iPhone 15 Pro AppleCare battery replacement 80% or 79%

[FeliApple]

My battery was great too when it had that few cycles on it. Wait till it hits like 800. I promise you you’re going to be seeing dramatically lower battery life.

If you update iOS, sure. If you don’t, no.

iPhone 6s with 1400 cycles, 10 years, and health about 63%. Running iOS 10. Like-new battery life.

7-year-old iPhone Xʀ. iOS 12. Like-new battery life. I’ve never replaced a battery.

 

[HouseLannister]

If you update iOS, sure. If you don’t, no.

If you don't update your phone, it's just an MP3 player. No one should be getting on the internet or entering a password into anything on iOS 10 or 12. Security nightmare.

 

[jntdroid]

If you update iOS, sure. If you don’t, no.

iPhone 6s with 1400 cycles, 10 years, and health about 63%. Running iOS 10. Like-new battery life.

7-year-old iPhone Xʀ. iOS 12. Like-new battery life. I’ve never replaced a battery.

The luddite in me would like to believe you, but I have to call you out on "like-new" in both of those scenarios. There's simply no way. Unless you've just uncovered the largest scam/conspiracy by a company ever. 😉

 

[FeliApple]

The luddite in me would like to believe you, but I have to call you out on "like-new" in both of those scenarios. There's simply no way. Unless you've just uncovered the largest scam/conspiracy by a company ever. 😉

Well, I’ve been calling iOS updates malware since the beginning. The fact that they’re required for compatibility is the problem.

In any case, Apple might need it to drop to 79% first.

But it is like-new. I’ve tested the battery and unlike practically 100% of users, I have the original battery on the original version. It’s the same battery.

OP probably runs iOS 26, which is garbage, that’s why they’re seeing reduced (battery) performance.

 

[Macdctr]

As battery health begins to approach 83% I won’t worry too much about replacing the battery however once the battery health reaches 81% I will replace the battery in my device. I just performed a battery swap on my 15 Pro last month because its battery health reached 81%.

I now have a 3422 mAh battery providing my device with 105% battery health. Since my battery swap I now have 26 charge cycles on it. Since I have the Apple certified tools to do this type of work I change out my own batteries when I need to.

 

[Momof2.1107]

That means your battery health when new was probably a good 4% higher than the 4252 mAh minimum rated battery size when new. This is common but still a part of the battery lottery. Sometimes you get one that’s very close to the minimum rated size when new and sometimes it’s a good 4-5% higher. Both will still show 100%
Your battery is wearing normally, it just takes a lot more time to get to 99% because it’s starting from 104% counting down and not 100.

My launch day 17PM started off at 103%. I have 248 cycles with 98% battery health and mine hit 99% at 207 cycles.

 

[Christopher Kim]

To summarize, here's my understanding of the overall battery policy, in the US:

For iPhone:
- You can insist on getting your battery replaced, even if battery health is still above 80%
- However, you do have to pay the battery replacement fee (eg. even if you have AppleCare, you still have to pay the fee)
- It's possible some Apple sales/genius folks will try to give people a hard time (or dissuade us from doing so), or if you act overly entitled/make Apple employee not want to help you. But in general, you should be able to do this, either without issue, or if you insist/escalate to a manager

For Apple Watch and iPad:
- For these devices, they replace the whole device (with basically a certified refurb) rather than actually replace the battery...
- You must be <80% in their battery health diagnostics.
- You cannot say you'll just pay the battery replacement fee, as that fee is much lower than the cost of a refurb device. - Sometimes I wish it were different, as it's Apple's choice to make the iPad in a way where it's cheaper to just give a customer a new device rather than try to disassemble and replace the battery... But I get that probably too many people took advantage of this, so, they changed/enforced this policy at some point!

 

[Homme]

Apple will always allow a phone user to pay for a battery replacement. They changed this policy some years back after losing a lawsuit about it. Prior to that, they wouldn't replace any iPhone battery unless it was below 80%.

Exactly. I had an iPhone 13 which had 84% battery capacity and I changed that battery last year at an Apple Store only because I gave that phone to a dear friend of mine so he can get a better iPhone with a brand new battery

 

[Andeddu]

The luddite in me would like to believe you, but I have to call you out on "like-new" in both of those scenarios. There's simply no way. Unless you've just uncovered the largest scam/conspiracy by a company ever. 😉

It’s possibly true. Now that I think of it, handheld consoles such as my Nintendo Switch, Switch Lite and PS Vita Slim, are all very old now and have thousands of hours of use and yet the batteries perform almost as well as when they were new.

I might have lost 5% of the overall charge but it’s almost imperceptible compared to how much SoT is lost on Apple devices when iOS is updated.

 

[FeliApple]

It’s possibly true. Now that I think of it, handheld consoles such as my Nintendo Switch, Switch Lite and PS Vita Slim, are all very old now and have thousands of hours of use and yet the batteries perform almost as well as when they were new.

I might have lost 5% of the overall charge but it’s almost imperceptible compared to how much SoT is lost on Apple devices when iOS is updated.

People use a multitude of devices that are well over a decade old, yet iPhones are the only ones that repeatedly collapse due to “battery health”.

As I have stated elsewhere, I have 12-year-old Bluetooth speakers with like-new battery life, Bluetooth headphones which have been used a lot (7 years old), also like-new (literally timed with a stopwatch).

Nobody with a two-year-old Bluetooth speaker wants to replace a battery. If they do, it’s not due to battery life, it’s due to the absolute pollution that iOS’ battery health meter has caused.