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

[Kevlar]

I did read through all 300 replies, but what about those of us who got so fed up with poor battery performance and crappy phone performance that we upgraded devices? I would have kept my 6 if the battery would have lasted more than a couple of hours. I cold have saved myself $800 and not upgraded to the 8.

Not to be ignorant, but if the battery only lasted a couple of hours, it sounds like you needed a new battery anyways, which Apple would of done if you had gone in and asked.

 

[JForestZ34]

Don't normally post much... Got my iPhone 6 new when it came out. Years before I always upgraded to the newer phone, but the 6 was the last time... didn't see the need to get the newer one.

Now... all this slow down and the news has really pissed me off, Wish I didn't upgrade the OS.

Anyway I'm going to try something new, ordered a Pixel2 tonight. (Excited to try something new)

Change is good.

Can you do me a favor. When you get that Pixel 2 can you shot me a PM and let me know how you like it. I was thinking of giving one a try

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.

Yeah and Apple made all that money by being TOTALLY honest with it's customers.. Look how long it took them to acknowledge the logic board issue on MacBook pro's, What was that. Almost 4 yrs I think.


James

 

[DevNull0]

Not to be ignorant, but if the battery only lasted a couple of hours, it sounds like you needed a new battery anyways, which Apple would of done if you had gone in and asked.

He said poor battery performance and crappy phone performance. Why would he blow $80 to fix the battery on a phone that still has crappy performance.

Because of Apple's deception, he had no way at the time to know Apple was deliberately degrading the phone performance and a new battery would fix it.

 

[rjp1]

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.

This guy gets it.

This is not just a battery issue like they claim.

 

[Kevlar]

He said poor battery performance and crappy phone performance. Why would he blow $80 to fix the battery on a phone that still has crappy performance.

Because of Apple's deception, he had no way at the time to know Apple was deliberately degrading the phone performance and a new battery would fix it.

"I would have kept my 6 if the battery would have lasted more than a couple of hours"

It appears you missed a line. I totally agree that Apple should of been clearer in explaining the reasoning behind the power management features and the results of it, and informing the user the reasoning behind doing such.

 

[AAPL21]

Here's the timeline of what happened:

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.

Same here, my iPhone 6 has exhibited battery issues after a year of usage, shutting down when it's cold, shutting down when it still has 40%+ of battery and refuse to boot up, dropping from 70% to 40% in in matter of minutes, etc... Same issue that plagued my iPhone 5, which Apple later on did a free battery replacement program. Long and behold, the same issues plagued 6S and Apple launched a free battery replacement for it. I reached out to Apple Support once the 6S replacement program was announced letting them know that the 6 has the same issues and they should look into yet, but sure enough no support guy would believe me. Heck, I believe I even email tcook@apple.com about it and it went no where. Apple has a bad track record when it comes to iPhone batteries ever since iPhone 5, but this time instead of them owning up to it, they want us to pay out of pocket to solve their problem.

 

[coolfactor]

Not to be ignorant, but if the battery only lasted a couple of hours, it sounds like you needed a new battery anyways, which Apple would of done if you had gone in and asked.

Yup! Exactly this. I don't completely blame these people for not realizing that just a battery can be replaced. After all, Apple is pushing these devices as "non-user-servicable consumables". Plus take someone like me that lives on an island with no official Apple Store nearby, to be without my phone for a few days is hard to digest. Seems much easier, even if more expensive, to simply replace the device entirely.

I don't think those that have chosen to replace their devices are owed anything by Apple, since they failed to explore all options available to them. Apple should not need to babysit customers.

I do see the bigger picture of all of this — Apple is now going to add coal to their fire of battery technology research and development. In a year or two, I would not be surprised if Apple devices have batteries far superior to the competition. At least one can dream...

 

[tardman91]

Not to be ignorant, but if the battery only lasted a couple of hours, it sounds like you needed a new battery anyways, which Apple would of done if you had gone in and asked.

They wouldn't have done it for free, or $29.

He said poor battery performance and crappy phone performance. Why would he blow $80 to fix the battery on a phone that still has crappy performance.

Because of Apple's deception, he had no way at the time to know Apple was deliberately degrading the phone performance and a new battery would fix it.

Exactly. If I'd know the performance was deliberately degraded because of the battery I might have given that a try before dropping $800 on a new one. I certainly wasn't going to blow $80 on a new battery for a phone that was no longer as snappy as it used to be.

 

[Ma2k5]

View attachment 744487

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

Clear as mud that supposed notice was. But it’s similar to the “bug” reasoning, when they were intentionally letting a certificate expire, disabling FaceTime, to save money. Fine let it expire for cost saving reasons but be honest with people please. Had someone known their slow phone can be fixed by reversal of that update or a new battery, how many people would have forgone an upgrade? Many people, and Apple knew that, hence why they were as clear as mud .

Then again it isn’t like other companies don’t do these - including many of the financial and software houses I’ve worked at, who love misleading customers to hide certain information or even cover up mistakes - so maybe I’m being silly to expect anything different from Apple. That doesn’t make it right though.

 

[DevNull0]

"I would have kept my 6 if the battery would have lasted more than a couple of hours"

It appears you missed a line. I totally agree that Apple should of been clearer in explaining the reasoning behind the power management features and the results of it, and informing the user the reasoning behind doing such.

I read it as he would have kept the phone and put up with the degraded performance that he actually mentioned in his post. But with a few hours of battery life too, the phone is useless when it doesn't get through the day, and not worth fixing the battery given the also degraded performance.

 

[haruhiko]

This was incompetence in corporate communication with its customers, not some clever plan hatched by somebody stroking a white Persian cat. However, like you I replaced my battery on my waaay out of warranty iPhone 4S with a relatively cheap kit (iFixit). The issue is not so much about how much it costs, but how long Apple will commit to providing batteries for a given model of iPhone (and iPad?).

In all honesty though, I like to see Apple's next model have a user-swappable battery. Concerns about dust and water ingress are an issue, but Apple supposedly has the best engineers, so....

Never.

 

[aristobrat]

Not sure why Apple is forcing the issue down our throats.

I’m pretty sure they’re trying to end the situation where iPhones with 30-40% charge left were randomly shutting down (and couldn’t be restarted until they were plugged back into a charger).

Maybe they should have let that fire burn longer (ie let it effect more people) before they fixed it with 10.2.1, because some folks here seem to act like it was an issue that never existed.

 

[definitive]

What a ripoff. Third party batteries cost much less than $30, and most of the time are just as good, yet Apple has to charge 3-4x for their stuff. It's like they're doing a favor to its customers by allowing 6 and newer owners to upgrade batteries for a year, and then it's back to business as usual - charging an arm and a leg, and keeping up with the degraded performance.

 

[Abazigal]

This guy gets it.

This is not just a battery issue like they claim.

I suspect it's more an issue of the battery degrading over time and not being able to supply the power that their processors require. If you want to be pedantic about it, it's not really the fault of the battery, but basically everything in the phone that requires that much power.

Think of it as a sprinter who starts out blazing fast but quickly tires and then has to slow down afterwards. The bursty nature of the A-series processors apparently comes at a price. Everything works when the battery is new and in tip-top condition, but it becomes unsustainable after a short while (~1 year, it seems).

To be more precise, it appears to be a power-draw issue which can be solved either by replacing the battery (which allows the phone to run as if it were brand new) or reducing how much power the processor needs to run to avoid shutdowns (and a reduction in power basically means an accompanying reduction in performance). That's the way electronics work. There's no conspiracy here to trick users to buying more iPhones (even if it did have that inadvertent impact).

 

[Kevlar]

They wouldn't have done it for free, or $29.


Exactly. If I'd know the performance was deliberately degraded because of the battery I might have given that a try before dropping $800 on a new one. I certainly wasn't going to blow $80 on a new battery for a phone that was no longer as snappy as it used to be.

If it was in warranty, they would of for sure replaced for free. If it was out of warranty, they really have no obligation to fix for free (they probably would of still of in my experience if the battery was degraded under the 1000cycles that it states the battery should last above 80% capacity).

I am not trying to be rude, but to say that your existing phone you were happy to keep minus the noticeable reduced battery life and performance and not to attempt to let Apple troubleshoot seems backwards to me. I was in the same boat with my 6S where the battery life was not what I wanted (honestly was waiting for an hardware update when the X was released and wasn't impressed enough to upgrade), and took my phone in and paid for an out of warranty battery replacement.

Like I mentioned, I totally agree that Apple had no reason not to be clearer about the reasoning behind slowing the processor speed to ensure older devices still operated and inform the user of potential fixes (such as going in for out of warranty battery replacements) and allow the user to make the decision themselves.

 

[LV426]

What a ripoff. Third party batteries cost much less than $30, and most of the time are just as good, yet Apple has to charge 3-4x for their stuff. It's like they're doing a favor to its customers by allowing 6 and newer owners to upgrade batteries for a year, and then it's back to business as usual - charging an arm and a leg, and keeping up with the degraded performance.

You can save money on heating bills and making toast if you get a cheap battery.

 

[newellj]

Money grabbing corporation. No different to any other.

And you expected that Apple should be? Really?

 

[Abazigal]

I didn't read through all 300 replies, but what about those of us who got so fed up with poor battery performance and crappy phone performance that we upgraded devices? I would have kept my 6 if the battery would have lasted more than a couple of hours. I cold have saved myself $800 and not upgraded to the 8.

I don't think Apple is going to be able to address the multitude of actions taken by consumers in the wake of their phones slowing down. What they can, and are doing now in the very least, is to tackle the consumers who are still holding on to older iPhones and affected by the throttling patch.

I am aware that this matter was brought up in a previous thread, and I know that my comments did come off as being curt and insensitive, which was never my intention. I am not going to say "What's done is done, so suck it up". What I can suggest is to look forward and see this as a learning opportunity of sorts. You are going to have to upgrade your iPhone 6 eventually at some point (if not this year, then the next year or the year after that, as it eventually stops getting supported). Rather than fret over the $800 you have spent, which you are unlikely to get back unless you sell off your current iPhone 8 and go back to the older 6, maybe focus on the improved capabilities of new iPhone 8 you do have and the possibilities they enable, and this should suffice in lasting you for a good many more years over what the iPhone 6 would have.

You have 3gb of ram (over the iPhone's 1gb), a significantly better camera, Taptic Engine, A11 processor, Hey Siri, better display, wireless charging, improved waterproofing amongst other goodies, albeit with the notable absence of the headphone jack. And if the phone does slow down with iOS 12 (as hinted by Apple), you now know to have the battery replaced to remedy the issue, assuming you are still willing to stay with Apple at this point.

What do you think Apple should do in your situation? Reimburse you the full price of the iphone 8? Reimburse the difference in upgrade pricing? Genuinely curious.

 

[newellj]

You are right. Apple wants unhappy customers. You just proved it.

Agreed. The level of babble and rant in this thread is off the charts. Not that this is surprising...

 

[Rogifan]

Steve Jobs started the whole "You are verb-ing it wrong" meme.

And a happy Apple customer stays an Apple customer. Apple has many ways of monetising their user base after the sale of the initial device, from getting them to purchase additional Apple products, to App Store sales, to iCloud subscriptions and Apple Music. Heck, Apple even gets a tiny cut of every Apple Pay transaction you make. They have every vested interest in bending over backwards to keep you as the consumer happy so you will continue to buy more Apple hardware, not throw you under the bus once the sale has been made.

Apple slowed down people's phones precisely because they care that their customers are happy. If you look at Android phone-related threads on Reddit, you see people complaining about how their LG phones bootloop, or how their Nexus 6Ps keep shutting down or restarting themselves, particularly when they are in the midst of an important task such as calling emergency services, and you know that they are never ever going to get a patch of any sort to remedy this. Apple made a judgement call, and decided that random shutdowns was wholly unacceptable, and that throttling your phones was the better solution out there. Not saying it's a good one, but the other solutions all have their limitations, and I can understand why Apple ultimately did what they did.

For starters, the iPhone was not designed with user-replaceable batteries in mind, and it likely never will be, so while a few posters here have taken it upon themselves to swap out the batteries inside, it's not something they expect their users should have to do.

Meanwhile, changing iPhone design to include larger batteries (iPhone Plus models don't appear to suffer as much from this throttling issue) is a longer-term design consideration. We will have to see if the stacked battery design of the iPhone X and rumoured X+ ameliorates this issue any. An improved power delivery system is also an additional longer-term consideration (earliest 2019 if the rumours are to be believed). I believe Apple is and will eventually work towards this; it just won't be available anytime soon.

Third, a pop-up of any nature is just going to result in unnecessary misinformation and panic amongst the majority of Apple users. People are just not going to have sufficient information anyways to make an informed decision on what they need to do. In addition, it is simply not acceptable to leave it up to the user to choose between experiencing slower performance because of throttling and just having the iPhone shut down.

Lastly, even this battery replacement programme is not going to be accessible to every user, especially those who live in countries with no Apple store. I suppose now that the news is out in the wild, they could have have the battery replaced themselves or at a 3rd party repair store, but then they take on the risk of accidentally damaging their phone every time they crack it open to service the internal battery, and Apple is not going to be there to bail them out if this happens.

This leaves throttling as a legitimate option with the best risk/reward in terms of the user experience. Every other option, including sending an iPhone away for a battery replacement, results in a major user experience tradeoff. And Apple is all about the user experience. Sometimes, you just can't win. You can only select the option which minimises the losses.

And for the record, I don't think this iPhone throttling issue will send people to Android either, though we will have to wait to see what the impact to Apple's reputation will be, if any.

In the near-term, I agree Apple should provide a clear and extensive explanation on what exactly is going on (what they have done is a start, but still not quite near enough). I believe this will go a long way towards stopping the bleeding as most people will eventually see that Apple is being rational and is genuinely looking out for the user. Apple can then assess where additional information about the battery and throttling can be included in iPhone settings (there is always that eternal dilemma between too much information and too little).

Just my 2 cents, for those who care enough to read.

People should read it. I never understood this notion that Apple intentionally does things to make their customers unhappy. A company doesn’t exist if they don’t have customers and all any company wants is to retain the customers they have and gain new ones. The only conclusion I can come too is these people believe Apple customers are a bunch of iSheep or cultists who will buy anything Apple releases or are like a battered wife who keeps coming back for abuse. I think it’s nonsense but sure seems like people who frequent the comments sections of tech/rumor sites believe it.

 

[newellj]

that's nice for the person who bought my 18 month old iPhone SE which I sold because it was running slowly but it was assessed as OK by Apple.

If you look at the throttling issue, general slowness is not caused by throttling. Throttling is at most a few CPU cycles.

 

[AronDraws]

Wanted to give a heads up of my experience. I just attempted to schedule a battery replacement for my iPhoneSE and the support guy said the SE was not covered and I had to remind him that it’s newer than the 6. He then corrected his mistake and he had me run the diagnostics app. The results of the battery test were fine. Here’s an excerpt from the chat session attached.

He confirmed the battery was fine. I asked if replacing the battery would speed the iPhone up. He said yes. So yeah, basically I have to pay $29 for them to just unthrottle my iPhone.

So disappointed.

 

[forerunnerg34]

Most likely batteries are not the only "feature" that slow down devices, truth will come out eventually when somebody discovers other ways they kill old devices. I do believe they internally slow down devices, for example: there is no explanation why my iPad Air was fine with iOS 9, the immediately after iOS10 it is slower and basically useless with iOS 11. You don't need for a benchmark (last one posted here was ridiculous after Apple was discovered slowing down devices), it is so evident. How can people still trust this company?

 

[deferredAnon]

People should read it. I never understood this notion that Apple intentionally does things to make their customers unhappy. A company doesn’t exist if they don’t have customers and all any company wants is to retain the customers they have and gain new ones. The only conclusion I can come too is these people believe Apple customers are a bunch of iSheep or cultists who will buy anything Apple releases or are like a battered wife who keeps coming back for abuse. I think it’s nonsense but sure seems like people who frequent the comments sections of tech/rumor sites believe it.

They are not making any happy customers by forcing our phones to slow down.

It should be a choice, Apple. Give us the option of when to replace our batteries without you forcing our phones to slow down! Otherwise, it seems like a money grab to me to be honest. "Replace your battery or we will keep slowing down your phone."

 

[Abazigal]

They are not making any happy customers by forcing our phones to slow down.

It should be a choice, Apple. Give us the option of when to replace our batteries without you forcing our phones to slow down! Otherwise, it seems like a money grab to me to be honest. "Replace your battery or we will keep slowing down your phone."

The whole point of the slowdowns is to avoid unwanted shutdowns and all the inconveniences that come with it. It's fine to be sitting in front of your computer and go "I am fine with random shutdowns" and it's another when your phone actually does shut down when you are trying to do something important like call for emergency services or dial an Uber because you are in a hurry.

A slower phone is better than a phone you can't actually use, and I don't see Apple ever allowing its users to make that choice.

Most likely batteries are not the only "feature" that slow down devices, truth will come out eventually when somebody discovers other ways they kill old devices. I do believe they internally slow down devices, for example: there is no explanation why my iPad Air was fine with iOS 9, the immediately after iOS10 it is slower and basically useless with iOS 11. You don't need for a benchmark (last one posted here was ridiculous after Apple was discovered slowing down devices), it is so evident. How can people still trust this company?

Any non-battery related slowdowns is likely due to the older hardware not being able to support the newer software, not Apple deliberately going out of their way to screw over with your devices. Take the iPhone 4 for example. It barely ran iOS 7, and that's just because it's specs simply couldn't keep up, and software optimisation can only go so far.