On Thursday, Apple apologized for failing to tell us the truth right away: The company had been secretly throttling the speed of older iPhones to keep them from unexpectedly shutting down. The fix? A newly inexpensive battery replacement — just $29 for any iPhone 6 or later, starting in January 2018. (It normally cost $79, but Apple’s making it cheaper as part of its apology.)
But how do you know when your iPhone’s being throttled? When is it truly worth taking a trip to your local Apple Store and handing over your precious device?
According to Apple, there are seven signs that a worn battery may be causing Apple’s software to slow down your device.
They are:
- Longer app launch times — Force-close your apps. Do they take longer than normal to launch from scratch?
- Lower frame rates while scrolling — Does your screen seem to stutter when you’re scrolling down webpages and through homescreens?
- Backlight dimming — Does your phone’s screen no longer get as bright, even when you set it that way?
- Lower speaker volume by up to -3dB — Do your speakers no longer get as loud?
- Gradual frame rate reductions in some apps — Try this with intensive games, in particular.
- During the most extreme cases, the camera flash will be disabled as visible in the camera UI — Can you not even use your phone’s camera flash anymore?
- Apps refreshing in background may require reloading upon launch — Apps that normally pull in new data, even when you’re not using them…did they stop doing that all of a sudden?
Of course, there are other reasons why some of these performance issues might occur — so be sure to try our 8-point guide to speeding up your old, tired iPhone to make sure it’s not something else.
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Speaking of which, Apple says the following parts of your phone aren’t impacted by battery-related throttling at all:
- Cellular call quality and networking throughput performance
- Captured photo and video quality
- GPS performance
- Location accuracy
- Sensors like gyroscope, accelerometer, barometer
- Apple Pay
So if you see those things fail, you may have a different issue.
