patently discredits planned obsolescence allegations on its own.
Balancing demand and expectations
Smartphones left replaceable cells in the past and battery capacity in the tank when diving into ultra-sleek designs. Android Police started complaining about smartphone thinness wars years before Apple surreptitiously underclocked anything. Samsung broke innovative ground with curved glass screens, angering users before vanishing after a few years. Google updated the 2020 midrange Pixel 4a weeks ago, actively insisting its now worse battery life and measurement improves battery performance.
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iPhone users aren’t to blame for Apple screwing up a fix. It’s not Galaxy Note 4 owners’ fault that their phones got an update antitrust experts claimed it couldn’t handle. Google Pixel enjoyers can’t change the Tensor chips’ heat difficulties. Countless hardware and software outfits leverage thermal throttling, and most Android lovers recognize it’s a fact of life.
The boy who cried ‘planned obsolescence’
Until one day, when nobody heard him
Some products, like the Rabbit R1, were born obsolete.
Defending Apple is at the bottom of my priority list. Squashing misinformation and encouraging consumer responsibility sit near the top. With the right habits, even discontinued security updates don’t pose a major risk to average users. If the market punishes a company for not innovating enough, it can’t criticize the same for overly pushing the envelope. People who want gaming features need to deal with extra bulk. Foldables cost a fortune. Every advancement involves give and take.
Claims of corporate sabotage do more than rile up social media. Accusations like that gloss over how real-life consumers shunned curved displays after realizing their shortcomings. A common boogeyman makes it easier to put off in-depth research on how the longest-lasting smartphone batteries technically work. Better understanding enables more worthwhile discussion and empowers us to make reasonable demands of the industry. Otherwise, we’re just screaming into empty space about metal and plastic.
