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

[Rob_2811]

I would - if those threads existed and were reliable. Again and for the last time: Apple will happily take your $79 for a normal, non-discounted iPhone battery change if you insist on it - no matter which condition.

That isn't my experience.

 

[44267547]

Was my question not clear to you ?

What's clear is that you seem to have a disbelief or misunderstanding in general. Apple is not indicating you that you can't replace your battery on your behalf. Apple is stating they will make the determination if the $29 will apply specifically. You don't have a say just because that's what you feel should be done in your own belief. It's Apple's perogative, not your own "What I want" notion.

 

[HallStevenson]

Anyway if Apple runs diagnostics and says your battery doesn’t need to be replaced why would you replace it? Unless your suggesting Apple’s diagnostics are faulty or they’re lying to you?

According to CPU Dasher X, my CPU runs as low as 600 mhz as the battery level decreases. It's supposed to run at 1400 mhz. This lower clock speed coincides with Apple's, ehem, "power management feature" that they implemented for 6 and 6s models. If iOS has determined my battery isn't capable, their diagnostic tools had better agree !

 

[Mike MA]

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..

Well, it won‘t perform like an iPhone X, but at least after my battery had been replaced all hiccups especially using Messages and Safari disappeared for sure. Replacement was done by 3rd party supplier.

 

[HallStevenson]

No issue discovered with iPad throttling

...yet

 

[coolfactor]

"iPhone 6 or later". Does "Later" = "Older", or does that mean 6 series through X? Originally read that it was 6 and 'older', but the language here isn't as clear. Battery life on my 7 was worse than my 2 year old 6, even on day 1. For $29, I'll replace it without thinking twice.

It means models that have come _after_, therefore later in time.

 

[44267547]

It might be good if you read a few of these threads

I was going to make the same suggestion to you about this article and Apples guidelines for replacing the battery. It Seems you seem to be misconstruing certain things throughout this thread.

For your reference:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ore-battery-health-info-in-ios.2097894/unread

 

[MH01]

What's clear is that you seem to have a disbelief or misunderstanding in general. Apple is not indicating you that you can't replace your battery on your behalf. Apple is stating they will make the determination if the $29 will apply specifically. You don't have a say just because that's what you feel should be done in your own belief. It's Apple's perogative, not your own "What I want" notion.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...lth-info-in-ios.2097894/page-76#post-25651436

And @lars666

One of many examples .... cause frankly you guys have not even bothered to follow this topic and are just jumping without contributing and calling people liars..... I have a misunderstanding? , stop judging , bother to follow the topic instead of taking personal jibes ! There are people on this thread stating what I am from experience.

The link I send you, ask that nice gentlemen, he has no reason to lie, a contributor to MR and nice bloke!

 

[insanemccain]

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.)

If I were you, I would send an email escalating this to Angela, CC'ing the local Market Leader and the Store Leader. Not only is that absurd - it's even disclosed as:

"Battery Replacement at the cost of 99$"

not "Battery Replacement at the cost of 99$*"
"*Does not include cost of labor or any extra charges that we need necessary"

furthermore after google-ing of Apple CA, their site hasn't even reflexed the new $29 (US - or w/e the CA difference/will be) as seen attached.

Site accessed as of:
December 30th, 2017 14:26 US CST (GMT-6)
Sources:
1) https://support.apple.com/en-ca/iphone/repair/battery-power
2) https://support.apple.com/en-ca/iphone/repair/service/pricing

 

[ghanwani]

Just go to Amazon and search for a replacement battery for your model phone. There are also numerous YouTube videos on how to do it. Personally, I went with a battery from Scanditech. We'll see about longevity as I only replaced it a few days ago. But so far it's holding a charge longer than the original battery and speed of operation is improved (iPhone 6). Not as quick as before the update to iOS11 though.

I think that once you open the phone yourself, the phone will no longer be serviceable by Apple, even if they do a recall for something. Let's you drop and break the glass, Apple will refuse to replace it.

 

[MH01]

I was going to make the same suggestion to you about this article and Apples guidelines for replacing the battery. It Seems you seem to be misconstruing certain things throughout this thread.

For your reference:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ore-battery-health-info-in-ios.2097894/unread

Rich coming from you to be frank, not appreciated . Are you going to continue with these personal acquisitions?

 

[coolfactor]

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

They likely were not trying to hide anything. It was probably just as much of a surprise to them once this new feature hit a broad range of real-world devices. So many factors can influence actual user experience that is difficult to match in testing.

I’m pretty confident that more that a few people experiencing slowness are not due to this “feature”, but they were quick to jump on the bandwagon of bashing Apple anyway.

Apple did the right thing in the end. Were batteries really costing them more than $29? If not, they’ve been making a very healthy profit, and I see that as an issue if they were not re-investing into improving battery life and tech.

 

[MH01]

I think that once you open the phone yourself, the phone will no longer be serviceable by Apple, even if they do a recall for something. Let's you drop and break the glass, Apple will refuse to replace it.

It's not worth doing yourself . Good advice

 

[coolfactor]

I got my replaced two weeks ago upon hearing the battery issue. Full price

They usually honor the cost. I believe that was stated in the open letter. Did you read it?

 

[neutralguy]

It is funny how the less competent people are the more confident they feel being right, to the point where Apple had to start giving away basically free battery replacements for old out of warranty phones with naturally degraded batteries.

You keep harping this. If that's all true, why did Apple admitted to the fault and offering replacement? Isn't Tim preaching righteousness? Why is he not standing tall and deny the accusation and stick to it? Why there is a rush to do damage control? I have never seen Apple being so over-reactive like this.

 

[chrfr]

Because the $29 are a special discounted price for this specific case. Apple will still happily change your battery for the normal $79 even if the health is still 99%.

This is not correct. Apple will not replace the battery whatsoever if the battery passes the diagnostic.

 

[MobiusStrip]

So let's see:

Apple continually reduces battery volume, with the excuse of making devices "thinner;" which no one asked for.

Apple implements a bunch of logic to detect degraded battery performance, then DOESN'T TELL THE USER.

Apple fails to learn from PR debacles of the past, because the public and the press are too stupid to punish them for their offenses.

Repeat.

And then of course there are other pathetically anti-customer moves like the removal of the headphone jack from MUSIC-CENTRIC phones.

 

[Shadar]

Anyone know if apple will replace your battery if you’ve already had it replaced by a 3rd party?

Apple will only replace your battery if IOS says it's below some threshold of performance. Right now, we don't have visibility to what IOS is measuring with the battery (i.e. whether it's slowing your phone or not).

I'd wait until they release the version of IOS that gives you battery status before you trot down to Apple store, only to find that your battery is "OK".

If you put a 3rd party battery in and its working fine, then you don't get a new one.

 

[Puddled]

Perhaps your questions is best suited for Apple, not I. You're disputing Apples protocol. But more to the point is that they have to be able to determine the state of the battery before they move forward based off their own policy. If you have dismay about that, then perhaps you need express that to them directly.

Determining the state of batteries using their own protocols and policies is why they are in so much **** at the moment.
How have you managed to not read about this on this forum? Its basically every thread

 

[k1121j]

So will Apple replace them? In my experience they will fight you saying they won’t change it unless they think it needs to be. I have no idea why when I wanted to pay fir a new battery why they still need to approve of it.

 

[LV426]

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

This is not necessarily a design defect, and its effects are certainly not confined to the iPhone 6/s. Apple state in their letter of apology that the same power management feature for mitigating unexpected shutdowns has been added to later phones:

"Customer response to iOS 10.2.1 was positive, as it successfully reduced the occurrence of unexpected shutdowns. We recently extended the same support for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in iOS 11.2."

 

[Shadar]

You keep harping this. If that's all true, why did Apple admitted to the fault and offering replacement? Isn't Tim preaching righteousness? Why is he not standing tall and deny the accusation and stick to it? Why there is a rush to do damage control? I have never seen Apple being so over-reactive like this.

Business decision. They figured the bad press (most of it erroneous) was worse than providing cheaper replacement batteries. Don't confuse "righteousness" with business decisions.

 

[gnipgnop]

According to CPU Dasher X, my CPU runs as low as 600 mhz as the battery level decreases. It's supposed to run at 1400 mhz.

It's not actually supposed to run at top clock speed all the time. Different functions do not all require the fastest clock speed. However, that isn't the same as the power draw throttling, where the CPU is using a speed that is below what would normally be used in order to prevent a potential auto shutdown.

 

[Klyster]

So let's see:

Apple continually reduces battery volume, with the excuse of making devices "thinner;" which no one asked for.

Apple implements a bunch of logic to detect degraded battery performance, then DOESN'T TELL THE USER.

Apple fails to learn from PR debacles of the past, because the public and the press are too stupid to punish them for their offenses.

Repeat.

And then of course there are other pathetically anti-customer moves like the removal of the headphone jack from MUSIC-CENTRIC phones.

It's like they are stuck in 'some' kind of continuum.......

 

[MH01]

I had a case of a failing MacBook battery - Coconut already showed only ~76% health, the official Apple diagnostic tool still showed 80,03% (and the green "good" symbol). I still had to wait a few weeks longer until Apple was willing to replace the battery under Apple Care. So, no - you are wrong again.

Did you consider that the firmware will show different results with time ?The phone reports the current state.

Can I ask you were you think apple diagnostics get their stats from?