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

[NT1440]

I discovered a good deal of the batteries coming in for replacement with performance management applied were still above the 80%+ FCC threshold that Apple uses to determine whether a battery was worn out or not. Around 82-83%, however some were higher than that. Around 88% was the highest I saw.

Cycle counts were in the several hundred, around 300-500 was common, but not unexpected for a phone battery and still below Apple's threshold for a consumed battery.

I don't have much confidence in these batteries. They're nowhere near the worst, but certainly not the best. Spec wise they're adequate when new, but don't have much room for variances in those specs, such as when the battery wears in (but before it's considered worn out).

That battery % says nothing about a battery’s ability to deliver peak output. If you’re outside in the cold (it’s winter after all) you can have a battery that’s seemingly fine but the cold will inhibit its performance.

That’s actually how I discovered the “throttling”. Previous to the update that introduced the function my phone would shut off all the time when it drained below 50% charge as I was out for an hour or two walk in the winter. Then the update came and low and behold I could just keep walking because my podcasts weren’t suddenly cut off from the phone dying. I thought it was great, then I came to MR where joy comes to die.

That health number is not a wholistic reference, merely an extremely dumbed down approximation.

 

[KPandian1]

Can’t believe this comment got so many likes.

Apple’s only mistake was trying to apply a software fix to address a hardware issue, but sure, I guess framing it as an attempt to screw their users over to force upgrades is better for garnering views and clicks.

I guess Apple should have just let those iPhones randomly reboot. Users would still have upgraded, and Apple would have saved themselves all that negative press.

Why are you apologizing for Apple?

 

[Rob_2811]

Can’t believe this comment got so many likes.

Apple’s only mistake was trying to apply a software fix to address a hardware issue, but sure, I guess framing it as an attempt to screw their users over to force upgrades is better for garnering views and clicks.

I guess Apple should have just let those iPhones randomly reboot. Users would still have upgraded, and Apple would have saved themselves all that negative press.

Thanks for pointing it out, gave it another one.

 

[KPandian1]

I mean, let's not overstate it. There are likely over 1B active iPhones and they replaced batteries on 11M, or ~1%. This was also in all of 2018, not just Q4.

You diminished the problem with a statistic and inflated it with the same one!

 

[C DM]

Why are you apologizing for Apple?

Is everything somehow simply black or white or good or bad with nothing in between?

 

[KPandian1]

Assess what? The effect of your straw man argument?

A "Punchline" is your counter for a reasoned debate?
[doublepost=1547602760][/doublepost]

They do.
[doublepost=1547568591][/doublepost]
Typical tinfoil hat comment.

And, again ...
[doublepost=1547602997][/doublepost]

Because you attribute your own thoughts to what was said in a poor attempt at a straw man argument.

Once again ... (smh)
[doublepost=1547603223][/doublepost]

Actually they’re piña coladas. We sip them on the beach. You know, those sandy beaches we’re head over heals about.

Please, go have an actual Pina Colada; bombed will explains these posts.

 

[Rob_2811]

Is everything somehow simply black or white or good or bad with nothing in between?

Of course not. Exactly why Apples explanation shouldn't be taken as gospel.

 

[Abazigal]

Why are you apologizing for Apple?

I am not. I call it as I see it and I simply don’t feel that Apple deserves all this criticism and vitriol that is being levelled at it.

 

[C DM]

Of course not. Exactly why Apples explanation shouldn't be taken as gospel.

That's not quite what that relates to, nor does it mean that someone who can have a different take on somehow just needs an extremist label of one sort or another.

 

[I7guy]

This is another attempt to totally ignore the fact that the iPhone in it's current state and price isn't competitive anymore. Tim can come up with batteries, people holding longer before upgrading or whatever assumption he has in his pipeline...

Completely subjective.

Apple has got out of touch with reality. That's the problem.

After Mobile World Congres in februari, this problem will be even bigger!

The bigger problem is the churn within the android community, especially away from Samsung as android phones are delivering 90% of the value at 60% of the price.

My opinion is there will not be that much churn from the iPhone.
[doublepost=1547604790][/doublepost]

I’d rather listen to the tin foil hat wearers than stick my head in the sand with the ostriches. The former are intuitive, while the latter are victims.

Personally I buy what I like and want.

And “the former are subjective...” is the way it should read.

 

[Ramchi]

Just imagine what would have been the situation if there is user replaceable batteries in the mobiles, especially in iPhones!

 

[trifid]

I am not. I call it as I see it and I simply don’t feel that Apple deserves all this criticism and vitriol that is being levelled at it.

40-70% CPU speed reduction hidden under "better performance management" doesn't deserve criticism? Exposure of this fiasco helped save 11 million iPhones, and it was 7 billion "lost" in profits. That's all you need to know on how severe and important this was.

A couple of facts that tend to get lost too:

1. Apple banned apps on the app store that tried to provide battery health, not only that but Apple never made any effort to provide battery health themselves until this whole thing exploded.

2. Apple genius tool in many cases provided a green light passing score for battery "health" even though there was throttling present.

 

[I7guy]

40-70% CPU speed reduction hidden under "better performance management" doesn't deserve criticism? Exposure of this fiasco helped save 11 million iPhones, and it was 7 billion "lost" in profits. That's all you need to know on how severe and important this was.

A couple of facts that tend to get lost too:

1. Apple banned apps on the app store that tried to provide battery health, not only that but Apple never made any effort to provide battery health themselves until this whole thing exploded.

2. Apple genius tool in many cases provided a green light passing score for battery "health" even though there was throttling present.

Apple could have handled this better no doubt. But the end game was not planned obsolescence as in the meme sense, IMO.

 

[KPandian1]

I am not. I call it as I see it and I simply don’t feel that Apple deserves all this criticism and vitriol that is being levelled at it.

It really depends on whether you were at the receiving end of a $750-900 new iPhone bill, for a battery issue that even at the full price of $80 is a lot of headache!

Then everything T Cook says sounds hallow - he did not step forward with an admission - he was exposed covering up the battery fiasco.

We like Apple products and use them - that doesn't mean we have to be silent when they lie to us!

 

[Defthand]

Just imagine what would have been the situation if there is user replaceable batteries in the mobiles, especially in iPhones!

Yes, imagine that. You know the option was on the table when Apple designed the first iPhone. In a perfect world, I’d give Apple the benefit of the doubt and say that they were prepared and willing to replace aged batteries in those early phones. I also imagine that the upgrade enthusiasm—and convenient subsidies—that occured with the early phones, preempted battery issues before they were a concern for many. But here we are, and owners were rudely impacted by spent batteries in phones held beyond the two year cycle. And how does Apple address the matter? Ask the plaintiffs in the numerous suits pending. Apple could have acknowledged the battery’s role and recommended battery replacements rather than resort to throttling and—more egregious—refuse battery service as a policy. [The battery is only one part of the equation. There’s likely something amiss with the power management chip as well; some phones with capable batteries were exhibiting the same performance symptoms].

Now, imagine if Apple had made battery service convenient. They may have sold fewer of the post-subsidies phones but they would have preserved their integrity. Instead, affected owners who upgraded unnecessarily, or simply despise being manipulated, will demand longer lasting batteries, or seek another brand.
[doublepost=1547609931][/doublepost]

…the end game was not planned obsolescence as in the meme sense, IMO.

It wasn’t planned obsolescence. It was abetted obsolescence.

 

[RedBear]

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.

For the millionth time, they were sued because they slowed our iPhones _secretly_. They were sued because rational iPhone owners naturally assumed that their suddenly slow iPhones were just getting too old to perform normally with the latest iOS update, and many wasted hundreds of dollars on a new iPhone when all they actually needed was a new battery. Which they would have known if Apple hadn't secretly slowed down the phone. No one has ever complained that they implemented a fix to keep our iPhones from shutting down. That was nice of them. What made it unacceptable was that they did it without telling anyone why the phone was slowing to a crawl.

And why did the phone need to slow down so drastically? Because the CPU was incorrectly specced and tried to draw too much current from the battery. Our iPhones were shutting off in cold weather even with 100% charge. It was a manufacturing defect to have a CPU that couldn't function with a slightly degraded but still "fully charged" battery. Implementing the fix in secret gave them the appearance of attempting to cover up a manufacturing defect to avoid implementing a battery replacement program. It gave the appearance of planned obsolescence.

If they had just implemented the fix openly and allowed it to be disabled by the user (the way it is implemented now), there never would have been grounds for any lawsuit. Everyone would be hailing Apple as heroes for being honest about the way they were extending the life of our beloved iPhones. But they didn't do that, and they received the consequences they deserved.

 

[Baymowe335]

You diminished the problem with a statistic and inflated it with the same one!

Both of my statements were simply facts. Sorry if you don’t like the reality.

 

[I7guy]

...
It wasn’t planned obsolescence. It was abetted obsolescence.

It wasn't any obsolescence.

 

[C DM]

And why did the phone need to slow down so drastically? Because the CPU was incorrectly specced and tried to draw too much current from the battery. Our iPhones were shutting off in cold weather even with 100% charge. It was a manufacturing defect to have a CPU that couldn't function with a slightly degraded but still "fully charged" battery. Implementing the fix in secret gave them the appearance of attempting to cover up a manufacturing defect to avoid implementing a battery replacement program. It gave the appearance of planned obsolescence.

Curious, where does the manufacturer defect aspect of it all comes from.

 

[Tork]

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

Yeah, that's pretty much what I did before this. Many people upgrade yearly and can afford a $1k phone. You do, obviously, get more than just a new battery for your $1k. But I'm not sure I would've thought to replace the battery if it weren't for the well publicized $29 program, and it forced me to think about whether I really need to upgrade given the only ding against my X was the slight but real (~1-2 hour) reduction in battery life. And that's fixed now. That's why it was an odd decision on Apple's part (looking at it from a business perspective) to promote replacing the battery on such a new phone by pricing it so aggressively.

So you're saying that had you not replaced the battery under the program, that you'd have chosen to spend >$1000 on a new phone this year instead of opting to just spend $79 (or whatever full price is on a X battery) to replace your degrading battery and make your VERY POWERFUL, VERY MODERN iPhone X "new again"?

I think we've reached a point where it makes sense to just replace the battery after a year or two (or three or four, depending on your needs) as phones now have more performance than we need and still perform well for many years.

Well, it's not ">$1000," -- more like $500 when factoring in resale of the X. I value the new features (mainly the better camera) at maybe $300-$400 for me. That $50 I didn't have to spend on the battery is significant when the difference in cost and value of an upgrade is only $100-$200 (for me).

But I agree. This whole mess brings to light how much sense it makes for most people to keep phones for multiple years and replace the battery instead. We've reached that point. Performance is going to be ridiculously fast for multiple years. Wasn't the case before, when performance meaningfully increased from year to year.

12% drop in capacity for a one year old iPhone X is considered defective or at best engineered for obsolescence to force early upgrade.

I use it heavily throughout the day, and I don't know -- a 12% drop in 13 months seems reasonable, no? Maybe not, but that seems about what I'd expect for a phone used heavily for over a year.

 

[Radon87000]

In the alternative, what was the solution to a phone that would randomly shut off?

Inform the user that the battery is the issue and not stay silent otherwise the user would just upgrade to a newer phone as by the time it’s randomly shutting down the phone is old and common misconception is old things break.

 

[Bacillus]

Assess what? The effect of your straw man argument?

The positive side of things is that with this kind of defense, there’s very little opposition needed.
(like some of the greater minds calling a 450bn stock tank a “yo-yo” effect)
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I don’t believe Apple was trying to handicap existing phones and encourage upgrades with its patch. That outcome would have occurred naturally with units that had defective power management chips. Apple was trying to disguise such a defect because the cost of another product recall would have been costly even to their reputation. The software patch was meant to disguise a hardware defect or flaw with the power management chip. It was not a fix! Otherwise, performance would have returned to a normal baseline!

This isn’t to say that Apple isn’t complicit in forcing unnecessary hardware upgrades. They have been silent about the battery’s role in performance degradation since the phone’s inception. They routinely refused battery replacements to suspecting customers. They refuse to sell OEM batteries to third party parts and repair services.

Apple deserves respect for its engineering prowess, but its character has suffered enormously during the company’s growth. Lawyers and bean counters are running the show.

I think you hit the nail on the head.
Apple’s negative connotation as moneytanker made something not intrinsically bad - look bad
(i.e. Cook miscalculating his secrecy image and getting suspect of all kinds of “covert” actions)
The irony is that he could have prevented this scandal with some more transparency and a configurable UX.
But it grew into a conspiration thing against Apple that couldn’t be debounced anymore, forcing him to the battery replacement program that made sales plummet a quarter to a year.

We should really rethink this world - now that evading the natural degradation of lithium can bring a major thread to this industry.
[doublepost=1547629872][/doublepost]

It wasn't any obsolescence.

I think for most people (with an exception of your meticulously aberrant stance) subscribe to the notion that lithium batteries tend to degrade an Apple was trying to avoid that effect.
So the original poster was right with abetted obsolescence and your non-improvement is another sign of redundancy

 

[honglong1976]

9-10 million iPhone sales lost because people changed the battery rather than upgrade their phone

 

[Reason077]

Poor sales of the XS and XR can't be blamed entirely on the battery replacement programme. Apple needs to acknowledge that pricing has been pushed upwards too aggressively in recent years, while at the same time competing Android devices have gotten more and more compelling.

Unless Apple can compete better at the lower end (ie: a cheaper XR) they will continue to lose market share.

 

[slineaudi]

Then the update came and low and behold I could just keep walking because my podcasts weren’t suddenly cut off from the phone dying. I thought it was great, then I came to MR where joy comes to die.

LOL. Apple clearly worked out pros and cons of this update and knew the fix would, overall, delight their customers by fixing a nasty side effect of aging batteries at the expense of performance you would never even notice. It wasn't until folks read the word "throttled", or something, that triggering baseless rage. I just don't get how so many people can't image Apple really might be trying to do right by their customers. Of course they can't just give away new iPhones, but what they did do was a whole lot more than they needed to.