Incidents gradually damage lofty brand image of tech giant
Chinese consumers are expressing mounting disappointment with Apple products despite a long-awaited apology.
"As an iPhone fan, I can understand technological limits and automatic shutdowns in winter, but I can't bear that Apple furtively lowers battery performance," a 30-year-old woman iPhone 6s user told the Global Times. She refused to be named.
"If all electronics manufacturers followed suit and began slowing down your computers and reducing the performance of your refrigerators and water heaters, customers would get accustomed to buying new products every year" she said.
"But then manufacturers would make more and more money, leaving customers' legal interests hurt and without them noticing."
iPhones have better user experience and longevity than many domestic brands, another iPhone user said.
"Nowadays, high-end smartphones have become luxury goods. I never expect to use an iPhone more than two years. Thus, slowing iPhones is no big deal for me at least," he said. He refused to be named.
The comment came after Apple's apology on its website of December 28. "There's been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue," the statement read.
Apple stressed that it had never - and would never - do anything to "intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades."
Continued chemical aging of the batteries - a normal, temporary performance impact when upgrading the operating system - plus minor bugs in the initial release which have since been fixed, may together have contributed to slowing batteries, Apple said.
Conspiracy or not?
Since 2008, Google searches including the words "iPhone" and "slow" seem to have surged around the time of each new iPhone launch.
But for almost a decade nobody could prove whether the battery issue was just a user illusion or a true slowdown in the Central Processing Unit performance under the upgraded operating system.
Tests by John Poole, founder of Toronto-based software analysis firm Primate Labs, found that "Apple has introduced a change to the limit on performances when battery conditions decrease past a certain point."
In response, Apple said in a statement: "Last year we released a feature for iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE to smooth out the instantaneous peaks only when needed to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down during these conditions. We've now extended that feature to iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, and plan to add support for other products in the future."
Rather than helping Apple, the explanation instead triggered anger, with many users accusing the tech giant of purposely slowing down old iPhones so as to entice them to buy newer models.
After the statement was released, two people in California began suing Apple, claiming the tech firm never gained their consent to "slow down their iPhones," CNBC reported on December 22.
The two Californians, Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas, said they suffered interferences with their iPhone usage from the slowdown, prompting them to claim damages from Apple.
A smartphone engineer told the Global Times that it was understandable that Apple attempted to avoid unexpected shutdowns of iPhones due to slowing algorithms. He refused to be named.
"Due to technological limits, smartphone battery capacity will drop remarkably after being used for some time. And if consumers overuse the device, like upgrading all the applications at the same time, the device may automatically shut down. This is more common in low-temperature environments," he said.
Shun Yu, an industry analyst based in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, said that Apple actually has the ability to solve these problems if it truly wanted to benefit users.
Apple could replace batteries for free, charge some customers to properly solve the problem or provide a simplified iOS system for older iPhones, he said.
Sales drop
In addition to the battery incident, media reports on December 25 about lower iPhone X sales forecasts added further pressure to Apple. Christmas in Cupertino, California seems to have not been so merry.
Taiwan-based Economic Daily News reported that the tech giant has cut its sales predictions for the iPhone X after sluggish sales on the Chinese mainland.
Demand for the iPhone X may hit 30 million units in the first quarter of 2018, far below previous forecasts of 50 million units, the report said, citing a source involved in Apple's supply chain.
They also said that the company's major manufacturing partner Foxconn Technology Group had urgently stopped hiring staff by December 25 at its factory in Zhengzhou, capital of Central China's Henan Province.
But in response, two Apple suppliers on the Chinese mainland - Lens Technology Co and Suzhou Anjie Technology Co - said they did not receive any notice to cut production, domestic financial news site stcn.com reported on December 26.
"We never received any order from Apple to cut orders," said Peng Mengwu, Lens Technology board secretary. "In fact, our clients' original order target was between 30 million and 35 million units.
"Thus the so-called cut in the number of orders doesn't even exist. Media reports are misleading."
In the face of an alleged market downturn, Apple remains a significant player for hundreds of suppliers.
"The price of the iPhone X is about 40 percent higher than that of the iPhone 8 and 25 percent higher than that of the iPhone 8 Plus," domestic news site 21jingji.com reported on December 27, citing an industry analyst. "Thus even though the sales of the iPhone X are flat, the revenue of Apple and its suppliers will surge.
"Apart from smartphones, potential growth in the automobile, augmented reality and wireless charging sectors is the reason why suppliers look good to Apple."
Sun Yanbiao, head of research company N1mobile based in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, told 21jingji.com that the longevity of smartphone brands is between 10 and 15 years.
With increasingly unsatisfactory iPhone headlines, Apple may finally be descending from its previous Olympian heights to face the normal rigors of market discipline.
