Are you sure its the service battery notification and not apples "time to buy a new mac were discontinuing your model" notification 
But seriously, ive never know a company whos supposidly renowned for build quality and quality parts to have such a crap quality control on parts, especially the battery in its products, be it iPhone, macbooks or iPads, everyone i have know , including my own experince, with "portable" mac products have been that the batterys start to fail at 6months - 1 year on average, and if your lucky, last through to 3yrs, which is when apple excpects you to bin your old apple product and buy a new one... or at least used too, since the iPhone release apple seems to think people will upgrade yearly, and seem to have reduced the quality testing on parts to reflect this "Excpected obsolesance" in its products.
I love my mac products, i just expect the batteries to either last 5 yrs and still get me through the day (like my old Fujitisu laptop which STILL has 70% max charge left after what now must be 1500-2000+ cycles and approaching its 5th year of service, or my Playstation Portable battery which has been in it since launch and still seems to get around the same amount of life for gaming portable give or take an hour)
My Macbook pro however, is on its 4th battery since its mid 2008 purchase,
1st battery lasted 32 cycles before being "consumed"- replaced in march 2009,
2nd battery was killed when i upgraded to snow leapord at 8 cycles again "consumed" had to argue with apple that SL had killed it, took 4 months to get a FREE replacment ,
3rd battery got me through from July 2009 to Feb 2010 and again "consumed" at 68 cycles, the 4th battery is doing better, its up to 132 cycles and 86% life left, but im watching it now, as its around this % that the other batteries started losing 5-10% a day until being consumed.
According to apple these batteries, if cared for and calibrated correclty should hold 80% charge after 800 cycles...
not my experience, or that of 2 other friends i have with macbooks of various flavours and ages, at least my battery is easily replacable.
But seriously, ive never know a company whos supposidly renowned for build quality and quality parts to have such a crap quality control on parts, especially the battery in its products, be it iPhone, macbooks or iPads, everyone i have know , including my own experince, with "portable" mac products have been that the batterys start to fail at 6months - 1 year on average, and if your lucky, last through to 3yrs, which is when apple excpects you to bin your old apple product and buy a new one... or at least used too, since the iPhone release apple seems to think people will upgrade yearly, and seem to have reduced the quality testing on parts to reflect this "Excpected obsolesance" in its products.
I love my mac products, i just expect the batteries to either last 5 yrs and still get me through the day (like my old Fujitisu laptop which STILL has 70% max charge left after what now must be 1500-2000+ cycles and approaching its 5th year of service, or my Playstation Portable battery which has been in it since launch and still seems to get around the same amount of life for gaming portable give or take an hour)
My Macbook pro however, is on its 4th battery since its mid 2008 purchase,
1st battery lasted 32 cycles before being "consumed"- replaced in march 2009,
2nd battery was killed when i upgraded to snow leapord at 8 cycles again "consumed" had to argue with apple that SL had killed it, took 4 months to get a FREE replacment ,
3rd battery got me through from July 2009 to Feb 2010 and again "consumed" at 68 cycles, the 4th battery is doing better, its up to 132 cycles and 86% life left, but im watching it now, as its around this % that the other batteries started losing 5-10% a day until being consumed.
According to apple these batteries, if cared for and calibrated correclty should hold 80% charge after 800 cycles...
not my experience, or that of 2 other friends i have with macbooks of various flavours and ages, at least my battery is easily replacable.
