What the accusations against Apple of built-in obsolescence say about our understanding of the technology we use everyday

A few days ago, somebody commented on Reddit that the performance of his iPhone 6S had significantly improved after he replaced the battery, soon after, MacRumors was awash with accusations that Apple deliberately reduced the performance of its older devices depending on the state of their battery, supposedly in a bid to get us to buy new models.

Within days, the mainstream media had picked up on the story: Apple admitted the practice, but denied that boosting sales was the reason, explaining that it was to avoid operational problems such as automatic resets due to poor battery performance.

Batteries age due to a chemical process whereby as lithium ions carry an electrical charge from the anode to the cathode they cause minute changes to the electrodes. On the other hand, as lithium ions move across the cathode when charging they generate a kind of rock-salt that forms an electrically-insulating crust, also reducing battery capacity.

Over time, or if the phone is exposed to extreme cold or low load levels, this prevents the battery from supplying the appropriate current levels for certain processes, which could cause the terminal to reset. To avoid this, the company reduces the smartphone’s performance, meaning that we notice our phone is slower and maybe think about changing it, when of course simply replacing the battery would be enough. Needless to say, a slower iPhone is better than a rest, but Apple’s lack of transparency over the issue — or Apple’s lack of transparency in general — has created a problem that fits the old chestnut that it “spoiled” old iPhones so we had to buy the new one.

Anybody with a minimal understanding of business knows that built-in obsolescence of that sort makes no sense and what’s more, would be unsustainable: Apple earns a lot of money, much more than any other company — more than $1,400… per second! — mainly due to its smartphones, but if people saw that they slowed up ahead of each launch, we’d probably end up buying another brand, or bring a class action suit for harmful practices that would likely win in court.

Apple has dealt with the problem of deteriorating batteries in this way for its last two models and says it will continue to do so in future, but to avoid these kinds of problems, it should take the trouble to explain it to users, and in addition, offer battery replacement at reasonable prices. In Spain, an Apple fitted battery change outside the warranty period is €89, which many people would happily pay to prolong the life of a device with many years of life left; it can also be done, with a minimum of skill, more cheaply by buying a battery and following the step-by-step guides offered by iFixit, which means losing a guarantee that has probably expired anyway.

Smartphones ceased to be phones a long time ago: now they are powerful pocket computers we depend on for more and more things, and will obviously suffer wear and tear. The time has come for us to learn a little bit more about how our devices work, so we can avoid falling for hoary urban myths and decide for ourselves whether performance loss is a bid to get us to buy a new phone, and take the measures we deem appropriate.

Does Apple degrade the performance of your device as it ages? Yes. Does it do so to sell more iPhones? No, it does it to prevent them from automatically resetting, which has happened to me with some devices, and not all of them Apples: let’s just say it’s an experience one could do without.

There’s a lot to be said for transparency; let’s hope Apple has learned something from all this.

(En español, aquí)