iPhone XS, XS Max and XR

micks_address

hi folks,
Thinking of buying an XR for my son as replacement for his 6s. Should be a reasonable upgrade? How are people finding the longevity of the XR?
Cheers,
Mick

Cee-Jay-Cee

JayZeus wrote: »

Wrong phone model.

Ooops...sorry about that.

iniall

XS bought on launch day, September 2018 - showing 87% maximum capacity, which is a bit disappointing, tbh.

Sarn

For comparison, my shortly after launch (2015), iPhone 6 has 88%.

Sarn

Sarn wrote: »

For comparison, my shortly after launch (2015), iPhone 6 has 88%.

And my old 2016 iPhone 6 Plus 128GB had the battery replaced twice.

Means nothing really.

mikemac2

micks_address wrote: »

hi folks,
Thinking of buying an XR for my son as replacement for his 6s. Should be a reasonable upgrade? How are people finding the longevity of the XR?
Cheers,
Mick

I did exactly this 10 months ago and the XR is a super upgrade. The 6S was a great phone too

Do it

I usually hold onto phones for maybe 4 years and I intend to keep the XR at least that long. Very happy so far

Sarn

JayZeus wrote: »

And my old 2016 iPhone 6 Plus 128GB had the battery replaced twice.

Means nothing really.

Exactly, it all comes down to individual usage (plus not having a dodgy battery).

McGrath5

Interesting to see how other peoples batteries are holding up, my XS Max bought in October 2018 is at 96%. I still get nearly 2 days out of which is brilliant IMO.

darragh o meara

McGrath5 wrote: »

Interesting to see how other peoples batteries are holding up, my XS Max bought in October 2018 is at 96%. I still get nearly 2 days out of which is brilliant IMO.

My XS Max has recently gone to 95% and I’ve noticed the battery life has gotten a lot worse in the past 3 weeks. My usual usage would have had me at 40% at the end of the day but now I’m firmly down at 15-20%. I’m considering getting a battery replacement from Apple if it gets any worse, I don’t see enough of a benefit to form out for the newest model.

darragh o meara

darragh o meara wrote: »

My XS Max has recently gone to 95% and I’ve noticed the battery life has gotten a lot worse in the past 3 weeks. My usual usage would have had me at 40% at the end of the day but now I’m firmly down at 15-20%. I’m considering getting a battery replacement from Apple if it gets any worse, I don’t see enough of a benefit to form out for the newest model.

Is at actually charging complete overnight, or is it doing that dumb assed 80% charge, then topping up when it thinks you're going to need it?

The 'feature' was intro'd on IOS 13.something.

Turned it off myself as soon as I copped it.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512

I'd rather hammer down the battery through normal charging/discharging cycles and then get a new one under warranty/CLC process than let Apple off the hook, especially on a €1500 flagship phone. The arseholes.

BigMoose

Got my XR back in June (as an upgrade from a 7plus) and it’s a great phone, well worth the upgrade. Battery still at 100% from a mix of wireless and plugged in charging. Only negative is the front seems to scratch much more easily than the 7plus did.

darragh o meara

JayZeus wrote: »

Is at actually charging complete overnight, or is it doing that dumb assed 80% charge, then topping up when it thinks you're going to need it?

The 'feature' was intro'd on IOS 13.something.

Turned it off myself as soon as I copped it.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512

I'd rather hammer down the battery through normal charging/discharging cycles and then get a new one under warranty/CLC process than let Apple off the hook, especially on a €1500 flagship phone. The arseholes.

Must have a look and see if that makes a difference

flexcon

JayZeus wrote: »

Is at actually charging complete overnight, or is it doing that dumb assed 80% charge, then topping up when it thinks you're going to need it?

The 'feature' was intro'd on IOS 13.something.

Turned it off myself as soon as I copped it.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210512

I'd rather hammer down the battery through normal charging/discharging cycles and then get a new one under warranty/CLC process than let Apple off the hook, especially on a €1500 flagship phone. The arseholes.

The lithium battery in the iPhone is basically the same as every other phone out there.

It’s physics.

Mr.S

Mr.S wrote: »

How is it letting Apple off the hook?

Because it...makes the battery last longer?

Yes. By changing the charging behaviour to suit themselves. If Apple can avoid having to replace hundreds of thousands or possibly many more batteries in Xs models it's very much worth their effort and isn't really doing anything for the consumer directly. The battery will age anyway, but the intention is to slow it down so they don't have to handle them under warranty. I'm a die hard Apple fan, love my iPhone, but this change in IOS 13 wasn't done for the good of customers like us. If I continue to use my phone the way I do and charge it to 100% at night, there's no way this phone isn't going to be experiencing battery problems while still under warranty. And I'll get a replacement, without having to go through the consumer law claim processes. Which will do just fine. Tough crap, Apple.

flexcon wrote: »

The lithium battery in the iPhone is basically the same as every other phone out there.

It’s physics.

A little too much Breaking Bad there.

It's chemistry which is 'basically the same' as other Lithium batteries. Although even that's not quite correct as an assertion.

DubDJ

I’ve never had an iPhone battery that needed a replacement within 2 years. Not even close with a year. Once a phone reaches the two year mark you’ll start to push up against reaching all day battery (depending on your use of course). My phone is over two years old now and I’m still getting all day battery on an average day.

In my opinion, the iPhone battery situation has improved a lot over the last few years. The worse issue I had was with an iPhone 6, where the battery would go dead randomly when there was still 10-20% battery left. Obviously it came out about the whole throttling thing not long after which would have actually helped my situation if it had been implemented at the time.

I’ve no problem with the way Apple handles the battery. Still happy using my iPhone X with both performance and battery holding up great.

drunkmonkey

What's wrong with an xsmax that takes forever to charge, is that normal, battery health says 96%, turned off that 80% limit, must have taken 6hrs or more to hit 100%.

Mr.S

Mr.S wrote: »

What are you doing with your phone that it needs a battery warranty under 2 years though?!

Of course you’ll loose some capacity but unless you are triggered by the health % you shouldn’t need to replace it that quickly.

What am I doing? I’m using it. Calls, video conferencing/webmeetings, media streaming, navigation etc. <80% max capacity remaining and the battery can be considered exhausted by Apple’s own standards. More usage, more battery cycles, more degradation. I’ve had batteries replaced on every iPhone I’ve owned.

As for triggered, well, if you dip closer to 80% capacity the performance of the phone will suffer as the peak output from the battery won’t provide enough to run the phone at its highest performance.

That’s alright for some as they won’t even notice. But I will and at the price we pay for iPhones, you’d need to be some sort of moron to accept a ‘fix’ from Apple that suits them and not you. My day can start at 3am or noon, depending on work and often the work ends 12 hours later. Apple can’t know that, so I want to charge my phone to 100% when I plug it in and not 80%-90% just to suit the manufacturers challenges around battery lifespans. You know, the way everyone does when they charge their phone at night.

Imagine buying a high performance car and after a service finding out that the manufacturer remapped the ECU so the engine only put out 80% of the HP it did when new, because it would help reduce their warranty claims. And then told you it was so that your car would last you longer. As though that’s the reason.

Same thing here. I bought a flagship phone for a reason. I paid the price they set, so why would I accept less afterwards? Some people may never notice, good for them, but they’re not really trying to get the most out of an expensive piece of technology they’ve bought. That’s wasteful in itself.

OSI

OSI wrote: »

Tesla won't let you use it's full performance unless the battery is within a certain percentage of charge and a very specific temperature range and will still warn you that it will reduce the longevity of the device. Plenty of ICE vehicles that will only give you full power within certain climatic and mechanical thresholds as well such as engine being up to temp, turbo not being on boost for too long etc.

I know all that.

The point (which I’m quite certain you get) is that the battery should charge completely when the device is plugged in to a power supply. Not to 80% and then guess whether it needs, when etc.

Plug in a Tesla, it doesn’t charge to 80% and then wait until Tesla HQ think you might need the final top up. Any time, day or night, you may need the full capacity depending on your usage. Your phone is no different.

The only difference is that Apple think they can use ML to determine what’s good enough for you, in order to reduce their exposure to the costs associated with warranty battery replacement programmes. I have access to data (through work) which gives me clear visibility of what they pay out to swap a battery. Not just the component. They don’t want to be swapping batteries under warranty. That’s the reason behind trying to extend the life of the battery via this IOS ‘feature’.

Creamy Goodness

JayZeus wrote: »

Plug in a Tesla, it doesn’t charge to 80% and then wait until Tesla HQ think you might need the final top up. Any time, day or night, you may need the full capacity depending on your usage. Your phone is no different.

A Tesla will only charge to 100% if you tell it to, they recommend charging to 70-80% for daily use and only ever going to 100% for long distance.

There’s a fundamental difference here as the bigger the battery the less it get affected by loss of capacity but it still get affected. The problem is that cars are built to last 15-20 years whereas phones 3-5 and both companies need to set expectations accordingly.

If you don’t like the ML battery top up feature don’t turn it on. It has to be turned on by the user and can be turned off either.

Creamy Goodness

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

A Tesla will only charge to 100% if you tell it to, they recommend charging to 70-80% for daily use and only ever going to 100% for long distance.

There’s a fundamental difference here as the bigger the battery the less it get affected by loss of capacity but it still get affected. The problem is that cars are built to last 15-20 years whereas phones 3-5 and both companies need to set expectations accordingly.

If you don’t like the ML battery top up feature don’t turn it on. It has to be turned on by the user and can be turned off either.

Wrong.

It’s enabled by default.

KildareP

JayZeus wrote: »

Wrong.

It’s enabled by default.

You seem to be searching for a problem to take issue with.

For the vast majority of users I suspect they won't notice a thing bar their battery doesn't need to be replaced as quickly.

For use cases like yours, just switch the feature off and sleep happy at night knowing your phone will charge to 100% when you plug it in?

Seems a very extreme reaction to start calling Apple "arseholes" over it!

Creamy Goodness

JayZeus wrote: »

Wrong.

It’s enabled by default.

Ok yup it’s enabled by default, still can be switched off. Seriously don’t get why people get so annoyed about a piece of tech/software.

DubDJ

I agree with what the others have said, seems like a completely over the top reaction to a feature that tries to increase the longevity of battery life. Battery chemistry is out of Apple's control, they get what they're given and try to make the best out of it. There was obviously an issue with batteries degrading and causing the phone to randomly shutdown because of it. They introduced a feature to counter act those symptoms which was admittedly unpopular with users. And now they've added another to try extend battery life on the phone to stop throttling from being enabled.

Both features can be disabled and forgotten about if you don't like them. I've used iPhones almost exclusively for the last 10 years, usually upgrading every 2 years, and in all that time I've never had to have a battery replaced because serious performance issues. The closest I came was with an iPhone 6 which was 2 years old at that stage.

I'd much prefer to have battery life and the life of a phone extended, batteries aren't the easiest of parts to dispose of so if less end up in a landfill all the better. I'd consider myself a heavy user and have never felt battery life to be unusable after 1 year.

It’s not an overreaction. Apple constantly act like arseholes where customers are concerned.

Some folks take what they’re given and that’s fine. I won’t. I paid for one thing and I’ll insist upon it. If you’re happy to settle for less by way of a hack after the fact, good for you.

The feature should be off by default in any case. You might not see it that way which I suppose is exactly what Apple expect from their typical customer.

DubDJ

I'm confused because this applies to all smart phones across the board, a lot of manufacturers will use the same batteries their competitors use in their devices. You make out like Apple is alone and they somehow have sub-par batteries compared to everybody else. The only thing Apple have done differently here is to try to make their batteries last longer which is hardly some type of scam.

I honestly think you're alone in the idea of this being a big problem, if the majority of people were needing to have their batteries replaced within a year I think we'd have another "Apple-gate" situation in the news. It's not some big conspiracy where Apple are trying to get people to pay for out of warranty repairs. The majority of people will already have their iPhone's 2-3 years before hitting the peak battery drop, so the new charging feature isn't going to affect that with way.

corcaigh07

Any XS owners still out there? Would you recommend a new XS for 600?

Keano

corcaigh07 wrote: »

Any XS owners still out there? Would you recommend a new XS for 600?

That’s great value. I’m on mine at the minute and still love it

sheepsh4gger

dan786 wrote: »

Hi folks,

So preorders start at 8.01am. What are people going for memory and colour wise?

I planning to go with XS Max 64GB , I dont need the extra storage. Thinking about Gold as its a new colour.

I bough the XS for iOS development. The size is kind of meh, I still prefer my Samsung Note 8. To be productive today you need a big phone.

sheepsh4gger

DubDJ wrote: »

I'm confused because this applies to all smart phones across the board, a lot of manufacturers will use the same batteries their competitors use in their devices. You make out like Apple is alone and they somehow have sub-par batteries compared to everybody else. The only thing Apple have done differently here is to try to make their batteries last longer which is hardly some type of scam.

I honestly think you're alone in the idea of this being a big problem, if the majority of people were needing to have their batteries replaced within a year I think we'd have another "Apple-gate" situation in the news. It's not some big conspiracy where Apple are trying to get people to pay for out of warranty repairs. The majority of people will already have their iPhone's 2-3 years before hitting the peak battery drop, so the new charging feature isn't going to affect that with way.

It depends how you use the device. I always keep my phones tethered to a charger at home and at work. Id I travel somewhere they are connected to a battery bank. Also if you live in the country then the phone draws more current when talking to the nearest tower.



There's a limited number of times you can charge the battery. Eventually it can't provide as much current as it used to and your phone shuts down on compute/transceiver intensive tasks.


I treat the battery as something that needs to be conserved.


Your average hipster will not use a phone unless it's new. It's a 2 year lifespan.