HTC and Motorola say slowing down older phones is not their cup of tea
The curious case of iPhones with ageing batteries slowing down caused quite a flutter over the past few weeks. Even Apple diehards are apparently not happy with the development and some have even filed a class action suit against Apple for not coming clean on this. The Cupertino giant had admitted that the slowing down of old iPhones with ageing batteries was intentional in the interest of low downtime of the device. Apparently, other OEMs do not seem to subscribe to Apple's ideology after all.
HTC and Motorola have replied to The Verge's question of whether they too, throttle older devices and whether this is an industry practice or a way to planned obsolescence. HTC said, "is not something we do" with Motorola echoing a similar, "We do not throttle CPU performance based on older batteries." The publication also contacted Samsung, Sony, Google, and LG for their views but has not received replies yet. Android is much more fragmented ecosystem compared to Apple's homogeneity in software and hardware. Therefore, OEMs would not be that bothered to implement something on the lines of what Apple did. Heck, most Android OEMs hardly issue updates, anyways. The only recent memory of an Android OEM that has lowered phone performance via an OTA update is that of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, when it literally set off a scare across the world with its exploding batteries.
While Apple's intent to prevent abrupt shutdowns due to high CPU power draw from older batteries is welcome, the way the company handled the PR in this matter has not gone down too well with the users. Users were not knowing that replacing the battery would actually get them back the performance they bought the device for in the first place. Apple could have done itself and its user base a favor by letting them know that iOS can throttle the device if it senses an ageing battery. Replacing batteries for devices out of warranty becomes dearer by US$75. However, with the mounting dissatisfaction, Apple has come out clean on why this process was put in place and offered some sops to users in a bid to regain users' trust like a US$50 off on new batteries till December 2018 and updating iOS to be more upfront when it senses the battery giving up.
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