Apple Loop: Three New iPhones Revealed, Serious Problems In iOS Update, More iPhone Battery Problems

Taking a look back at another week of news from Cupertino, this week’s Apple Loop includes three new iPhones for 2018, the shortage of replacement iPhone batteries, governments investigating Apple, surprising issues in iOS update, iCloud servers moving to China, Apple’s shrinking CES Shadow, and getting an Apple Store to recommend the iPhone X.

Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the very many discussions that have happened around Apple over the last seven days (and you can read my weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes).

Three New iPhone Models Go Large In 2018

Of course Apple will be updating the iPhone portfolio in 2018 - after all FaceID and the new home-button free UI needs to be embraced. The iPhone X will be refreshed, there will be a phablet side iPhone X Plus, and the mid-range iPhone SE is due a reworking. All of that is pretty much ‘business as usual’. The twist will be in the iPhone SE’s successor. The key selling point of ‘small screen size’ looks ready to be abandoned and the focus put on the lower price:

Apple has a choice to make over the iPhone SE 2. It can decide that most people loved the iPhone SE because it was a cheaper machine that had the same levels of power as the iPhone 6 and iPhone Plus when it went on sale. Or it can decide that the iPhone SE remains an adored small handset that works for younger users, those with petite hands, or those who simply don’t want to carry around a wonderslab every hour of the day.

Just as Apple decided that slowing your iPhone down was how you wanted your iPhone to accommodate an older battery (as opposed to offering you a shorter endurance in exchange for more speed), Apple looks ready to decide that users should not get a small screened iPhone.

Read more on the plans for the new iPhone SE here on Forbes.

Ewan Spence

Apple iPhone SE (image: Ewan Spence)

iPhone Battery Shortage And Investigations

Apple continues to trip itself up over the iPhone Slowdown debacle. The latest news to be ‘discovered’ and published by others, rather than being directly communicated by Apple, is over the stock shortages of the replacement batteries. Some iPhone owners are going to be waiting until Marchbefore they can take advantage of the reduced price offer:

 Now, in an internal document distributed to Apple stores and authorized service providers, we have the latest estimates for wait times. As per MacRumors’ write-up, that means “approximately two weeks” for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s Plus; a late March to early April date for the iPhone 6 Plus; and batteries for the iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone SE will be, in Apple’s own words, “available without extended delays.” Whatever that means.

The Verge’s Vlad Savov has more.

Apple’s Battery Woes Under Government Investigation

Meanwhile Apple’s reaction to the battery issues that have resulted in consumers’ handsets being throttled is being investigated by a number of government agencies around the world. France’s competition authorities are looking to see if Apple has been slowing down older phones to increase sales of new devices, reported by TechCrunch:

The move follows a complaint by a French consumer group, HOP, that campaigns against planned obsolescence and which filed a complaint against Apple in December.

Programmed obsolescence is illegal in France under a 2015 law which prohibits “the use of techniques by which the person responsible for the marketing of a product aims to deliberately reduce the duration to increase the replacement rate “.

The law carries a penalty of a maximum sentence of two years in prison and up to 5 per cent of a company’s annual turnover.

Meanwhile in the US, Senator John Thune wants Apple to come clean about what led up to the situation, the evidence it gathered, and a commitment to being more transparent on these issues in the future.

“However, even if Apple’s actions were indeed only intended to avoid unexpected shutdowns on older phones, the large volume of consumer criticism leveled against the company in light of its admission suggests that there should have been better transparency with respect to these practices,” the GOP lawmaker wrote in a Jan. 9 letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

More on this at Recode.

Apple CEO Tim Cook greets customers as the new iPhone X goes on sale at an Apple Store . (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

iOS Update Has A Slow Surprise For Some

Apple has released iOS 11.2.2 to the public. It includes patches for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, as such is a very important upgrade that should be installed by every user. Unfortunately initial benchmarking suggests there is a significant performance hit. Naturally there are no extensive change log notes on what has changed in the update:

Across over 30 single-core and multi-core benchmarks, Mughal found single-core and multi-core performance of his iPhone 6 fell by an average of 41% and 39% after updating to iOS 11.2.2. The results are broken down on his blog. It is worth pointing out Mughal upgrade to iOS 11.2.2 from iOS 11.1.2 not iOS 11.2.1, but that shouldn't be relevant as the throttling Apple introduced in iOS 11.2 was specifically for the iPhone 7 only.