Wow, there's a lot of whining (whinging for those of you in the UK!) and moaning and gnashing of teeth on this topic. I have a contrarian view, which I'll share at the end of all these quotes (or maybe in a separate post)...
This seems a little much...
The Apple iPhone 14 (not "plus") with 256 GB memory will cost you $900 plus the average sales tax in the US (5%). So $945, give or take. If you live in a place that has generously voted in favor of the highest sales taxes (9.5%), then you'd pay about $1000 on that iPhone.
So $99 to replace your abused (yeah, I said it; more on that later) iPhone 12's battery is ONLY 10% the cost of a new phone. And it gives you another 2-6 years of use of that device. So it's not that much, not really.
What do you mean by "typical"? Batteries are made with Lithium and Nickel, and they only come from 6 places in the world. Raising prices is probably sensible.
Has anyone else noticed that the battery health, as reported by the Settings app, degrades steadily for a couple of years but then slows/stops at around 81 or 82%? Seems to have happened for both the iPhones I've used in recent years.
I know it's natural to suspect that big bad Apple is out to get all of us. But consider this:
Batteries are chemical devices containing metal from the Earth's crust. As a consequence of that, they will behave and misbehave a lot more like the analog devices that they are, even if they do have built-in electronics. Did you know that the electrolytes can actually MOVE AROUND inside a battery? Yep, It's a mushy gooey mess in there. As I said, chemicals.
I've got an iPad 2 which is over 11 years old and still gets great battery life on the original battery. Admittedly it's had a fairly easy life for the past 5 years or so, but I still drag it out semi-regularly to play the classic iPad game "FTL".
"Fairly easy life" is a thing, and good on you for taking good care of your battery.
In 3 or 4 years it will be $120.
With the geopolitical dynamics going on the world, and with every fool politician wanting to force electric vehicles on us with 100, 200, or more pounds of batteries in each vehicle, lithium and nickel are going to get a lot MORE expensive. So yeah, you're probably right, just maybe not for the reasons you think.
I guess when I need a new battery I will just buy a iPhone 15-17 by then.
Buy a new iPhone if you want one. That to me is good enough reason all by itself to buy a new iPhone. But if it's only because your battery is beyond its useful life, that's just financially foolish.
Even if it one day costs $200 to replace a battery in an iPhone, that's only 20% of the cost of a new one. And it will extend the service life of that device by another 2-6 years, depending on how badly you abuse batteries.
Just 43% not over 100% lol xd
Right. It's cheap to replace a battery, even though they are made with elements from the Earth that are not available in unlimited amounts.
US inflation is running at about 8.5%. That's not as bad as in some parts of Europe, but still the worst it's been for several decades.
Siri tells me that inflation is 7.6%, but I think those numbers are all gamed. Come on, when was the last time you bought meat from the grocery?
There's all kinds of additional costs, in addition to employing the high-skilled labor required to safely replace and dispose of the old battery.
You're absolutely right. The greed, if there is any here, is not on Apple. The metals must be mined and transported, bribes must be paid off in those countries, then the parts must be manufactured, the pollution must be generated (hey, it's part of the deal), and maybe one day they find their way to our pampered selves by way of a smiling Apple Store employee installing them in our devices while we sit on a wooden stool in a clean white Apple Store at our local mall. Malls...do we still have those things?
Anyhow, it's nearly an idyllic task to have an Apple device's battery replaced. And you can stop for lunch before you head home!
I'm on an iPhone 12pro and I've decided to be a bit more frugal and just keep it as I dont really need any of the hardware improvements that have been added (not saying they are bad just not compelling for me).
This makes good sense, and I'm on an iPhone 12 Pro Max. I also still have two watches and two iPads. All are fine and even if I paid $500 to replace all the batteries in every device, it would STILL be worth not having to replace any of the devices. It may be borderline on the Watch Series 4, but then I'd have to replace it with a Watch Series 8, which would cancel out any cost-justification.
Replacing batteries is always less expensive than replacing devices. And that doesn't even account for the time I would have to spend doing restores and configuring the new device! My time has value. My labor comes at a price; usually to me.
So two questions for the kind folks out there:
1 - Do Apple still do a Battery replacement service for older models (I dont want to risk taking it to a non-authorised place)
I think so. I've never needed to replace a battery in any apple device, not even going back to the iPhone 5, which was my first Apple device.
2 - Do I have to prep the phone in any way when I take it in (may be being paranoid but do I have to worry about some dude in the back room stealing the data off it for example
)
The phone has a secure enclave built-in. If you don't give the technician your unlock code, they won't be able to view your stuff. Now iCloud, on the other hand, actually IS a major potential avenue for somebody to see your stuff. And we all use iCloud to back up our devices, right? I tellya, we humans are really good at outsmarting ourselves! 🤣
This is normal for all lithium batteries. There’s a lot of degrade within the first year then slows.
All batteries lose effectiveness over time. This can be accellerated by deep-discharging and subjecting the device to heat.
Could it be there is more involved with the new phones? And if so, Apple had to make an adjustment to keep their margin where they want it.
Maybe, but I think it's more about the current and projected cost of materials; namely the nickel and lithium needed for batteries.
Nickel:
In addition to batteries, Nickel is also used in the making of coins, wire, and anything made of stainless steel...so your fancy cutlery and all those shiny appliances in your kitchen. It's the Nickel that resists corrosion, so its use is also critical for the manufacture of ships, aircraft, and spacecraft!
Lithium:
Over 70% of the world's Lithium is used to make batteries, but it is also used to make glass, ceramics, and even medicines! It's also used as (or to make?) a flux for use in casting (I take that to mean metal casting).
I hope you're not fancying getting an electric vehicle someday. Because you too are about to be "milked". And you're a guy!
My point is, I really don't think anybody is being "milked"; not when it comes to batteries.
...what the **** are you people doing to your phones that you need to get the battery replaced? Ever? This has not been so much as even a consideration for me going back to the original iPhone 15 years ago. Never needed this. Not even once. And I drive these phones harder than anybody I know. Way more charge and discharge cycles. Way more time left on chargers just because I can. Etc.
Heat. Deep discharges. Overcharging.
Those can all degrade battery life expectancy. Apple's batteries have circuitry to prevent overcharging. Batteries with lithium in them kind of need that to prevent them from exploding. And maybe that circuitry also shuts off the device before it reaches a truely "deep discharge" state. Who knows, maybe they even shut down the phone when the battery still has 10% left. That would be quite effective in making batteries last longer. If so, then the only factor not in Apple's control is heat.
You can’t degrade your phone battery that much within a typical 2 year AppleCare coverage period unless you hit it with a blowtorch. There’s just no way.
Or leave it in a hot car. A lot of people probably do that.
There is none. This is not related to the product or inflation. Apple needs to milk the pro customers with high willingness to pay to increase overall revenue, because the low end and units are dropping more and more.
Apple makes a lot more money selling new devices than it does replacing batteries. Not even with the new $99 price to replace a battery. Honestly; you're NOT being ripped off.
Price increases are not fun, but everyone’s acting like the price of *everything* isn’t increasing.
I know, right?
