Apple Replaced 11 Million iPhone Batteries in 2018, Up From 1 to 2 Million

[JosephAW]

What's weird is my iPhone 6 battery still says it's healthy and my 7+ is working fine with its original batteries.

 

[Nuvi]

I was trying to have my battery replaced in December. I could get appointments but would get cancelled. A 3rd party Authorised Service provider then told me that Apple were not sending them any batteries.

This was in December so I do believe that Apple themselves believe that the battery replacement program is evil and without it I would have bought a new phone.

This is strange. I personally didn’t have any problems changing the battery with Authorised Service provider. Then again, I’m in EU so refusing service is something no manufacturer wants to do if they plan to have some sort of future ahead of them.

If we’re talking about US price, then I’d simply replace my battery. However, in other countries, battery replacement costs almost half the price of an old gen iphone. You can’t blame them if they want to upgrade their phone.

What countries might they be? At least in EU area the battery replacement prices are in-line with US prices. So in what country in the world the battery replacement is around $500?

 

[Seanm87]

I had the battery replaced in my wife’s SE at the end of 2018. It will now last her a couple more years. I thought Apple came to their senses when they released the SE, but apparently they haven’t. So for now she is holding out hope that they will make a normal sized iPhone again in the next couple years—even if it’s full screen and costs a lot more—like an iPhone XE that starts at $699. That would be great for her! I’m hoping they will bring it back once they shrink the notch in the next year or two. I think the notch was just too wide for an SE sized device. Maybe in Spring 2021 we will get an iPhone XE.

Normal is very subjective. For me normal is in the 5.5 inch and above range (which is 99% of the market)

They also did come to their sense by discontinuing a phone that wasn’t making them any money.

 

[MultiMan]

Remember the good old days, before Apple started the trend of gluing things shut, when you could simply pop the back off a phone and replace the battery in seconds without any tools or worrying about breaking things.
Happy days.

Yeah, good times. I changed the battery on my then wife's 6+ at her bedside in hospital, using only some 3M tape, a pentalobe and phillips screwdriver. Took me under 5 minutes in total. Battery cost $10.

 

[Glideslope]

Not surprised. It's amazing how many people I know who kept their older phones after receiving a new battery. They are all very satisfied with their phones. Guarantee you'll never see another program like this again.

 

[TallManNY]

Yeah, good times. I changed the battery on my then wife's 6+ at her bedside in hospital, using only some 3M tape, a pentalobe and phillips screwdriver. Took me under 5 minutes in total. Battery cost $10.

I used to do battery replacements back with iPods and the 4 and 5 versions of iPhone. The 5 was hard and I thought the 6 would be harder.

Anyway, it was great to have a fresh battery in those devices. It really makes the third (and even more so, the fourth) year of ownership a lot better.

 

[ggibson913]

I never understood the controversy. Apple made a decision to slow phones down in order to preserve battery life and prevent unexpected shutdown, they got found out and, to my mind, implemented an unnecessary $29 battery replacement program when they easily could have reversed the software throttle and told people if you need a new battery it's $79. This was all in an effort to make their phones last longer. Lesson learned from Apple I guess, I would not be surprised if the iPhone 6 or even the 6s was on the chopping block for next year as far as software updates as a result. Apple is after all a business who wants to make money.

 

[Piggie]

I presume Apple are saying how WONDERFUL this is.
As they are so "Green" these days, Tim cook must be over the moon that people were able to keep their old phones longer and not be wasteful on the planet by buying new ones.

 

[mdatwood]

I’m surprised the iPhone X battery was included in the $29 offer. I took advantage and replaced the battery in my day 1 X on 12/31. Was at 88% health, now obviously like new again, and I might just keep it another year because of it. Wouldn’t have done it at the old $80 price. Odd decision.

I was planning to do the same, but had my screen cracked near the end of the year. With AC it was either $30 to replace the screen or $99 for another phone. Obvious choice is new phone.

 

[LordVic]

My iPhone 6S Plus was shutting down and rebooting when the battery was low and the ambient temperature was very hot or very cold, until the update that "slowed down phones". Once I had installed that update, those issues stopped, but the phone ran slower. That's nothing to sue over.

You weren't paying attention then to Apple's behaviour in how they delivered and tried to cover it up.

I, and I'm sure almost everyone else agrees that a phone that's throttled is better than a phone that's randomly shutting down.

The problem is, Apple didn't tell it's users that was what was happening. When asked if they throttled old phones, they outright said "no".

During this "No" phase, if users came to Apple stores complaining about slow devices, Apple would push users to buy new devices instead of replacing the battery. In fact, during the "no" stage, Apple was not telling the stores what the root cause was. So the battery tests the stores had did not test for this sort of degradation. So when their batteries passed the old tests, Apple also refused battery service (even paid) to these users.

It was only after a bunch of intrepid testers were able to verify and prove that some devices were being throttled, that Apple finally admitted that they did roll out a patch to solve the shutdown problem, and that involved throttling.

Apple was forced to do the cheap battery replacement program because the very cause of the whole thing was Apple underspeccing the battery for the power draw required by their CPU's. This is a design flaw. They failed to account in the design 1-2 years down the line after a battery started to degrade, that the power output itself might not be sufficient for the CPU.

So while the throttling solution over crashing phones does help and provide a work around for the underspecced batteries, it does not excuse the company for how they handled, obfuscated and tried to bury what was going on. And the evidence today about how many people chose battery replacements over new phones is prime evidence WHY they did bury it.

 

[shinkansenwarrior]

I forgot until Dec 20th and the Genius Bar appointments were booked solid until after the new year. Sucks.

At first I thought it was for US only. I left it alone until November and realized it was valid for Japan as well. I jumped to get a genius bar appointment but all vendors in Tokyo every day were blocked out online. It seemed the population of Tokyo wanted battery replacements!! I walked into the Ginza Apple store and they kindly said there were offering a replacement service if I brought it in before the store opened. They would give it back to me within 4 hours. So the following week I did. And they kept their word. Sorry you could not get yours replaced.

 

[pat500000]

GOod...now replace all the xs and max models with newer modem chip.

 

[thadoggfather]

My 7plus battery life still sucked with a new battery on ios 12

led me to consolidate my X and 7+ (trading em in, X for future gift card use) and get the XR

 

[cube]

Was this program available worldwide?

 

[iReality85]

I'd believe it.

I took advantage of this and had my 2 year old 7 Plus battery replaced in early December. The integrity was down to 83%, and at that point the reduced charge did start to become noticeable (to me, anyway).

I didn't have Apple Care +, there were no questions asked, and it only took an hour. Couldn't have been easier! I spread the word on FB about it, and quite a few friends didn't know about the program.

 

[EdT]

My iPhone 6S Plus was shutting down and rebooting when the battery was low and the ambient temperature was very hot or very cold, until the update that "slowed down phones". Once I had installed that update, those issues stopped, but the phone ran slower. That's nothing to sue over.

I’ll agree, but Apple didn’t say what the update was actually going to do when they said that they would have an OS point upgrade that would “fix” the phone suddenly dying problem. Had they said that to extend failing battery life it would reduce the phones clock speed and that the consequences of this would be your programs ran slower but your phone wouldn’t just suddenly die I think most people would have been ok with that. It was the “we fixed it but you don’t need to know what we did” attitude that got them in trouble.

 

[kemal]

I sent my 7+ in in early December. It took more than a week and they sent back a brand new phone. Guess they ran out of batteries.

 

[phillytim]

I would have replaced my 6S PLUS battery, regardless whether or not Apple offered the $30 battery program.

There just isn't enough interesting iPhone X-series features to compel me to upgrade.

I'm waiting for the 5G iPhones in 2020, now THAT will finally be a worthy upgrade feature.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Sigh, this pieces of news get spread and judging understanding and reading comprehension from the previous Qualcomm post a lot of people will think " OH NO, it was battery replacement that causes Apple's revenue drop."

Out of a 200M+ of iPhone 6 / 6s, only 5% of them had a battery replacement. That leaves 95% of possible user upgrade. Revenue misses has absolutely NOTHING to do with battery replacement programme.

And given the amount of waiting time for replacement in Apple Store, I am surprise they only managed 11M.

If 10 million users didn’t upgrade, that would account for the entire amount of the guidance revenue miss.

 

[azentropy]

That is much lower than I thought. More people should have took advantage of it. Maybe they were like me who took my nieces 6s that battery completely died (even though I nagged her for months to just take it in). When I took it in after she upgraded Apple basically refused to process it for just a battery upgrade since it wouldn't power on at all that it had to go through a different procedure and would have to send it in rather than do the battery on-site on most likely they weren't going to cover it. So I ended up swapping out the battery myself (less than $9 on eBay) and it works great!

I'll use it as a backup and probably when I go to the gym so I don't have to carry and @#$@#$ing dongle to switch out from listening to it versus plugging into the treadmill/elliptical to watch the TVs they have.

 

[gnipgnop]

LOL...the tech media STILL doesn't understand that it isn't just "degraded" batteries that can have voltage issues. Apple even spelled it out and it's continuing to be misreported.

Any lithium ion battery used by any smartphone brand can have voltage supply issues if:

A. The battery is degraded
B. The battery is exposed to low temperatures
C. The battery is at low charge

Note that 2 out of those 3 scenarios do not require a degraded battery. They can happen with a brand new battery, which is one of the reason why people rushing out to get a new battery to avoid voltage problems is essentially a waste of time unless their battery is already EOL.

 

[Glockworkorange]

Better to spend $1,000 on a new phone then $79 on a new battery? Odd decision.

$1,0000.00 versus $80.00 or $29.00 assumes a several things. But I am most interested in how 11 million people heard of the replacement program.

It's easy's for people like us---we follow this stuff. But for people like my mom, or people who don't know what OLED and P3 color gamut is---how did they learn of the program? It's not like Apple ran an ad campaign. Facebook sharing and other social media?

 

[Mr. Dee]

I spent the $29 and got mine replaced in 6s and I have to honest, but I don’t see what difference it made. Battery life is still bad and the fact that I keep it mostly on Wi-Fi concerns. It’s like they took it to the back and never did anything.

 

[needsomecoffee]

I never understood the controversy. Apple made a decision to slow phones down in order to preserve battery life and prevent unexpected shutdown, they got found out and, to my mind, implemented an unnecessary $29 battery replacement program when they easily could have reversed the software throttle and told people if you need a new battery it's $79. This was all in an effort to make their phones last longer. Lesson learned from Apple I guess, I would not be surprised if the iPhone 6 or even the 6s was on the chopping block for next year as far as software updates as a result. Apple is after all a business who wants to make money.

Missed a few points that may apply:
1) Apple refused to replace batteries when customers asked.
2) Apple designed Genius diagnostics to not fully report all battery issues in support of (1)
3) Apple never explained why older phones suddenly had problems with new OS.
4) Customers interacting with Apple re: issues 1&2&3 were advised buy new phones.

There are a lot of baseless class action lawsuits, but the one formed because of this policy appears to have merit. Would be nice to have it go to trial and see when discovery has wrought, but that is likely to never happen. Anyone thinking that a large corporation could not purposefully design such an approach has not spent much time in a large corporation's meetings regarding managing product features, installed based, and future revenues.

 

[cube]

This program was not widely advertised, at least overseas.