The stores in my area (Washington, DC) are dumpster fires with massive lines at all times during all days of the week. You’d think they’d just debuted a new product. None have batteries and the wait times are over a week now.
Just goes to show how many Apple customers are smart enough to not upgrade for relatively useless features.
Yes it sounds conspiratorial, but Apple is all too aware that the most useful apps (not necessarily the latest games) run just fine on a 6 without any performance problems and without “innovations” like 3D Touch. We know this too. The only restrictions are battery life and (now) Apple’s intentional slowdown. Might not be a conspiracy, but if it walks like a duck...
The truth is, if the iPhone battery were user replaceable, Apple’s revenue would be significantly lower over the last 5 years. Does anyone really believe they don’t know this and didn’t consider it when designing the device? And they certainly have no incentive to be highly responsive to those asking for new batteries (at least not until a court orders it).
In reality, I might end up deciding to keep my $29 battery replacement fee and instead upgrade to a new iPhone just to capture the current $125 trade-in value on my 6, but I would do this simply because I believe Apple will stop supporting the 6 before the end of 2018 for no real reason other than they want to. If not for that, I’d replace the battery and use the 6 until it (or I) kick the bucket.