Apple running low on iPhone 6 Plus batteries, postponing some swaps until March
People wanting to swap out the battery on an iPhone 6 Plus may in some cases have to wait until March or later, owing to a shortage of replacement units.
Delays are only impacting stores that have already run out of iPhone 6 Plus batteries, according to sources and data obtained by AppleInsider. But, many locations polled by AppleInsider still have batteries for the iPhone 6 Plus in stock.
We were told in the course of our investigation of the reports, that in cases where customers are being told to wait a few days, the issue is likely only a heavy workload. Anything longer may be a sign that a shop has run out of a particular model of battery.
Apple has seen intense demand following its introduction of $29 out-of-warranty battery swaps. The deal is a temporary one, expiring at the end of December, intended to appease the public following the company's admission that it slows down iPhones with weak batteries. Nominally this is to protect against sudden shutdowns, but the company is facing dozens of lawsuits for not warning owners, failing to give them a choice, and/or nudging them into buying new iPhones, whether intentionally or not.
Apple stores have been hit by battery fires twice this week, presumably because of the influx of service requests combined with the risks of lithium-ion batteries.
Delays are only impacting stores that have already run out of iPhone 6 Plus batteries, according to sources and data obtained by AppleInsider. But, many locations polled by AppleInsider still have batteries for the iPhone 6 Plus in stock.
We were told in the course of our investigation of the reports, that in cases where customers are being told to wait a few days, the issue is likely only a heavy workload. Anything longer may be a sign that a shop has run out of a particular model of battery.
Apple has seen intense demand following its introduction of $29 out-of-warranty battery swaps. The deal is a temporary one, expiring at the end of December, intended to appease the public following the company's admission that it slows down iPhones with weak batteries. Nominally this is to protect against sudden shutdowns, but the company is facing dozens of lawsuits for not warning owners, failing to give them a choice, and/or nudging them into buying new iPhones, whether intentionally or not.
Apple stores have been hit by battery fires twice this week, presumably because of the influx of service requests combined with the risks of lithium-ion batteries.
Comments
If if they are installing batteries all day long there may be local shortages for sure, there is no source for this, even as a Timor , in the article. More click bait?
Doesn’t Mean you have to name names.
knowing if you got info first hand or second hand (or just reporting some unsourced Rumor). and maybe where approximatively that source is, is a minimum.
say,
talking to many anonymous sources at Apple stores
or
talking to anonymous Apple logistics employees in several us ports
or talking to Apple sources in Chinese ports
or
according to sources at the factory building Apple 6 batteries
the story takes a different connotation also depending on who you talk to
i suppose that second hand info is always sourced precisely and clearly. I did not check. But often those stories have slight editorial spins which seem to depend on unsourced info (you know the source obviously, but we don’t like here). This is always good to add as corroboration (a bit like all the presidents men, except less dramatic and watergatey
So check this out. He has an iP6S, I have the iP6+ (year older). We installed DasherCPUX in order to check the CPU speed. His phone is approx 1.5yrs old, mine is 3+ years. Original battery.
We also installed another app (battery life) that checks the battery health. My phone was at 89% useful life, and his was at 91%. My phone battery can barely last 12 hours before it hits 1% life. So I'm not sure what the heck is going on, but honestly Apple has some more explaining to do, or they need to really assess the algorithms being used to throttle phones.
I originally gave Apple some slack because I do now that batteries are a finicky thing and understand why Apple is doing it. On the flip side, with nothing else to explain it, by friend's phone is being throttled down to 1/2 its speed and there is no way to force it back to 100%.
So I told him to take it into an Apple store to check it out, and now articles like these about Apple having a battery supply problem is not helping. So what to do?
While all friends of mine holding iPhone 6 Plus encounter severe throttling in UI (user interface) speed, only some of them found CPU frequency slowdown as shown in CPU DasherX app, and some of them encountered dropdown in benchmark as shown in Geekbench 4 app. Most of the the iPhone 6 Plus have battery capacity as strong as over 90%, or even fully charged and still being connected to charging sources, but still slowed down! Restarting those iPhones 6 Plus didn’t help regaining UI speed. Only UI speed is throttled and it induces dis-satisfaction that urges my friends to “upgrade” to iPhone 8 Plus it iPhone X.
While new versions of iOS and Xcode “optimise” for the latest iPhone models every year, it may also imply that new versions of iOS and Xcode may deoptimized for older iPhones and other iOS devices selectively. Some processes can be run on Multi-Core instead of Single-Core, if Apple wants to “re-optimise” / “revitalise” older iPhone models.
Besides, Apple should be responsible for providing security updates for iOS 10, iOS9 & iOS 8, though new features are for iOS 11 and later, if Apple really does not have any intention for “planned obsolescence “.
I notice that some attribute to Apple as well as AI the same values and integrity that other, lesser organizations adhere to. It's a bad assumption. I have seen nothing but the highest of values and integrity from both Apple and AI...
Thank you AI for your great reporting!
He would have simply said: "We protected your phone from the worn out battery that you neglected to change. Suck it up!"
Have your friend take it to an Apple store to be checked. It's obviously not a battery issue and not part of the slowdown Apple initiated in order to protect phones from worn out batteries...
No need for conspiracy theories...
We also talked about the CPU not being at full speed all the time normally, and why.
If his battery has been charged 1000 times, a 89% (sic) battery (which is only calibrated to the maximum in can carry) doesn't tell you how damage and able to deliver voltage.
If I rundown my battery 3 times a day and recharge fully, I'm killing my battery in 200-250 days, while if I never run down the battery (charge it before it is under 30% every day and once a day) I'd get about 1000 days out of my battery to get to the same level (just under 3 years). That is under normal operating conditions, if the phone is operated frequently near 0 or 100% while hot, the battery life can go down a lot. So, operating in very hot weather and doing many full cycles a day equals battery dead within half a year; that's it, no miracle, that's the way it is.
Someone who always charges their phone before it reaches 50-60%, say charging it mid day when it reaches that level, would reach 1200-1300 cycles before starting to degrade substantially (that's 3.5 year-4 years). That's the kind of usage I have and routinely get my phone batteries to last that long without shutdowns even pre 10.2.
You also have to realize that those tests test peak performance, not actual usage. Most of what a phone does is not functioning at peak usage. Even when throttled under peak usage the SOC speed is still faster than many current Android phones new!
Much more likely the result of software inefficiencies in early IOS 11 releases (since each new IOS releases initially slows downs old versions until they got control of the whole thing which normally occurs around late X.2 versions (early in the new year)).