Apple Makes $29 Battery Replacements Available Immediately for iPhone 6 and Newer

[neutralguy]

I cant believe people are defending apple on this. Smh

 

[MH01]

That’s a good point actually. Right now none of us really know what is going on. The story still seems to be developing and changing day by day. Yesterday Apple said January before the program kicked in, today it is already in effect. My friend at Apple could be confused as well. Until we start seeing more reports trickle in we won’t really know what is up and what to trust. For now I stand by my advice to just try to get your own battery replaced and see what happens. If they refuse, fine you only lost a little time. If it works great. If they later change the policies again, well it was good for those who took advantage of the confusion while it lasted. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking whatever applied before might still apply going forward.

Apple is getting hammered in the news. They are probably more flexible than usual to avoid confrontations.

Good post. This is developing fast, and honestly I think apple will change the process asap, where peopLe can walk in and request one without a test. I'm just going with past experience and what others have stated in threads which i have been involved since the story broke, and that is people being refused battery replacement of the test showed green.

Thanks for your input

 

[RedGala]

The battery has to measure at 80% capacity or less for the replacement btw

 

[gary77]

I had the battery replaced once already when Apple did the iPhone 6s program for the unexpected shutdown issues would this offer stand if my battery needed to be replaced again?

 

[deanthedev]

I'll take your word for it that it is now changed, but it *was* policy to not change it if it was deemed healthy using the genius bar diagnostic (which basically looked at wear only (500 cycles/80% of capacity) not the iOS throttling condition, which is max voltage supplied (which is actually a function of capacity and cell size - which is why sometimes the battery only throttles when the battery is down around 30-40% (and prior to the fix the phone would just shut off).

As I mentioned above, I had a battery replaced that passed their diagnostic. I also had a bent iPhone 6 replaced for free under warranty even though I told them my wife bent it wrestling with the kids (I fully expected to pay the AppleCare damage incident fee for a replacement).

Apple might have a policy, but it’s not rigid. Employees can still make decisions outside of official policy to help customers. It likely depends on the demeanor of the customer (if you’re an a$hole, don’t expect special treatment).

 

[redpandadev]

I’m confused. Is that supposed to be $29 (Canada; $35) all-in, or is there a separate cost for labour? Before Apple decided to reduce their battery cost, I went to the Apple Genius Bar in Toronto and was quoted $99 for the battery replacement plus $429 labour. So tell me about that labour cost: does it still exist or is Apple now waiving it? Because let me tell you, that small reduction in battery cost means next to nothing if that labour cost is still there. Here’s a copy of my work order from Apple (p.s. I cancelled after seeing this bill, and purchased a battery replacement elsewhere.)

Short answer: no, there is (and has never been) labor charges.

That $429 line item is not repair labor. That is what a full replacement phone would cost (usually liquid damage) - “flat rate repair” covers everything- I.e. they just replace the device. The only reason you would be quoted like that (outside of a mistake) is if the phone could not be repaired due to catastrophic damage and has to be replaced. Even if that were the case, you wouldn’t be charged for a battery on top of that. Something is wrong here and you need to go back and ask them for further clarification.

 

[MH01]

Of course you will. Common sense dictates Apple will modify their procedure. If customers went in and were denied it would be very bad PR to add to the existing bad PR. I’d bet $$$ that they don't argue with customers who want batteries and just go ahead and change them.

BTW, I had a battery replaced for my daughter that the diagnostic said was OK. Please explain how this is possible when it’s not listed in any “official” documentation.

I had a phone replaced, policy said I should not .It depends on how you treat the apple employee.

I've had a MacBook Pro replaced with one that cost twice as much.... it's called apple CS, this is not about individual cases, this is about the policy, which some kind CS can overide...

 

[Chloros]

This action must confuse those apple loyalist....it appears that apple was wrong.

 

[MacATDBB]

I don't believe for a moment that Apple did this for any other reason than the one they declared - to keep older models stable with degraded batteries. So ++Apple. (Whether there's a separate issue with battery robustness or longevity that they're covering is another matter.)

If Apple intended to slow down older models, they could do it far more effectively and specifically by not optimizing the recent OS releases for their legacy CPU architectures - thanks to the rate of A-CPU innovation this could be fairly directed I guess.

 

[tito2020]

Should have been like that from the start, so that’s good.

eruo better fined them for bilions

 

[FelixDerKater]

iPhone 22 will have a removable battery.

 

[BuddyRich]

As I mentioned above, I had a battery replaced that passed their diagnostic. I also had a bent iPhone 6 replaced for free under warranty even though I told them my wife bent it wrestling with the kids (I fully expected to pay the AppleCare damage incident fee for a replacement).

Apple might have a policy, but it’s not rigid. Employees can still make decisions outside of official policy to help customers. It likely depends on the demeanor of the customer (if you’re an a$hole, don’t expect special treatment).

This is true. I had an iphone 5 that was refused service for water damage even though none of the indicators had gone off by one employee but another switched me out of for a refurb under warranty.

Coincidentally enough for a battery that was doing something similar to this, turning off with 30 or 40% remaining, though it outright died and wouldn't come back on.

When the 2nd employeed opened it up to replace the battery to try and let me get it to restore she saw no water damage and didn't know what the other genius was talking about. Something else was the problem as the battery swap didn't fix it, so I got the refurb.

 

[laurim]

Transparency is key. Don’t know why it’s hard for people or companies to be transparent and up front.

You mean like clearly stating they were going to do power management in their upgrade notice? https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893?locale=en_US

 

[AppleScruff1]

As they should have. They should also make the price permanent.

Change of heart? Yesterday you didn't think they had an obligation to do anything.

 

[Mildredop]

As long as Apple has people yelling at each other over battery chemistry, they win.

Ding ding ding. This is the point we ALL need to be aware of.
[doublepost=1514673280][/doublepost]

As they should have. They should also make the price permanent.

They should make it free.

 

[weup togo]

You have an interesting work of fiction there. Be careful that Apple don't sue you for libel.

That would be the best possible outcome. I would have access to Radar and their email for discovery, and could prove it. If you think this is fiction, you don't know anything about how Apple works.

 

[Rizop]

My wife's iPhone 6s will not hold a charge for longer than 2 hours and randomly shuts down . Went to our local Apple Store yesterday as her phone's serial number qualified for the 6s free battery replacement program. They said that the battery was in good health and it did not qualify . I offered to pay 79 dollars for a new battery and was turned down because her battery health was at 84 percent . The tech told me to "use the hell" out of the battery for the next month to drop it to 80% , then pay 29 dollars for the replacement. The phone is only usable for 2 hours , have to pass this below 80% threshold ? We did not cause a scene , but left befuddled

 

[laurim]

I’m sure people will be in denial and cry “conspiracy” when I say that my iPhone X will be my last Apple product. I am convinced this was just done to force people to upgrade rather than assist dying batteries as they claim.

This is just another shady practice (remember http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tech...ed-for-forcing-users-to-upgrade-to-ios-7.html, internal emails show the shady nature of how they go about things - zero communication with consumers, pretending it was a “bug”). Some people still defend that...

Meh, iOS hasn’t been as good to me since the 4S days anyway, that wasn’t perfect but my 6,6s and 7 were far from a great user experience. Their 2016 MacBook lineup also ruined that line of business for me (sold my 2014 rMBP for a 2016, which I ended up returning...). It’s not even about the money anymore, I earn £500 a day. I moved from Android and accepted the walled garden, with less features than the competition on the grounds of a better experience and stability. The latter is no longer true.

Maybe you should read the upgrade notices if you want to know so badly. https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893?locale=en_US

 

[mp3dk]

Not having followed this topic too closely (other thans headlines) - could the battery be the reason why my iPhone 7 freeze when opening apps and also the reason why apps suddenly crash?

I bought my iPhone 7 back in november this year, but I assume that the battery and phone itself is from the release back in september 2016?

Can anyone confirm?

 

[laurim]

I cant believe people are defending apple on this. Smh

Do you read the text on upgrade notices?

 

[A Hobo]

I’m confused. Is that supposed to be $29 (Canada; $35) all-in, or is there a separate cost for labour? Before Apple decided to reduce their battery cost, I went to the Apple Genius Bar in Toronto and was quoted $99 for the battery replacement plus $429 labour. So tell me about that labour cost: does it still exist or is Apple now waiving it? Because let me tell you, that small reduction in battery cost means next to nothing if that labour cost is still there. Here’s a copy of my work order from Apple (p.s. I cancelled after seeing this bill, and purchased a battery replacement elsewhere.)

That’s not labour, that’s a flat rate replacement cost to be shown if there’s tampering or liquid damage intenally found during repair. You’d have just paid the battery cost. FYI now you e replaced the battery third part you’re now SOL. Full unit replacement cost only.

 

[Kabeyun]

I can't quite tell if you're actually appreciating it or sarcastically against the editorialization. Let me know!

I left it ambiguous. Thx for the discount alert.

 

[Baymowe335]

Here's the timeline of what happened:

• AppleCare's escalation team approaches Engineering and says, "We're seeing a ton of in and out of warranty returns and repairs due to degraded batteries. This is costing us millions of dollars. Can you figure out why the iPhone 6/s failure rate is so much higher than normal?
• Engineering gets ahold of some Failure Analysis captures from the field to reproduce the issue. They find that when the battery voltage drops due to age or cold weather, the sudden shutdowns occur.
• They look at the peak voltage demands from the iPhone 6/s relative to the battery output curve.
• They realize the fundamental design defect in the iPhone 6/s: the device's peak voltage demand was way, way too high relative to the battery's capabilities. This defect was not present in previous devices, and was fixed in the iPhone 7.
• Engineering, AppleCare, Marketing and sundry Management discuss next steps. They're not going to do a recall, admitting the design defect, because the PR and financial hit would be in the tens of billions. They don't want to keep replacing phones or batteries, because that's costing millions. They're not going to put in UI letting users know their battery needs serviced, because Marketing forbids any public discussion of anything being wrong with Apple products.
• Engineering says, "This is just a voltage problem. If we drop the clocks, we can ensure the devices never go over the peak battery voltage." Thanks to the power management hw & sw, they have good data on the battery voltage potential. The CPU already runs at lots of different clock speeds, depending on load. So it was a very simple change to detect the battery voltage max, and set the max clock speed below that threshold. Problem solved.
• Engineering Management tells senior Execs "Okay, we have a fix for the sudden shutdown failures, but devices are going to be slower as a result. We really need to surface this to users, to mitigate the bad experience." Marketing says absolutely not we never say anything is wrong with Apple products. AppleCare says please just ship it, we have a huge pile of defective phones building up.
• Apple rolls the dice and ships the silent software change, hoping the expensive returns will go down, customers will at least be able to use their devices, if in a degraded state, and prays no one will ever figure out the hack.
• People slowly start figuring out their devices are slower. Finally the GeekBench guys query their database, and the CPU clock/voltage throttling sticks out like a sore thumb.
• All hell breaks loose, and here we are.

It's critical to keep in mind this is not just about "worn out" batteries. Battery voltage drops with cold weather. My iPhone 6 was exhibiting this design defect when it was only a year old, as soon as I exposed it for the first time to cold weather. It would shut off instantly when I stepped outside. After a few months, the shutdowns became frequent as the battery did begin to "wear out" but in my case, this battery was marginal from the factory. Apple Engineering completly screwed up by allowing so little margin between max voltage requirement and worst case battery performance. No other models have had this problem before or since.

This is a coverup for what should be the biggest product recall in history. As long as Apple has people yelling at each other over battery chemistry, they win.

You’re just speculating, despite all the likes this post received.

A critical leap you made is declaring what Apple knew and what their intentions were.

It may have been more like what they actually told us.

 

[2010mini]

The thing is that I replaced my battery for my iPhone 6 plus and it was still slow...

Does it have to be Apple brand battery or something? Something smells fishy..

Could be like when you buy aftermarket parts for your car and they don’t perform or last as long as OEM.

 

[MH01]

Do you read the text on upgrade notices?

You keep posting that, can I ask why ? Do you think apple was clear about this all along with that statement ?