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

[Marc2018]

Great research and I would like to know the answer to this as well. How does Apple defend these results?

Interesting enough, I still have an older iPhone 4 and 4S. The iPhone 4 and 4S both look brand new due to being in LifeProof case, but according to CoconutBattery program, it has 493 cycles and the design capacity indicates the battery is 99.1%. Not sure that I truly believe it, but if so, what is this saying about the quality of the newer batteries in iPhones 6 and above. Both work great as iPods now, not so much as a phone due to iOS no longer supporting these models.

 

[bmark]

They did the "right thing" after they got caught sneaking in throttling algorithms in point updates to iOS that only effected previous generation phones; which at a minimum certainly caused some users to upgrade to new phones due to performance issues, instead of getting replacement batteries, because apple conveniently failed to disclose all of this to customers in a way that average consumers could reasonably understand. This is not an example of a company looking out for the best interests of their customers. That's fine, Apple is just another corporation, but stop the self rightious moral posturing from here forward, Apple!

The right thing would have been to offer free battery replacements to their loyal customers. Yet they failed to do and still acknowledge their batteries are good after 3 plus years of use. Apple is all about making money at customers expense and failing to deliver a good customer experience.

 

[Tor Eckman]

The right thing would have been to offer free battery replacements to their loyal customers. Yet they failed to do and still acknowledge their batteries are good after 3 plus years of use. Apple is all about making money at customers expense and failing to deliver a good customer experience.

I agree that the batteries should be lasting for more than one year. If you look at the timing of the 6s throttling and the 7 throttling, the throttling "features" were implemented in point updates to iOS right around the one year mark of the release of each respective phone.

 

[bobob]

Apple is all about making money at customers expense

That is an insidious corporate agenda!

 

[Abazigal]

And there you go again, still trying to conflate and deflect. The Note 8 issue will be resolved, meanwhile, of those affected, nobody had to go buy a new device to resolve their issue. Aren't you ashamed and embarrassed to defend such a dirty move by Apple. There's not a doubt in my mind you would still recommend the iPhone to family and friends without even a mention of this dirty practice by Apple. Anything to protect Apple's reputation. Still waiting for a response by you from my last post.

I did a fairly long post on that a while back.

You probably missed it, judging by your response, so here's the link, and let me know what you think of my analysis.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...one-6-and-newer.2098263/page-13#post-25655092

And no, I am not ashamed or embarrassed by this incident. Apple did what they felt was right then, just as they are doing what they believe to be right now.

 

[Baymowe335]

They did the "right thing" after they got caught sneaking in throttling algorithms in point updates to iOS that only effected previous generation phones; which at a minimum certainly caused some users to upgrade to new phones due to performance issues, instead of getting replacement batteries, because apple conveniently failed to disclose all of this to customers in a way that average consumers could reasonably understand. This is not an example of a company looking out for the best interests of their customers. That's fine, Apple is just another corporation, but stop the self rightious moral posturing from here forward, Apple!

You’re speculating. Take what happened at face value. They tried to mitigate situations that would cause unexpected shutdowns. Maybe they miscalculated how much of an impact the power management would have on performance as there are hundreds of millions of older devices. The issue was brought to their attention and they responded by essentially giving you an at cost service to ensure you’re brought back to spec.

As I said, they could have done a lot worse.
Saying they knowingly screwed you out of performance on purpose to coerce you into buying a new phone is purely speculation and might even be completely wrong. It’s not always a conspiracy.
[doublepost=1514765071][/doublepost]

The right thing would have been to offer free battery replacements to their loyal customers. Yet they failed to do and still acknowledge their batteries are good after 3 plus years of use. Apple is all about making money at customers expense and failing to deliver a good customer experience.

There are too many variables to deem a 3 year old battery good or bad. It’s all about he cycles, climate, usage, etc. The impact is still most likely relatively small. This would be a fire storm if anything close to a majority of people experienced major issues.

 

[Tor Eckman]

You’re speculating. Take what happened at face value. They tried to mitigate situations that would cause unexpected shutdowns. Maybe they miscalculated how much of an impact the power management would have on performance as there are hundreds of millions of older devices. The issue was brought to their attention and they responded by essentially giving you an at cost service to ensure you’re brought back to spec.

As I said, they could have done a lot worse.
Saying they knowingly screwed you out of performance on purpose to coerce you into buying a new phone is purely speculation and might even be completely wrong. It’s not always a conspiracy.

They were never going to say they intentionally caused customers to buy new phones instead of new batteries by failing to disclose all of this to consumers in a way most could understand. How about a pop up when 10.2.1 installed that said "we are going to throttle the performance of your phone because your battery is getting weak, however you can simply have a new battery installed to restore performance."

btw, I'm not speculating anything, the timing of the events is known at this point.

 

[rootee]

They did the "right thing" after they got caught sneaking in throttling algorithms in point updates to iOS that only effected previous generation phones; which at a minimum certainly caused some users to upgrade to new phones due to performance issues, instead of getting replacement batteries, because apple conveniently failed to disclose all of this to customers in a way that average consumers could reasonably understand. This is not an example of a company looking out for the best interests of their customers. That's fine, Apple is just another corporation, but stop the self rightious moral posturing from here forward, Apple!

what's going on with this quoted post ? i don't think i've posted the quote you have as from me

 

[Tor Eckman]

what's going on with this quoted post ? i don't think i've posted the quote you have as from me

May have been a mistake in editing.


Corrected, and apologies.

 

[rootee]

May have been a mistake in editing.

you've attributed the below text to me, which i've never posted:

"I’m just not unreasonable. Companies can do the right thing and I think Apple stood up and did the right thing"

please fix your post...

 

[Tor Eckman]

you've attributed the below text to me, which i've never posted:

"I’m just not unreasonable. Companies can do the right thing and I think Apple stood up and did the right thing"

please fix your post...

You are correct... fixed.

 

[Miss_Mac]

The right thing would have been to offer free battery replacements to their loyal customers. Yet they failed to do and still acknowledge their batteries are good after 3 plus years of use. Apple is all about making money at customers expense and failing to deliver a good customer experience.

I agree, no one should have to pay for those new batteries and it shouldn't be a restricted to a year-long program. I hope the battery heath test they have gets updated, so that customers are not turned away due to the results of that test (which someone here posted some information about dealing with 10.2.1 and 10.3)

Honesty and transparency was all that was needed.

 

[Baymowe335]

They were never going to say they intentionally caused customers to buy new phones instead of new batteries by failing to disclose all of this to consumers in a way most could understand. How about a pop up when 10.2.1 installed that said "we are going to throttle the performance of your phone because your battery is getting weak, however you can simply have a new battery installed to restore performance."

btw, I'm not speculating anything, the timing of the events is known at this point.

You’re speculating again when you say what they were or weren't going to do. They disclosed what they did in 10.2.1, just not in your words.

Apple did customers a solid by offering a $29 replacement even on devices well over 3 years old. Stand up move.

 

[bmark]

I agree, no one should have to pay for those new batteries and it shouldn't be a restricted to a year-long program. I hope the battery heath test they have gets updated, so that customers are not turned away due to the results of that test (which someone here posted some information about dealing with 10.2.1 and 10.3)

Honesty and transparency was all that was needed.

Battery health tests are not accurate and won’t be updated. They need to run cpu throttling tests which they fail to acknowledge is the problem. I’m sure they would say if I just upgrade to an iPhone X then I would have no issues. There is no honesty and transparency from Apple. Only a smoke screen to cover up their most recent transgressions.

 

[Tor Eckman]

You’re speculating again when you say what they were or weren't oing to do. They disclosed what they did in 10.2.1, just not in your words.

Apple did customers a solid by offering a $29 replacement even on devices well over 3 years old. Stand up move.

The speculation comment was related to my prior post. This one:

"They did the "right thing" after they got caught sneaking in throttling algorithms in point updates to iOS that only effected previous generation phones; which at a minimum certainly caused some users to upgrade to new phones due to performance issues, instead of getting replacement batteries, because apple conveniently failed to disclose all of this to customers in a way that average consumers could reasonably understand. This is not an example of a company looking out for the best interests of their customers. That's fine, Apple is just another corporation, but stop the self rightious moral posturing from here forward, Apple!"

That post generally sets out the timing of events and is no more speculative than your conclusion that apple has somehow done the "right thing," in an attempt to help customers, which certainly speculates as to the motives of apple...


btw, I never argued apple implementing the throttling to slow phones was an issue per se (that is a different discussion), I am arguing that the failure to properly disclose that a new battery could restore performance is a big issue.

 

[Act3]

Battery health tests are not accurate and won’t be updated. They need to run cpu throttling tests which they fail to acknowledge is the problem. I’m sure they would say if I just upgrade to an iPhone X then I would have no issues. There is no honesty and transparency from Apple. Only a smoke screen to cover up their most recent transgressions.

some folks are so brainwashed from apple that they think it is ok. after all, what apple decides must be the best since it "just works" albeit a bit slower than what they sold you. /s

 

[FrozenDarkness]

Im curious how many people experienced random shut downs before. To me, the biggest mistake apple made was not making the throttling smarter

 

[Act3]

with the new year starting this week, and things back to normal business after the holidays, it'll be interesting. I would not be surprised if some folks at apple are terminated or resign over this.

Have to wonder if the CEO knew what was going on with the throttling before it came to light.

 

[Sevanw]

I did a fairly long post on that a while back.

You probably missed it, judging by your response, so here's the link, and let me know what you think of my analysis.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...one-6-and-newer.2098263/page-13#post-25655092

And no, I am not ashamed or embarrassed by this incident. Apple did what they felt was right then, just as they are doing what they believe to be right now.

Truly sad you allow yourself to believe Apple did nothing wrong here and that they were truly looking out for the user. You absolutely remind me of some person who just found out his father is a lying thief, and is now rationalizing it to prevent his total belief system in his father from crashing down to reality. As I said before, the reaction someone has to this slime ball move by Apple, will separate the blind follower from the informed customer.

 

[bkaus]

Computers always feel "slower" after some time. When you get a new computer/phone, your comparing it to your old phone. The longer you use it, the more accustomed you get to the new performance and perceive it as slower. Then apps get more compute bound as they code to even newer computers... and it makes the older one feel even worse.

Eventually, you use the newest model, see how much faster it is, then feel like your old computer/phone has slowed down...

Apple's fault here was not popping up a dialog box stating - "your battery capability is reduced, performance will be slowed to keep phone from crashing. Please consider replacing your battery".

 

[FrozenDarkness]

Computers always feel "slower" after some time. When you get a new computer/phone, your comparing it to your old phone. The longer you use it, the more accustomed you get to the new performance and perceive it as slower. Then apps get more compute bound as they code to even newer computers... and it makes the older one feel even worse.

Eventually, you use the newest model, see how much faster it is, then feel like your old computer/phone has slowed down...

Apple's fault here was not popping up a dialog box stating - "your battery capability is reduced, performance will be slowed to keep phone from crashing. Please consider replacing your battery".

I think the biggest hilarity for me is people thinking apple did this to force you to upgrade your phone. To me, if my phone is slower or if my phine shuts down, I’d think I need to upgrade my phone so no difference. Only thing is if Apple purposefully squeezed too much performance out of the battery.

 

[Tor Eckman]

I think the biggest hilarity for me is people thinking apple did this to force you to upgrade your phone. To me, if my phone is slower or if my phine shuts down, I’d think I need to upgrade my phone so no difference. Only thing is if Apple purposefully squeezed too much performance out of the battery.

The issue is apple failing to disclose that a new battery could mitigate the performance hit the phone might take due to the various iOS point updates, and the fact that many consumers may have upgraded their phones when a new battery might have resolved issues they were having. Apple has no problem constantly reminding me that there is an iOS update, or that I can upgrade to High Sierra (I'm staying with regular Sierra for now), but for some reason didn't have a chance to include some sort of disclosure or notification that they were going to throttle iPhones (some less than a year old), due to battery health.

 

[Abazigal]

Truly sad you allow yourself to believe Apple did nothing wrong here and that they were truly looking out for the user. You absolutely remind me of some person who just found out his father is a lying thief, and is now rationalizing it to prevent his total belief system in his father from crashing down to reality. As I said before, the reaction someone has to this slime ball move by Apple, will separate the blind follower from the informed customer.

By your definition of course.

Feel free to label me whatever you wish. I am kinda used to it after so many years here.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

The issue is apple failing to disclose that a new battery could mitigate the performance hit the phone might take due to the various iOS point updates, and the fact that many consumers may have upgraded their phones when a new battery might have resolved issues they were having. Apple has no problem constantly reminding me that there is an iOS update, or that I can upgrade to High Sierra (I'm staying with regular Sierra for now), but for some reason didn't have a chance to include some sort of disclosure or notification that they were going to throttle iPhones (some less than a year old), due to battery health.

I can totally imagine a situation where Apple did that and people would be like “oh why does Apples batteries suck?”or “I dont trust Apple they just want money for a battery replacement”. This is worst, they did screw up, I just dont think this situation is easy.

 

[WannaGoMac]

Think about it, how many people bought a new iPhone because their current model became too slow, not knowing that a simple battery replacement could have solved the issue? And it wasn't just a limited range of iphone 6s models.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16800058/apple-iphone-slow-fix-battery-life-capacity

"Some Reddit users report that replacing their batteries has returned performance and CPU clock speeds back to normal. The reports are particularly troubling because any perceived slowdowns by iPhone users might tempt owners to upgrade their entire device instead of replace the battery. “This fix will also cause users to think, 'my phone is slow so I should replace it' not, 'my phone is slow so I should replace its battery,’” says Geekbench’s John Poole."


Geekbench developer John Poole has mapped out performance for the iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 over time, and has come to the conclusion that Apple’s iOS 10.2.1 and 11.2.0 updates introduce this throttling for different devices. iOS 10.2.1 is particularly relevant, as this update was designed to reduce random shutdown issues for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S. Apple’s fix appears to be throttling the CPU to prevent the phone from randomly shutting down. Geekbench reports that iOS 11.2.0 introduces similar throttling for iPhone 7 units with older batteries."


"It’s also clear that Apple, which makes its devices hard to open and repair, could do a better job helping consumers understand the benefits of battery replacement. That’s something the company seems less inclined to do when it might mean forgoing the sale of a new iPhone every 12 to 24 months."

Just give up. There is a contingent of what I am starting to believe are paid PR/Marketing shills for Apple on these forums.