Apple to Offer $29 iPhone Battery Replacements, More Battery Health Info in iOS

[cmaier]

Since it's variable how can you even say that?

How can you deny it?

 

[Mescagnus]

But that is ********. My iPhone 6 plus is nearly brand new. Its battery is on 79 of 500 cycles. Still the performance is REALLY piss poor with the iOS 11 update. So Apple should stop the lies about "phones with old batteries". This is obviously them wanting me to buy a new iPhone.

It could also very well be that there is a problem with your particular iPhone and it has nothing to do with the battery, or iOS 11 in general.

Have you tried a clean install of iOS 11? I'd start with that. If the 6 Plus was still piss poor after that, I'd take it in for diagnostics & repair.

 

[Altis]

How many instances of this are there and would Apple even replace the battery in that case?

So far users report that Apple often will not replace the battery if it's over 80% health even if you're willing to pay for it. Yet they still report throttled performance (via Geekbench tests).

 

[Stella]

One masterful decisive solution to this "issue" and Apple again shows why they are the most admired company in the world today.

Charging people less for battery replacements is not "masterful", its a foreseeable, obvious option.

 

[Defthand]

There was no deception.

Customer’s aging battery isn’t able to meet routine usage demands. Apple covertly inserts power management software to make battery capacity appear normal. Compromises performance anyway. Denies throttling. Doesn’t inform customer of option to replace battery. In fact, discourages replacement of batteries not meeting Apple’s criteria for replacement.

Yeah, I’d say that’s the definition of deception.

 

[neutralguy]

Very, very clever.

Still doesnt tackle the issue though does it?

They can't turn this throttling "feature" off and they have just admitted it.

They won't because that pushes people to buy new hardware. Apple is assuming that in a year or so people will forget the batterygate! Or they will fudge the battery status app to show you that the battery is perfect.

 

[CWallace]

It was in the release notes and on the battery page and Apple did a press release and an interview with popular tech blogs about it. What else do you want?

Then why is everyone - including Apple - acting like this was a stealth change? We should have known about it a full year ago when 10.2.1 dropped and I would expect with all this supposed coverage somebody would have tested it then so it should not have only been discovered now.

 

[hayden1250]

Don’t get me wrong, I like Apple, but they stuffed up. Transparency with customers is critical, especially when it comes to the performance of a product.

 

[satchmo]

This battery replacement should be $19 and permanent.

 

[thefredelement]

How can you deny it?

Here's some food for you

If an iPhone 6 was advertised as x times faster than iPhone 5s, which didn't suffer from this problem, but the 6's battery is degraded and the device is throttled as a result then Apple has made a false claim.

 

[Baymowe335]

Thanks to the negative media coverage, Apple have been forced to react.

Had this all never blown up, Apple would have never have offered this.

Don't mistake this for good customer service, this has forced Apple's hand.

May this be a lesson to Apple: be more transparent in the future, rather than denial.

Everything is about how you handle a situation. They did the right thing. They could have been a lot more stubborn or offered a much less helpful solution.

 

[LovingTeddy]

So why are you posting about this on an Apple forum? Eh?

Because there is thing called freedom of speech? You think people should only prasing Apple on Apple forum?

I had iPhone all the way until iPhone 6S... And now I am Android permanently. Loving my Huawei and Xiaomi phone

 

[DNichter]

I don’t think this was needed at all as most logical people can see why they did this. I do feel that she should have been a bit more transparent about the issue, but I understand why they weren’t. People are irrational. Either way, good on them for doing something to help those who felt wronged about the issue. They certainly didn’t have to and it shows what kind of company Apple is.

 

[Baymowe335]

That's inaccurate characterization. It's a dispute between Apple shareholders like you and consumers. While I am sorry that you are going to lose a few bucks on your investment, please stop telling the consumers how great your company is when they screw up.

I’m both a customer and shareholder.

I didn’t lose anything...they will manage this well and the market doesn’t care about a few hundred million dollars one way or the other.

I commend Apple for offering a quick and fair solution to a problem their customers believe is important. They want you to be happy even if for no other reason than to buy a new iPhone.

You can bet they’ll turn a few of these battery replacements into new phone sales.

 

[Phonephreak]

Had it not bean for individuals on reddit, this would still be continuing. How is this customer service number 1 , when they got caught red handed and this is a damage control move.... a temp price reduction ? I believe apple still needs to run tests to determine if your battery needs changing

They made a mistake. Their answer is perfect. This is what it should cost to replace battery. I’m sure there is profit in a $29 replacement.

 

[jmarttu24]

Should still be free....cheap f$$ks! Apple is the next BP

 

[Stella]

Everything is about how you handle a situation. They did the right thing. They could have been a lot more stubborn or offered a much less helpful solution.

Oh, absolutely, they have now done the right thing and thats a positive.

BUT - If Apple had offered "good customer service", things would have never have gone so far, Apple would have acknowledged such issues earlier instead of waiting for things to blow up.

 

[Abs_p]

I wonder how many iPhone repair shops will be out of business due to the lower battery repair costs and not being able to compete with Apple. Kind of sucks for them.

 

[thefredelement]

Does anyone know if the decreased performance is still an issue if the device is plugged in?

 

[Phonephreak]

This is just a temporary band aid price break and not a fix. Until Apple fix the problem with a higher quality and higher capacity battery that lasts more than one year you'll be paying a recurring annual fee to replace your battery. $29 price only applies to 2018 but goes back up to $79 every year thereafter.

While not the perfect fix. It does fix the problem.

 

[ghostface147]

I wonder what the turnaround time will be. Some people may not have a backup phone they can use. I'm sure it can be in store, but if they are overwhelmed, it may be day or so.

 

[xmonkey]

Anyone who thinks Apple did this as some gesture of goodwill is naive. They know there are problems with the batteries in those phones on a large scale and they got caught. This isn't normal lithium-ion behavior and it's ******** to suggest otherwise. If it was, Apple wouldn't be doing this. The 6S replacement program was just them showing their hand a little bit. The class-action should bear this out.

They're the richest company in the world, don't reward Apple by paying them for something they screwed up.

 

[bobdc6]

"it would never "intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades."

Maybe not, but why didn't Apple make it clear that iPhone shutdowns may be the result of an old battery? Why didn't Apple make it clear that they were slowing the speed of iPhones with old batteries? Why didn't Apple describe this feature in their description of the OS upgrade containing this feature? Why didn't Apple provide a visual battery warning as part of this feature?

Why didn't Apple tell their Geniuses about this feature?

 

[Euroamerican]

I presume you’ll enjoy your speedy home button responsiveness when bugs in the old version of the OS result in all your data being pwnd by some guy in Belarus.

I'm not talking about slightly slower performance, I'm talking overall functionality. Slower is one thing, but you are seeing people in this thread talking about lack of actual functionality. My thought is that they should patch old versions for longer amounts of time, maybe a year longer than they currently are. No new functionality or features expected, just support for existing functionality. Want the features of a new OS that your old phone doesn't really support well, don't force an upgrade to me that junks my old phone. Tell me to buy an upgrade.

I personally don't have an issue with the IOS 11 upgrade and actually like it better, except the significantly lower battery life. Battery was performance with 10 was fine, with 11, NOT.

My iPad 3 is on an older OS, 9.whatver. I don't expect them to patch that one, but if you are Apple and you pushed 10 to it, you should patch 10. They didn't for the iPad 3. That good.

 

[Nor10]

Did you not read what Apple wrote? Initially they thought the slower performance was due to software upgrades and bugs. They’re saying they now believe batteries could also be a contributing factor. Before this letter people were complaining that Apple was engaged in planned obsolecense and wasn’t alerting them that their battery might need to be replaced. Now people are claiming Apple is falsely blaming the problem on the battery to drive battery sales. Make up your mind would ya?

Your Point is Not Clear...the Problem is Apple...has made it a battery issue...it isn't...they are double talking...Not the consumer complaints...In the history of iPhones; this has never occurred. People accept batteries will deteriorate over time. But in this case Apple without any basis has Claimed all of our phone batteries are bad and "purposely" slowed our phones down even lower than original performance specs" to compensate for both poor code and forced upgrades. In the final analysis this will be proved accurate. Meanwhile...Apple Screwed the Apple Community...short term and the long term....