Apple Says $29 Battery Replacements Are One-Per-iPhone When Device Passes Diagnostic Test

[RWil85]

So basically you get the first one with a discount, then you pay the usual price unless the battery is bad.
Makes sense to me. The important thing is being able to replace the battery for $29 at least once even if their diagnostic test says the battery is fine. I'm planning to change my dad's iPhone 6 battery later this year, it isn't really bad but the phone is more than 3 years old and it ought to have more than 1000 cycles. By replacing the battery the phone will continue to work with a decent battery life for at least another 3 years

It's almost shocking to read through comments on posts such as these and find one that's coherent and rational. kudos to you, sir.

I'm thinking the same way - it's more than fair and I don't think I could ever level with someone prepared to find something wrong with this.

 

[JediZenMaster]

I didn't think Apple would find a way to make this worse, yet they did.

Say what? The only folks who have this worse are those who want a lifetime of battery replacements or free stuff.

I think it’s awesome they are replacing the batteries but to expect this year after year is silly and if it has to be replaced every year that means your phone has other issues going on.

I bet violin sales are going to skyrocket this year!

 

[Puddled]

Has Apple announced the intent to make the power management options visible, with toggles so users can opt to use them or not? Put in a new battery is nice but if the same stuff comes back into play a little further down the road, wouldn't we rather have the option of flipping a toggle in iOS instead of having to then buy a new battery over and over? I would.

Proactive Note (to the defenders/apologists): such an option forces nothing on you. If Apple has it exactly right "as is" from your perspective, the OPTIONAL toggle(s) for OTHERS to flip or not flip would have zero effect on your experience.

Spot on.

Apple WONT provide an option. Thet can't. The warranty returns and reputation damage of millions of iphone tripping out with the prematurely aged batteries would be huge.

Hence the lawsuits obviously.

 

[citysnaps]

Makes sense. A reasonable policy.

 

[gnipgnop]

The important thing is being able to replace the battery for $29 at least once even if their diagnostic test says the battery is fine.

As long as you remember that the only thing you're going to gain in that situation is capacity, not performance. The max voltage, nominal voltage, and the way voltage drops during discharge won't be any different in a brand new battery as in an 85% capacity battery.

 

[PG(Austin)]

thanks, I was about to ask that. Bummer, just replaced mine 2 months ago with 3rd party.

I did too but at an Apple store with an Apple battery...I would just like a $50 refund.

 

[jclardy]

I didn't think Apple would find a way to make this worse, yet they did.

I mean...this is likely just in place to stop resellers from going in and getting a bunch of replacements for $29 so when the price goes back to normal they can undercut them with official battery replacements...

 

[Rocketman]

Apple says iPhone batteries are designed to retain up to 80 percent of their original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles, and this is likely the primary benchmark for its diagnostic test, but results may vary.

This further emphasizes my repeated call for larger capacity batteries in iPhones since the beginning. Higher capacity directly results in fewer charge cycles and thus a longer duration of normal use in terms of weeks of device age.

 

[Puddled]

Is this the same diagnostic test that has previously passed batteries that were bad enough for the phone to throttle?

 

[Abazigal]

Has Apple announced the intent to make the power management options visible, with toggles so users can opt to use them or not? Put in a new battery is nice but if the same stuff comes back into play a little further down the road, wouldn't we rather have the option of flipping a toggle in iOS instead of having to then buy a new battery over and over? I would.

Proactive Note (to the defenders/apologists): such an option forces nothing on you. If Apple has it exactly right "as is" from your perspective, the OPTIONAL toggle(s) for OTHERS to flip or not flip would have zero effect on your experience.

You still don’t get it. A toggle doesn’t make sense from Apple’s perspective because this isn’t something most consumers are going to have enough information on to make an informed decision about whether they want to prioritise stability or performance.

The whole point of Apple is that they take the tough choices out of the hands of the consumers and we trust them to make the right decisions for us. And as with any singular decision forced upon its users, some people are going to be on the losing end more than others. But this works for many users because for them, the decision made by Apple is going to better than whatever they end up making anyways, and they save themselves the time and hassle of agonising over which decision to make.

If you don’t like this “my way or the highway” attitude of Apple, then maybe the Apple ecosystem isn’t the right one for you. It’s like going to a French restaurant and complaining that they don’t serve cheeseburgers.

 

[Krio]

As long as you remember that the only thing you're going to gain in that situation is capacity, not performance. The max voltage, nominal voltage, and the way voltage drops during discharge won't be any different in a brand new battery as in an 85% capacity battery.

The max voltage won't change, but the nominal and voltage drop under load will absolutely change for the better with a new battery.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

I didn't think Apple would find a way to make this worse, yet they did.

You expect them to give you $30 batteries, on demand, every day if you feel like it?

 

[fmillion]

Wow, I'm surprised people honestly are upset about this.

If the battery is rated for 500 cycles, you'd have to use your phone to nearly dead almost twice every single day to exhaust the cycles in one year. While I'm sure there are some people out there who do that, I'd guess in those cases you'd qualify for a second replacement based on diagnostics anyway.

The people I think Apple probably should help are those who did a 3rd-party replacement because of this issue. It seems pretty unfortunate to say "This issue existed, you had to go to a third party to get it fixed for a reasonable cost, and now you don't qualify for the official fix." That is honestly the only thing I think they need to do with respect to these replacements.

Now as a nerd, I do want to see a performance graph in iOS, something like Windows task manager or Activity Monitor. The only thing I believe Apple did wrong here was not being transparent - it would have been feasible to release a tech article saying "We've identified a problem where older iPhones are shutting down due to battery wear; to address this we're giving you a way to monitor device performance over time and we'll replace any phone battery for a reasonable cost that shows clear degradation in the performance charting (not battery stats)."

However, I think one thing most people forget is that anyone who "consistently sees their benchmark scores going low even though Apple says it's only temporary" must remember that during benchmarking, you are putting the phone under stress - the exact condition that kicks in the throttling. So yes, if you Geekbench an old iPhone twenty times in a twenty hour period, you'll see a low score all twenty times. That doesn't mean you're being throttled all the time nor does it mean it's permanent.

 

[bmark]

This policy is bs and will cause them to lose loyal customers. I never asked Apple to throttle my device but they did it without any notice. It will be interesting to see if they charge me $29 or $79 when the replacement batteries are in stock. I’m not paying $79 to unthrottle my iPhone and might jump ship if that happens.

 

[nt5672]

I still don't get why apple gets to choose who can get a battery replaced and who can't. even when it was at full price they would turn people away..... shoot if I'm paying for it just replace it Apple some people don't want to wait for a crap battery to replace it and have the means to do so before then........

Yep. Apple should just price the replacement based on cost and quit trying to tell people they are idiots, by refusing to sell them a replacement battery. We need to end the nanny state.

 

[617660]

You still don’t get it. A toggle doesn’t make sense from Apple’s perspective because this isn’t something most consumers are going to have enough information on to make an informed decision about whether they want to prioritise stability or performance.

The whole point of Apple is that they take the tough choices out of the hands of the consumers and we trust them to make the right decisions for us. And as with any singular decision forced upon its users, some people are going to be on the losing end more than others. But this works for many users because for them, the decision made by Apple is going to better than whatever they end up making anyways, and they save themselves the time and hassle of agonising over which decision to make.

If you don’t like this “my way or the highway” attitude of Apple, then maybe the Apple ecosystem isn’t the right one for you. It’s like going to a French restaurant and complaining that they don’t serve cheeseburgers.

iOS has toggles for everything, just have a look at the Setting app.

Consumer will have no problem understanding what this yet-to-be-implemented toggle will do to the device.

Unless by implementing this toggle, consumer who opts for "performance" would experience an unusually high rate of unexpected shutdown. Therefore, exposing Apple to defective battery and warranting a recall. That would be a good solid reason not to implement it.

But not for a very good reason in case you missed the sarcasm.

 

[ackmondual]

AFAIK, it's too much work and effort for an Apple store to replace batteries even for the standard $79 (not enough margins I presume), never mind that pushing you to upgrade to a new device also seems to be the ulterior motive, hence the "once per phone" clause. OTOH, I never knew Apple could get THIS restrictive on the services you'd like to get on your Apple products

 

[Burger Thing]

A 3000 mAh battery Lithium battery can be bought online for around 4 USD these days. Just in case if you were wondering if the 79 USD are reasonable. Thanks.

 

[griffd]

I didn't think Apple would find a way to make this worse, yet they did.

It makes perfect sense to me, in order to prevent abuse of the program. I can see *******s taking advantage of the program otherwise.

 

[PG(Austin)]

Yes thats because the whole thing became a witch hunt. People are mistakingly thinking that the normal performance drop with every new more demanding iOS update is linked to this.

Your phone will perform overall slower after a few years regardless of your battery health.

iOS itself becomes more demanding and both things are being thrown into the same hat.

You can't expect a three year old phone to run as smoothly as 2-3 iOS versions ago.

I totally disagree. The OS sent to an iPhone 6 is not the same one sent to an iPhone X. The X has stuff the 6 doesn't since the hardware is different so the files will be specific. Otherwise, why would there be a point at which the iOS can't be upgraded? When the OS reaches a point old hardware can no longer use it, the updates stop. I don't have first hand knowledge or technical knowledge about iOS but I would think the 6 would only update the OS with a version that is compatible with its hardware and capabilities and not just load crap it couldn't use. That's just not how updates/upgrades work. After changing my battery at an Apple store in my 6, it was almost like new again. Before that, I could not get it to last more than 2-4 hours reporting random battery percentages and doing certain tasks would cause the phone to shut off.

To say we can't expect a device to run as good on a NEW OS as it did on an OLD OS is just BS. It should run better or the same. The hardware inside doesn't know it's out dated!

 

[RWil85]

A 3000 mAh battery Lithium battery can be bought online for around 4 USD these days. Just in case if you were wondering if the 79 USD are reasonable. Thanks.

I wouldn’t want to stand within 20 feet of said Battery.

 

[gnipgnop]

The max voltage won't change, but the nominal and voltage drop under load will absolutely change for the better with a new battery.

Only if the battery being removed is already at EOL. Otherwise, the only thing that will change is capacity. The reason lithium ion is so popular is because of how predictable it is for voltage prior to the need for replacement.

 

[Onexy]

Only if the battery being removed is already at EOL. Otherwise, the only thing that will change is capacity. The reason lithium ion is so popular is because of how predictable it is for voltage prior to the need for replacement.

So what is wrong with Apple's batteries that their phones shut down way before expected EOL?

 

[Ledsteplin]

Has Apple announced the intent to make the power management options visible, with toggles so users can opt to use them or not? Put in a new battery is nice but if the same stuff comes back into play a little further down the road, wouldn't we rather have the option of flipping a toggle in iOS instead of having to then buy a new battery over and over? I would.

Proactive Note (to the defenders/apologists): such an option forces nothing on you. If Apple has it exactly right "as is" from your perspective, the OPTIONAL toggle(s) for OTHERS to flip or not flip would have zero effect on your experience.

You can always use Low Power Mode. It does the same thing.

 

[Burger Thing]

I wouldn’t want to stand within 20 feet of said Battery.

And yet you are holding it less than an inch away from your face.