Apple has said that the current iPhone 8 and X will not be throttled to preserve battery life. At least, it won’t do it in a way that is as drastic as to cause conspiracy theories to be confirmed by its legion of users.
The statement from Cupertino comes after a being questioned by US Senator John Thune. When asked if there would be a similar (to the iPhone 6, 7 and SE) update for newer iPhones, Apple said, “iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X models include hardware updates that allow a more advanced performance management system that more precisely allows iOS to anticipate and avoid an unexpected shutdown.”
It looks like Apple is exploring other means of managing battery degradation on the iPhone; although there is no telling what that means. However, it does mean that Apple is backing down from an earlier plan to include the current brand of processor throttling to the current generation iPhones.
It’s not surprising that Apple would looking into alternative solutions, as the company has come under investigation from several European Union countries for alleged “planned obsolesence”. There has been no evidence that the company had this in mind with the throttling update; seeing that the end goal was to make older iPhones last as long as possible. Albeit by reducing their capabilities.
There’s no telling how Apple actually plans to deal with the situation at the moment. It takes a couple of years for batteries to properly degrade enough that throttling is necesary, so we’re in a long wait before we discover the answer.
[Source: The Verge]
