Late last week, Apple admitted to throttling the processor speeds of older iPhones as their batteries age. The behavior is intended to protect the phones’ electronic components, Apple claims, and to prevent them from shutting down unexpectedly. But Android manufacturers haven’t followed suit, and this week, Motorola and HTC became the first to confirm that they don’t slow down older devices.
Those statements were provided to The Verge, which reached out to a number of Android OEMs to see if they’d adopted Apple’s device-slowing practices. In addition to Motorola and HTC, the publication requested comment from manufacturers including Google, Samsung, LG, and Sony, but as of publication time, only Sony and Samsung have responded. A Sony spokesperson said the holidays would delay the company’s response, and a Samsung spokesperson said the company’s mobile team was “looking into it”.
There’s been an uproar in the iOS community since the information came to light — and for good reason. While it’s true that lithium-ion batteries tend to degrade over time, and that characteristics like cell capacity and peak current are affected by age, there are a lot of variables at play. And Apple, which started to slow down the processors in the iPhone 6, 6S, and SE via a software update last year, didn’t disclose the behavior to users.
That’s left a lot of iPhone owners feeling slighted — enough so that some of them hope to bring a class action lawsuit against the iPhone maker. Lucky for owners of Motorola and HTC devices, it seems that won’t be necessary.
Source: The Verge