$29 battery exchanges for iPhone 6 and newer now available at most Apple retail locations

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 81
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Chuckit said:
    The damage is done!  Steve is rolling in his grave.  Slippery slope has been a theme and will be from here on out. 
    Charlie Trexler 
    With so many people convinced that Steve is rolling in his grave on so many issues, he must be a whirling dervish by now!
    1) LOL

    2) It's funny how quick people seem to either forget the good or bad that a person or company has done. You'd be hard pressed to find a verifiable person or company that was effectively all in one column. Jobs had plenty of PR blunders ranging from bad product launches, bad products, real HW and SW quality issues, perceived HW and SW quality  issues, and even saying one thing just to have his words come back to not be true a short time later (which isn't very common with Cook).
    edited January 2018
  • Reply 62 of 81
    k2kwk2kw Posts: 2,075member
    Here's the thing, good lawyers only file a lawsuit when they have credible evidence worth presenting within a court setting. The fact that Apple responded prior to the court date with well, let's face facts, it's a "product recall", means that there is some merit to the court case filed. Still, leave it to Apple to still charge a customer $30 for a defective product repair. With an ego and bank account like Apple, it's smart to make customers pay for the repair.
    Change the battery when it’s used up. Just like in a car which can’t crank during winter anymore, or your tv remote. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
    Comparing car batteries to phone batteries is simply not the same and a lazy way to compare. For one, car companies don't go around throttling and slowing down car engines because they cannot.  Secondly, it wasn't what Apple did, it was how they did it!  Although, I can't agree with reasoning of whatever they did to slow down the phones.  Performance is VERY IMPORTANT to people, especially when their phones are getting OLDER, and they want to squeeze in a little extra time from their investment or maybe replace a battery if need be. You don't go around slowing down people's phones without telling them that you are slowing down their phones and how it might impact them, especially if it can render their whole device obsolete and useless prematurely, whatever reason you might have deemed noble and noteworthy in your mind.  This affected me personally, I couldn't understand at first why my Iphone 6 was dying prematurely and randomly at 90%, 80%, 70% and 44% etc., and then the performance got painfully slow to the point of freezing when not connected to the charger directly. Then it started happening to my friends and family.  It got extremely painful to launch simple everyday apps like Maps, Safari and Mail. And this was only after two years of owning the phone that I couldn't launch apps without extreme pain.
    To further expand, Apple wasn’t transparent about what they were doing, me and my friends and relatives have already plunked down thousands of dollars on new Iphones thinking that it was a processor issue, after all I had no reason to believe that replacing the battery would fix my performance issues.  Would you fix your tires if there was a leak in your roof? Of course not, you would fix the roof. Now multiply millions of confused and uninformed customers replacing their iPhones prematurely resulting in billions of dollars in additional revenues for Apple.  Do you still think that it was completely innocent on Apple’s part when they conveniently left out explaining the part about slowing down people's phones when they did it?  
    This is the textbook definition of "Planned Obsolescence." I take no joy in berating a company that I love, but if you are too naive to ask the tough questions, then let others do the asking who can be more subjective in the matter than be hostage to blind loyalty with distorted reasoning. 
    I don't think that this is planned obsolesce.   But it may be insurance fraud.   If anything thing the iPhone batteries in the 6 / 6s haven't performed as expected and caught them upgrading too many phones under Applecare.   So they decided to modify the OS to get the phone to limp past the two year mark.
    That's why Apple introduced the power efficient cores in the iPhone 7 and expanded to 4 lower power cores in the A11 on iPhone 8/8Plus/X.

    Unfortunately the lawsuits aren't likely to result in the public learning the whole truth.   We are more likely to get timely answers from a Congressional Committee investigation where Cook, Federighi, Ive, and Riccio would testify about what they knew.



    mike54argonaut
  • Reply 63 of 81
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    k2kw said:
    Here's the thing, good lawyers only file a lawsuit when they have credible evidence worth presenting within a court setting. The fact that Apple responded prior to the court date with well, let's face facts, it's a "product recall", means that there is some merit to the court case filed. Still, leave it to Apple to still charge a customer $30 for a defective product repair. With an ego and bank account like Apple, it's smart to make customers pay for the repair.
    Change the battery when it’s used up. Just like in a car which can’t crank during winter anymore, or your tv remote. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
    Comparing car batteries to phone batteries is simply not the same and a lazy way to compare. For one, car companies don't go around throttling and slowing down car engines because they cannot.  Secondly, it wasn't what Apple did, it was how they did it!  Although, I can't agree with reasoning of whatever they did to slow down the phones.  Performance is VERY IMPORTANT to people, especially when their phones are getting OLDER, and they want to squeeze in a little extra time from their investment or maybe replace a battery if need be. You don't go around slowing down people's phones without telling them that you are slowing down their phones and how it might impact them, especially if it can render their whole device obsolete and useless prematurely, whatever reason you might have deemed noble and noteworthy in your mind.  This affected me personally, I couldn't understand at first why my Iphone 6 was dying prematurely and randomly at 90%, 80%, 70% and 44% etc., and then the performance got painfully slow to the point of freezing when not connected to the charger directly. Then it started happening to my friends and family.  It got extremely painful to launch simple everyday apps like Maps, Safari and Mail. And this was only after two years of owning the phone that I couldn't launch apps without extreme pain.
    To further expand, Apple wasn’t transparent about what they were doing, me and my friends and relatives have already plunked down thousands of dollars on new Iphones thinking that it was a processor issue, after all I had no reason to believe that replacing the battery would fix my performance issues.  Would you fix your tires if there was a leak in your roof? Of course not, you would fix the roof. Now multiply millions of confused and uninformed customers replacing their iPhones prematurely resulting in billions of dollars in additional revenues for Apple.  Do you still think that it was completely innocent on Apple’s part when they conveniently left out explaining the part about slowing down people's phones when they did it?  
    This is the textbook definition of "Planned Obsolescence." I take no joy in berating a company that I love, but if you are too naive to ask the tough questions, then let others do the asking who can be more subjective in the matter than be hostage to blind loyalty with distorted reasoning. 
    I don't think that this is planned obsolesce.   But it may be insurance fraud.   If anything thing the iPhone batteries in the 6 / 6s haven't performed as expected and caught them upgrading too many phones under Applecare.   So they decided to modify the OS to get the phone to limp past the two year mark.
    That's why Apple introduced the power efficient cores in the iPhone 7 and expanded to 4 lower power cores in the A11 on iPhone 8/8Plus/X.

    Unfortunately the lawsuits aren't likely to result in the public learning the whole truth.   We are more likely to get timely answers from a Congressional Committee investigation where Cook, Federighi, Ive, and Riccio would testify about what they knew.



    I keep hearing people say this. Why would we get this? What federal laws are broken? I can't find a single one.
  • Reply 64 of 81
    k2kw said:
    Unfortunately the lawsuits aren't likely to result in the public learning the whole truth. 
    I think the public needs to learn the truth about the relationship between voltage and the CPU in mobile batteries AND what the difference is between benchmarking software and standard applications first. Apple doesn't have anything to worry about in court. 
  • Reply 65 of 81
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member
    cgWerks said:
    StrangeDays said:
    I know they didn’t institute this battery extension technique to drive future phone replacements because that doesn’t make any sense. This should go without saying, but you don’t extend the useful lifespan of a thing that you secretly want people to get rid of and replace. No that’s just stupid. ...
    ...
    And I doubt they’re losing money on the replacements because Apple doesn’t sell things for a loss. A tech earning $20/hr could do several batteries in an hour, four seems reasonable, that’s $5. The remaining $24 seems to be enough to not lose money on the battery cost. 
    Well, a crashing phone, while it does prompt getting a new one, does hurt the brand. But, a prompt to fix the battery to regain speed also delays updating. So, middle ground... do it and don't tell anyone. The problem is, they got caught. They normally wouldn't lose money... but in this case they might, as it's damage control.

    BTW, when you run a business, the minimum you shoot for in terms of what an employee brings in for the company is roughly 3x... so if they are making $20/hr, they want to be earning Apple $60/hr minimum... so $60/4 = $15 as a more reasonable labor cost. Then there is overhead, etc., though the battery maybe only costs them a few dollars. Maybe they aren't losing money, but they are losing a lot of profit they'd have made at $79. This wasn't a planned or intended move.
    They didn't "get caught". You can't "get caught" improving the useful lifespan of a thing. Again -- you claimed this was costing them lost sales of new phones, and I said driving the sale of new phones has never been the aim of this power management feature so your claim makes no sense. It still doesnt. 

    As for labor costs, we aren't discussing the profit margin they or anyone hopes to earn. We're discussing your claim that this is costing them money, in particular because they must be doing these at a loss. Again, if the tech earns $20/hr then the 15 minute job has an actual cost of $5, leaving $24 for the actual cost of the battery. The only possible way they could be losing money is if the battery costs more than $24, which it does not. So again, it's clear they're not losing money on this, despite your going into unrelated topics such as how much they'd like to be earning.

  • Reply 66 of 81
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,834member

    Change the battery when it’s used up. Just like in a car which can’t crank during winter anymore, or your tv remote. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
    Comparing car batteries to phone batteries is simply not the same and a lazy way to compare. For one, car companies don't go around throttling and slowing down car engines because they cannot.  Secondly, it wasn't what Apple did, it was how they did it!  Although, I can't agree with reasoning of whatever they did to slow down the phones.  Performance is VERY IMPORTANT to people, especially when their phones are getting OLDER, and they want to squeeze in a little extra time from their investment or maybe replace a battery if need be. You don't go around slowing down people's phones without telling them that you are slowing down their phones and how it might impact them, especially if it can render their whole device obsolete and useless prematurely, whatever reason you might have deemed noble and noteworthy in your mind.  This affected me personally, I couldn't understand at first why my Iphone 6 was dying prematurely and randomly at 90%, 80%, 70% and 44% etc., and then the performance got painfully slow to the point of freezing when not connected to the charger directly. Then it started happening to my friends and family.  It got extremely painful to launch simple everyday apps like Maps, Safari and Mail. And this was only after two years of owning the phone that I couldn't launch apps without extreme pain.
    To further expand, Apple wasn’t transparent about what they were doing, me and my friends and relatives have already plunked down thousands of dollars on new Iphones thinking that it was a processor issue, after all I had no reason to believe that replacing the battery would fix my performance issues.  Would you fix your tires if there was a leak in your roof? Of course not, you would fix the roof. Now multiply millions of confused and uninformed customers replacing their iPhones prematurely resulting in billions of dollars in additional revenues for Apple.  Do you still think that it was completely innocent on Apple’s part when they conveniently left out explaining the part about slowing down people's phones when they did it?   

    This is the textbook definition of "Planned Obsolescence." I take no joy in berating a company that I love, but if you are too naive to ask the tough questions, then let others do the asking who can be more subjective in the matter than be hostage to blind loyalty with distorted reasoning. 
    Nope, you still don't understand what those words mean. This power management feature lengthened the useful lifespan of your device, not shortened it. That' the exact opposite of planned obsolescence. 

    As for your phone, it's hard to say what caused it to be slow. Merely being slow is not enough to claim it's because of this. Old hardware ALWAYS runs new software slower. That's how computing works and always has.
  • Reply 67 of 81
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    k2kw said:
    Here's the thing, good lawyers only file a lawsuit when they have credible evidence worth presenting within a court setting. The fact that Apple responded prior to the court date with well, let's face facts, it's a "product recall", means that there is some merit to the court case filed. Still, leave it to Apple to still charge a customer $30 for a defective product repair. With an ego and bank account like Apple, it's smart to make customers pay for the repair.
    Change the battery when it’s used up. Just like in a car which can’t crank during winter anymore, or your tv remote. Why is this so hard for you to understand?
    Comparing car batteries to phone batteries is simply not the same and a lazy way to compare. For one, car companies don't go around throttling and slowing down car engines because they cannot.  Secondly, it wasn't what Apple did, it was how they did it!  Although, I can't agree with reasoning of whatever they did to slow down the phones.  Performance is VERY IMPORTANT to people, especially when their phones are getting OLDER, and they want to squeeze in a little extra time from their investment or maybe replace a battery if need be. You don't go around slowing down people's phones without telling them that you are slowing down their phones and how it might impact them, especially if it can render their whole device obsolete and useless prematurely, whatever reason you might have deemed noble and noteworthy in your mind.  This affected me personally, I couldn't understand at first why my Iphone 6 was dying prematurely and randomly at 90%, 80%, 70% and 44% etc., and then the performance got painfully slow to the point of freezing when not connected to the charger directly. Then it started happening to my friends and family.  It got extremely painful to launch simple everyday apps like Maps, Safari and Mail. And this was only after two years of owning the phone that I couldn't launch apps without extreme pain.
    To further expand, Apple wasn’t transparent about what they were doing, me and my friends and relatives have already plunked down thousands of dollars on new Iphones thinking that it was a processor issue, after all I had no reason to believe that replacing the battery would fix my performance issues.  Would you fix your tires if there was a leak in your roof? Of course not, you would fix the roof. Now multiply millions of confused and uninformed customers replacing their iPhones prematurely resulting in billions of dollars in additional revenues for Apple.  Do you still think that it was completely innocent on Apple’s part when they conveniently left out explaining the part about slowing down people's phones when they did it?  
    This is the textbook definition of "Planned Obsolescence." I take no joy in berating a company that I love, but if you are too naive to ask the tough questions, then let others do the asking who can be more subjective in the matter than be hostage to blind loyalty with distorted reasoning. 
    I don't think that this is planned obsolesce.   But it may be insurance fraud.   If anything thing the iPhone batteries in the 6 / 6s haven't performed as expected and caught them upgrading too many phones under Applecare.   So they decided to modify the OS to get the phone to limp past the two year mark.
    That's why Apple introduced the power efficient cores in the iPhone 7 and expanded to 4 lower power cores in the A11 on iPhone 8/8Plus/X.

    Unfortunately the lawsuits aren't likely to result in the public learning the whole truth.   We are more likely to get timely answers from a Congressional Committee investigation where Cook, Federighi, Ive, and Riccio would testify about what they knew.



    What law did Apple break and how on earth could it ever be proven?
  • Reply 68 of 81
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    StrangeDays said:
    They didn't "get caught". You can't "get caught" improving the useful lifespan of a thing. Again -- you claimed this was costing them lost sales of new phones, and I said driving the sale of new phones has never been the aim of this power management feature so your claim makes no sense. It still doesnt. 

    As for labor costs, we aren't discussing the profit margin they or anyone hopes to earn. We're discussing your claim that this is costing them money, in particular because they must be doing these at a loss. Again, if the tech earns $20/hr then the 15 minute job has an actual cost of $5, leaving $24 for the actual cost of the battery. The only possible way they could be losing money is if the battery costs more than $24, which it does not. So again, it's clear they're not losing money on this, despite your going into unrelated topics such as how much they'd like to be earning.
    They got caught slowing performance to compensate for the battery.... which is a very good thing.... *if* people know about it so they can make an *informed decision* before they decide to upgrade vs repair.

    If your tech device feels slow... which are you more likely to do?
    A ) replace the battery
    B ) buy a newer model

    I' sure you'll find some fan-boy way of trying to talk around this, but you're simply being obtuse at this point.

    Yes, I'll grant you that they might not be running at a loss, if your estimates are accurate. They aren't making much either, and certainly not what they would have made (on repairs and/or upgrades) if this info hadn't surfaced. That was my main point, but I suppose I over-spoke in terms of actually losing money on the repair itself. Clear enough?

    StrangeDays said:
    Nope, you still don't understand what those words mean. This power management feature lengthened the useful lifespan of your device, not shortened it. That' the exact opposite of planned obsolescence. 
    Yes... BUT, if people feel this slowdown and conclude they must now need newer hardware, the end effect is the same. So, while the term isn't technically correct, one can see how it might be used to describe it.

    rogifan_new said:
    What law did Apple break and how on earth could it ever be proven?
    Yea, someone will have to spell it out, as I'm not getting it either. Really bad PR, yes. Illegal?
    edited January 2018 ClarityToSeemuthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 69 of 81
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    cgWerks said:
    I bet the marketing department now wishes they'd have just gone with the dialog box and $79 replacements. Now, they maybe even lose money at $29, plus new phone sales.
    they have been doing $79 battery replacements since the iPhone 4. 
  • Reply 70 of 81
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    foggyhill said:
    cgWerks said:
    I bet the marketing department now wishes they'd have just gone with the dialog box and $79 replacements. Now, they maybe even lose money at $29, plus new phone sales.
    It’s never been about driving new phone sales, so no, that is not a loss. I doubt they’re losing money on the battery either. 
    They're probably losing money on the battery exchange counting the huge crowds of replacers that will require new hires (so not to impact current services) 

    they aren't going to be hiring a bunch of folks to cover this anymore than they did with the iPhone 6s situation. People will have to deal with wait times etc. 


  • Reply 71 of 81
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Chuckit said:
    The damage is done!  Steve is rolling in his grave.  Slippery slope has been a theme and will be from here on out. 
    Charlie Trexler 

    With so many people convinced that Steve is rolling in his grave on so many issues, he must be a whirling dervish by now!
    He's like the Tasmanian Devil.
  • Reply 72 of 81
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    charlituna said:
    they have been doing $79 battery replacements since the iPhone 4. 
    Yes, but I'm guessing all but the most extreme cases didn't do it. Now people will, especially if they can get a performance gain.
  • Reply 73 of 81
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    cgWerks said:
    charlituna said:
    they have been doing $79 battery replacements since the iPhone 4. 
    Yes, but I'm guessing all but the most extreme cases didn't do it. Now people will, especially if they can get a performance gain.
    A lot of people were already doing it, just not using Apple to do it. You didn't notice all those cell phone shops offering $30-40 battery replacement before?
    Battery replacement has been something a lot of people I know where already doing.
  • Reply 74 of 81
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    mike54 said:
    I keep hearing people say this. Why would we get this? What federal laws are broken? I can't find a single one.
    OMG Is that really the way you judge behaviour from a corporation or even an individual, whether they broke a law or not? I expect a much higher standard of behaviour, and so should you, from corporations and individuals.
    You're missing the point; I hope. He's not discussing behaviour or what should be judged, he's directly replying to a comment about congressional hearings where Cook, Federighi, Ive, and Riccio would testify as to why Apple choose to keep their devices running instead of shutting down. You really think that's what Congress should be doing? And can you please explain to me what the fuck Ive would possibly know about electrical and battery engineering decision for older devices?
    muthuk_vanalingamMike Wuerthele
  • Reply 75 of 81
    Soli said:
    mike54 said:
    I keep hearing people say this. Why would we get this? What federal laws are broken? I can't find a single one.
    OMG Is that really the way you judge behaviour from a corporation or even an individual, whether they broke a law or not? I expect a much higher standard of behaviour, and so should you, from corporations and individuals.
    You're missing the point; I hope. He's not discussing behaviour or what should be judged, he's directly replying to a comment about congressional hearings where Cook, Federighi, Ive, and Riccio would testify as to why Apple choose to keep their devices running instead of shutting down. You really think that's what Congress should be doing? And can you please explain to me what the fuck Ive would possibly know about electrical and battery engineering decision for older devices?
    I guess people are blaming Ive for the size of the batteries in iPhones. Of course that’s nonsense. The idea that he has absolute power and can override engineering is ridiculous. I do wonder though if Apple needs to do a better job of taking into account how long these devices stay in use now and think about someone using the device 3,4,5 years later. Maybe at the time 1GB RAM was adequate for the iPhone 6 but what about 3-4 years later when it’s running the latest software? And what are the considerations for whether a device is eligible for the latest software? I know there are very good reasons for having as many people as possible on the latest software but if it really slows down a device is it worth it?
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 76 of 81
    Apple should have covered ALL the phones supported by the current OS. The latest iOS supports down to the iPhone 5S, which is my phone. Since the update, the battery doesn't last 2 hours! Dare you FaceTime and it's dead in 10 minutes. Other than that the phone works perfectly well and did do prior to the latest iOS. Disappointed.
  • Reply 77 of 81
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    Apple should have covered ALL the phones supported by the current OS. The latest iOS supports down to the iPhone 5S, which is my phone. Since the update, the battery doesn't last 2 hours! Dare you FaceTime and it's dead in 10 minutes. Other than that the phone works perfectly well and did do prior to the latest iOS. Disappointed.
    Why? You're talking about something so different that you're literally describing the opposite event that is part of this PR response and the SE was not stated as being on of the devices they decided to throttle due to voltage issues within some older batteries.

    But, hey, go ahead into an Apple Store and give it a shot. They may have a silent, internal statement right now to only charge $29 per new iPhone battery until this blows over sine it's all about PR anyway, not an issue with iOS 11. Or you could hit up iFixit for a $20 replacement battery.
    edited January 2018
  • Reply 78 of 81
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    Soli said:
    You're missing the point; I hope. He's not discussing behaviour or what should be judged, he's directly replying to a comment about congressional hearings where Cook, Federighi, Ive, and Riccio would testify as to why Apple choose to keep their devices running instead of shutting down. You really think that's what Congress should be doing? And can you please explain to me what the fuck Ive would possibly know about electrical and battery engineering decision for older devices?
    I think the idea is that this was a decision within the company, so a lot of people knew about it. It isn't like some crazy engineer decided to add some code and now Cook, Ive, etc. are going, "what the heck? I guess we'd better give a repair discount to fix this PR mess."

    The problem is, though, that there isn't anything I can think of that would be legal in nature around this for such an investigation to be valid in the first place. So, I'd imagine any kind of lawsuit would get tossed before it even got to the discovery stage. That said, it sure would be interesting to know the details of how and why this was planned.
    edited January 2018 ClarityToSee
  • Reply 79 of 81

    If one has to make an actual appointment to have the battery changed, I'm not sure why it would be necessary to wait much more than the time it takes to do the actual replacement.  I mean, I can understand if one just walks into the store and asks for a replacement, the response could reasonably be something on the order of "OK, there are X phones in front of you, it'll be tomorrow at Y o'clock."

    But if I make an appointment, I personally would expect the replacement to be done right then and there, i.e. the store has already told me what day and time the end of the line is and told me to come in at that time.  I wouldn't expect to wait more than the time it takes to do a couple of replacements, depending on how many people are actually doing such.  I mean, I wouldn't make a doctor's appointment and then sit in their waiting room for two days, I'd go in at the appointment time be seen right then.  (Yes, my doctor is great at scheduling.  I've never had to wait more than 20 minutes or so, so I'm spoiled.)

  • Reply 80 of 81
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    I have put a to-do into my schedule in December 2018 to get the battery changed on my iPhone SE. The app currently shows it at 98% health, though I'm not sure how reliable that is. But, I'm sure by the end of the year, it would be worth $29 to have it renewed. My only other concern (aside from the OS or apps eventually becoming incompatible) is the Home button.
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