Smartphone Maker Apple Goes From Catching Flak to Appeasing Angry Customers

Following an uproar from customers, Apple said Wednesday it is adding a feature to an upcoming iOS update that will let them turn off software that slows down older iPhones.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told ABC News that users will be able to turn off the “feature” that was throttling old iPhones.

“We are going to give people the visibility of the health of their battery so it’s very, very transparent. This hasn’t been done before,” said Cook.

“We will tell somebody: ‘We are slightly reducing your performance by some amount in order to not have an unexpected restart.’ And if you don’t want it, you can turn it off,” he added.

Cook said the iOS update is going to “happen next month,” but he doesn’t necessarily recommend it.

Apple, according to Yahoo News, will release the iOS update to beta users shortly, but the new battery feature will arrive in a later beta release.

The planned features may help smooth over some customers’ anger about slowdowns and show that Apple is trying to be more transparent about performance changes it makes to older iPhones.

The new feature will be found in the Battery section in Settings and will be available for iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, the news portal reported.

Apple in December revealed it had released software about a year earlier that makes older iPhones run more slowly to prevent problems with ageing lithium-ion batteries, such as unexpected shutdowns. Critics saw it as a sneaky attempt by the tech giant to force customers to ditch their old phones and upgrade.

Apple issued a mea culpa afterwards, offering to replace batteries $29, rather than the usual $79.