Apple just addressed the flaw that's been randomly shutting off iPhones with 30% battery

Kif Leswing

Dec 2, 2016, 21:41 IST

Apple customers have been reporting recently that certain iPhones seem to be randomly shutting off when their batteries say they are about 30% charged.

When they're plugged back in, the battery indicator quickly jumps back to 30%.

This is a real problem and has attracted attention from frustrated users and Chinese consumer protection groups.

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Apple had already addressed the issue, but on Friday, it issued a new statement with additional details.

The company is still insisting that the problem is limited to a "small number of iPhone 6S devices" that have specific serial numbers.

Apple:

We found that a small number of iPhone 6s devices made in September and October 2015 contained a battery component that was exposed to controlled ambient air longer than it should have been before being assembled into battery packs. As a result, these batteries degrade faster than a normal battery and cause unexpected shutdowns to occur. It's important to note, this is not a safety issue.

Apple goes on to say that when your phone randomly shuts off, it's a feature, not a bug:

We also want our customers to know that an iPhone is actually designed to shut down automatically under certain conditions, such as extremely cold temperature. To an iPhone user, some of those shutdowns might seem unexpected, but they are designed to protect the device's electronics from low voltage.

But ultimately, Apple still believes that the issue is completely hardware, and is not the iOS 10 bug that some users have been reporting recently.

The fix is still the same: check if your iPhone's serial number is covered, and if it is, then bring it to an authorized dealer, like an Apple Store. "We looked for any other factors that could cause an iPhone to shut down unexpectedly. After intensive investigations, no new factors have been identified," Apple wrote.

If you're having random shutdown problems with an unaffected phone, you're still out of luck.

Check out Apple's full statement here.