Re: I never understood why ...
One other option is to do what nearly every other electronic device does: run the same but the battery doesn't last as long. I have rarely had devices simply shut down because their battery is old, but they often will last for shorter. That Apple's devices manage to crash even when the battery isn't empty sounds like a design flaw, and their solution sounds more like a quick patch to avoid people hearing about it than a reasonable solution. Yes, Apple got some bad optics when people thought it was intentional and only for commercial reasons, and they don't deserve all of that. That doesn't make it a good thing to do.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
