Apple's Cook Discusses iPhone Battery Controversy, Repatriation
The recent iPhone battery controversy was a hot topic during an ABC News interview with Tim Cook. The Apple CEO says an upcoming software update will allow users to automatically control whether or not their iPhones are automatically slowed down. This news comes weeks after it was first uncovered that Cupertino was slowing down iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus devices with older batteries.
In the interview, Cook explained his company’s intention to slowing down the older phones was to preserve batteries and prevent the devices from automatically restarting.
At the heart of any decision we make is the user, and we felt it would be better to take something off of the performance to prevent [iPhones from restarting] … We deeply apologize for anybody who thinks we have some other kind of motivation.
The CEO also offered a glimpse into Apple’s decision to give this type of control to the end user:
We’ve listened to the feedback very carefully and in addition to giving everyone a very low price on a battery if they’d like to get a new battery, we’re also going to, in a developer release that happens next month, give people the visibility of the health of their battery. It’s very very transparent. This hasn’t been done before. We will tell someone we’re 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.
Last month, Apple agreed to cut the price of a new iPhone battery to $29 from $79 through the end of the year.
Also during his interview with ABC News, Cook discussed Apple’s decision to invest $350 billion in the U.S. economy over the next five years, creating more than 20,000 jobs. The move follows the company’s decision to make a $38 billion tax payment to the U.S. as required by recent changes to the tax law.
Here’s the entire interview: