BALTIMORE (WJZ) — After Apple was forced to apologize for intentionally slowing down the performance of older iPhones, the company’s CEO is now saying customers will soon have the choice to stop battery throttling for good.
Tim Cook says a future iOS update will give older iPhone users the option to disable Apple’s ramping down of performance, which Apple claimed was done to improve power management and prevent unexpected shutdowns in many iPhone 6 models. Cook added that the company would also provide information about the current health of a user’s battery. A release date for the throttling update hasn’t been announced but the tech giant’s CEO claims the disabling software will go into testing in February.
In December, Apple publicly admitted for the first time that the poor performance of older iPhones was done on purpose after altering the operating system to throttle battery usage.
“We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize,” Apple said in a statement on Dec. 28.
While the apology added that Apple was dropping the charge of out-of-warranty battery replacements from $79 to $29, the announcement did not include Cook’s claim about disabling the throttling issue in the future. The company has defended their decision to lower older iPhone performance, saying that aging batteries that get overworked can possibly damage an iPhone permanently.
Follow @CBSBaltimore on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Facebook