I actually had this done yesterday with my iPhone X that I've had since the device launched. It was showing 94% battery capacity.
It wasn't busy at the store, but the process still took 2 hours so if you do go in for a swap be ready for a wait. They will swap your battery no questions asked no matter what the phone says regarding battery loss, $29+tax.
/edit I should add my phone was saying my battery was in good shape and didn't need replacing, but they still replaced it.
Dumb, man. You wasted $29 and two hours of your time. Dumb.
My phone is 12 months old. It might be working OK at the moment, but in 3 years, it will have a 3 year old battery. This bought be another year as now my battery is brand new. Unless Apple builds something mind-blowing, the X is a solid phone that will work fine for what I need for a few years. So it took 2 hours and cost me $30. It probably will save me from buying a whole new phone 1 year sooner then I need to thanks to this program.
This could have all been avoided had Apple designed the phone with user replaceable batteries.
One question: were iPads ever involved with the problem?
Stop and think about this for just a moment.
There's a lot more to providing a user-replaceable battery than simply putting an access door and battery compartment on the back of a phone. The batteries themselves would have to be constructed in a standard consumer-friendly package that is safe for handling and storage outside of the device. To meet water resistance requirements the battery compartment would have to be sealed with gaskets and fitted with electrical connectors and physical retainers that maintained their integrity after battery replacement by end users, some of whom struggle with D-cell battery placements in flashlights. I won't even get into the aesthetics, because I'm assuming you'd be quite happy carrying around a half-inch thick phone that weighs a half pound or so, knowing very well that every couple of years you'd be able to replace the battery yourself.
The batteries that have been installed, often with glue, in most smartphones (and tablets and notebooks) are basically just the bare "guts" of what would be in a packaged battery designed for the end user handling, storage, and replacement. They simply aren't safe for end user handling, storage, or physical manipulation. Even trained technicians occasionally mishandle one of these batteries and cause smoke and flames and building evacuations. Having that happen in a service lab equipped to handle such emergencies is one thing. Setting your sofa or kitchen table on fire is quite another. Most modern devices, including smartphones, tablets, notebooks, and even all-in-one computers use batteries that rely on the product chassis as the protective case for the battery. Battery connectors are not simple tabs or terminals designed to plug into a standard socket. Everything is a one-off design specific to the product. Getting a myriad of consumer packaged replacement batteries approved by consumer product standards would add significantly to product development timelines and slow down product innovation.
The batteries that are installed in modern products are simply components that are integral to a product's design. Batteries are no different than capacitors, resistors, diodes, microprocessors, ASICS, memory chips, and the plethora of high density integrated circuits that are stuffed in the case using whatever means necessary to make the product work as intended in the desired form factor - including solder, glue, micro-miniature screws, and tape. Expectations around user battery replacement is a vestigial impulse that is no different than expectations that memory chips, CPUs, and previously socketed components should also be user replaceable. In the past I've replaced CPUs, memory chips, and DIP based ICs like UARTS on computers and even soldered-in components like capacitors, transformers, and diodes - back when they had visible pins/connectors and sufficient physical size to be serviced without using a microscope. I agree that batteries are a bit different because they tend to wear out much faster than electronic components, but from the user's point of view they are simply part of the internal guts that we have no access to and require servicing by someone other than ourselves. I used to change my car's oil and perform tune-ups and some mechanical repairs and adjustments myself. However, on my newest car there is faint evidence of the existence of an engine when I pop the hood. It's just a sea of plastic bits and tubes and a couple of color coded reservoir caps and only enough clearance for a baby arm to get at anything important.
Times change, standards change, component packages change, products change, assembly methods change, service requirements change, and our expectations need to change too. You can work with what's available to you or you can revel in eternal frustration. Or you can build it yourself to your own standards.
This could have all been avoided had Apple designed the phone with user replaceable batteries.
One question: were iPads ever involved with the problem?
You’re in a dream world, man. Removable batteries haven’t ever been part of the iPhone, the most popular consumer product in history, and will never come to it.
Nor was the problem related to being non-removable. Batteries age, and after a certain age they need to be replaced. You can have the battery replaced on any iPhone, I’ve done it myself. Things require maintenance...non-story.
Well, He's right, Apple could have designed the iPhone that way, but that would have involved a bunch of other engineering/design compromises for something that you typically only have to do once every 3 years or so. Apple showed long ago that a user-replaceable battery isn't high on people's list.
How many smartphones have user replaceable batteries, anyway? I don't think very many do - for exactly the same reasons iPhones don't.
Actually, most Android phones do have user replaceable batteries.
That page says, at the bottom, that this coverage is for up to three years after the original purchase. I don’t know if that’s a new statement or not, as I didn’t think a 6s was that young at this point. Maybe I just got in under the cutoff. My 6s battery was freely replaced by Apple a month or so ago.
The original battery was around 83% of its lifespan at the time. I wasn’t experiencing shutdowns, but I have missed free service opportunities in the past (self-destructing MacBook Pro 3,1; never informed by Apple of the service options due to the Nvidia lawsuit). I didn’t want to wait for problems to appear (and the rate at which the battery is depleted on these is already entirely unacceptable).
The store in my area did not BS me or try to resist. The employee who served me was also good at being human and sincere, too, unlike some other Apple employee experiences where they seem trapped in a set of scripts.
I had the battery in my iPhone X replaced two weeks ago. It was at 88% after a year. Tested fine at the Apple store, and the genius tried to talk me out of it because I would be doing "surgery" on a B+ battery. I said, I just want it done and $30 is worth the peace of mind. They had me finished in 45 mins.
This could have all been avoided had Apple designed the phone with user replaceable batteries.
One question: were iPads ever involved with the problem?
You’re in a dream world, man. Removable batteries haven’t ever been part of the iPhone, the most popular consumer product in history, and will never come to it.
Nor was the problem related to being non-removable. Batteries age, and after a certain age they need to be replaced. You can have the battery replaced on any iPhone, I’ve done it myself. Things require maintenance...non-story.
Well, He's right, Apple could have designed the iPhone that way, but that would have involved a bunch of other engineering/design compromises for something that you typically only have to do once every 3 years or so. Apple showed long ago that a user-replaceable battery isn't high on people's list.
How many smartphones have user replaceable batteries, anyway? I don't think very many do - for exactly the same reasons iPhones don't.
Actually, most Android phones do have user replaceable batteries.
Apple hasn't refunded the 60€ the program promised would be automatic. I visited the store that swapped the battery out and they told me to contact tech support at Apple. They cleaned their hands of me. I can't get through to Apple as I don't have 'support coverage' and there are only two 'rights to exception', neither of which applies to my case. I've written to the store asking for instructions and contact info in writing.
More hoops to jump through.
The only contact info on the receipt is the email address of the store so that's where I've written.
This could have all been avoided had Apple designed the phone with user replaceable batteries.
One question: were iPads ever involved with the problem?
You’re in a dream world, man. Removable batteries haven’t ever been part of the iPhone, the most popular consumer product in history, and will never come to it.
Nor was the problem related to being non-removable. Batteries age, and after a certain age they need to be replaced. You can have the battery replaced on any iPhone, I’ve done it myself. Things require maintenance...non-story.
Well, He's right, Apple could have designed the iPhone that way, but that would have involved a bunch of other engineering/design compromises for something that you typically only have to do once every 3 years or so. Apple showed long ago that a user-replaceable battery isn't high on people's list.
How many smartphones have user replaceable batteries, anyway? I don't think very many do - for exactly the same reasons iPhones don't.
Actually, most Android phones do have user replaceable batteries.
Citation? The flagships sure don't.
I know fairly well about Android phones. No, most of them (>99% of them) do NOT have user replaceable batteries.
This could have all been avoided had Apple designed the phone with user replaceable batteries.
One question: were iPads ever involved with the problem?
You’re in a dream world, man. Removable batteries haven’t ever been part of the iPhone, the most popular consumer product in history, and will never come to it.
Nor was the problem related to being non-removable. Batteries age, and after a certain age they need to be replaced. You can have the battery replaced on any iPhone, I’ve done it myself. Things require maintenance...non-story.
Well, He's right, Apple could have designed the iPhone that way, but that would have involved a bunch of other engineering/design compromises for something that you typically only have to do once every 3 years or so. Apple showed long ago that a user-replaceable battery isn't high on people's list.
How many smartphones have user replaceable batteries, anyway? I don't think very many do - for exactly the same reasons iPhones don't.
Actually, most Android phones do have user replaceable batteries.
It's worth noting that Apple is hurting their own sales of new iPhones with this program, as (if my experience checking retail techs is any indication) a lot of people with iPhones 6s and later would have upgraded if not for this bargain battery replacement. Of course in the long run this will help keep customers in the Apple ecosystem, because just try getting a cheap-to-free battery replacement on any recent Android phone HAHAHAHAHAHA.
That said, Apple is sometimes quite slow to figure out a fix for a widespread issue, and slower still on problems that are more isolated but just as damaging to their reputation -- but when they come around they do the right thing, and often go above and beyond expectations.
My four-year-old iPhone 6 battery had swollen so you could see a trace of light on the left edge between the case and the screen. So they replaced it with a new one (presumably refurb) for the same $29.
Genius said that they weren't going to repair it - presumably she meant "not at the store". Doing that job at a suitable facility should be OK.
I just got finish with my attempt at getting a replacement battery for an iPhone X. I dealt with 3 Apple employees and all were very professional.
I planned on keeping the X for another year if not longer so I thought it was worth the effort. I was told that the speakers also need to be replaced as part of the process and would take hour and half.
Turns out they didn't have the speakers so they couldn't do the replacement and instead replace the entire iPhone X !??!
I was like, well, if you insist... So for my $29 +tax I have a new iPhone X. I guess I need to see if it's really new or refurbished. According to coconutBattery app, it was manufactured in Dec 2018.
My son gave an iPhone 6 to our daughter. Before doing this he took the phone to the Apple store at the Town Center in Jacksonville, FL to have the battery checked. The Apple Genius on December 27, 2018, gave the battery a clean bill of health saying it was good. Upon my daughter receiving the phone she kept it on the charger until today when she took it to the Apple store in Willow Grove, PA where she was told the battery was dead and needed replacement. What was good in December of 2018 and would have cost $29.00 to replace was pronounced dead in February 2019 and cost $49.00 to replace. Beyond frustrating. I guess a slow death and more costly one.
Comments
There's a lot more to providing a user-replaceable battery than simply putting an access door and battery compartment on the back of a phone. The batteries themselves would have to be constructed in a standard consumer-friendly package that is safe for handling and storage outside of the device. To meet water resistance requirements the battery compartment would have to be sealed with gaskets and fitted with electrical connectors and physical retainers that maintained their integrity after battery replacement by end users, some of whom struggle with D-cell battery placements in flashlights. I won't even get into the aesthetics, because I'm assuming you'd be quite happy carrying around a half-inch thick phone that weighs a half pound or so, knowing very well that every couple of years you'd be able to replace the battery yourself.
The batteries that have been installed, often with glue, in most smartphones (and tablets and notebooks) are basically just the bare "guts" of what would be in a packaged battery designed for the end user handling, storage, and replacement. They simply aren't safe for end user handling, storage, or physical manipulation. Even trained technicians occasionally mishandle one of these batteries and cause smoke and flames and building evacuations. Having that happen in a service lab equipped to handle such emergencies is one thing. Setting your sofa or kitchen table on fire is quite another. Most modern devices, including smartphones, tablets, notebooks, and even all-in-one computers use batteries that rely on the product chassis as the protective case for the battery. Battery connectors are not simple tabs or terminals designed to plug into a standard socket. Everything is a one-off design specific to the product. Getting a myriad of consumer packaged replacement batteries approved by consumer product standards would add significantly to product development timelines and slow down product innovation.
The batteries that are installed in modern products are simply components that are integral to a product's design. Batteries are no different than capacitors, resistors, diodes, microprocessors, ASICS, memory chips, and the plethora of high density integrated circuits that are stuffed in the case using whatever means necessary to make the product work as intended in the desired form factor - including solder, glue, micro-miniature screws, and tape. Expectations around user battery replacement is a vestigial impulse that is no different than expectations that memory chips, CPUs, and previously socketed components should also be user replaceable. In the past I've replaced CPUs, memory chips, and DIP based ICs like UARTS on computers and even soldered-in components like capacitors, transformers, and diodes - back when they had visible pins/connectors and sufficient physical size to be serviced without using a microscope. I agree that batteries are a bit different because they tend to wear out much faster than electronic components, but from the user's point of view they are simply part of the internal guts that we have no access to and require servicing by someone other than ourselves. I used to change my car's oil and perform tune-ups and some mechanical repairs and adjustments myself. However, on my newest car there is faint evidence of the existence of an engine when I pop the hood. It's just a sea of plastic bits and tubes and a couple of color coded reservoir caps and only enough clearance for a baby arm to get at anything important.
Times change, standards change, component packages change, products change, assembly methods change, service requirements change, and our expectations need to change too. You can work with what's available to you or you can revel in eternal frustration. Or you can build it yourself to your own standards.
Be prepared to insist though. At 95% the tech will try to talk you out of the swap (95 is not bad) but they will do it.
https://www.apple.com/support/iphone6s-unexpectedshutdown/
That page says, at the bottom, that this coverage is for up to three years after the original purchase. I don’t know if that’s a new statement or not, as I didn’t think a 6s was that young at this point. Maybe I just got in under the cutoff. My 6s battery was freely replaced by Apple a month or so ago.
The original battery was around 83% of its lifespan at the time. I wasn’t experiencing shutdowns, but I have missed free service opportunities in the past (self-destructing MacBook Pro 3,1; never informed by Apple of the service options due to the Nvidia lawsuit). I didn’t want to wait for problems to appear (and the rate at which the battery is depleted on these is already entirely unacceptable).
The store in my area did not BS me or try to resist. The employee who served me was also good at being human and sincere, too, unlike some other Apple employee experiences where they seem trapped in a set of scripts.
More hoops to jump through.
The only contact info on the receipt is the email address of the store so that's where I've written.
I know fairly well about Android phones. No, most of them (>99% of them) do NOT have user replaceable batteries.
Thanks for your bold comment Mr. Armchair Engineer! Making your comment bold doesn’t make it any less of a BS comment.
That said, Apple is sometimes quite slow to figure out a fix for a widespread issue, and slower still on problems that are more isolated but just as damaging to their reputation -- but when they come around they do the right thing, and often go above and beyond expectations.
PS. 1,000th post! #soopinionated
I planned on keeping the X for another year if not longer so I thought it was worth the effort. I was told that the speakers also need to be replaced as part of the process and would take hour and half.
Turns out they didn't have the speakers so they couldn't do the replacement and instead replace the entire iPhone X !??!
I was like, well, if you insist... So for my $29 +tax I have a new iPhone X. I guess I need to see if it's really new or refurbished. According to coconutBattery app, it was manufactured in Dec 2018.