charles1

Wow just what I need for my desktop, an iPad as a really expensive second keyboard. What I need is official Apple system level support for the iPad as a pressure sensitive graphics tablet. I don't want to pay $70 a year for Astropad.

Yesterday, I talked to Apple Support via the Support.app on my old iPhone 6s. I pre-ordered my 6s and got it on ship day so it's a little over 2 years old. I was just thinking of asking AT&T to unlock it and maybe sell it on eBay to pay for an upgrade to an iPhone 8 or X. So I decided to check out the battery status, I was horrified to discover it was at 50%. I'd have to replace the battery to give it any resale value, I bet that's expensive.

So I talked to Apple Support. The support tech ran a little remote utility to read the iPhone's statistics, she said yep, that battery needs to be replaced. It turns out my iPhone was eligible for an extended warranty replacement on the battery. Some early 6s models would shut down unexpectedly when the battery was low, the fix was a replacement battery, so Apple extended the warranty for these defective models. It sounds like this is the specific problem the new iOS CPU throttling is designed to address. My iPhone 6s never had the shutdown problem, so I never had the battery replaced. But it's still eligible so Apple agreed to just swap it for a new iPhone, they will cross-ship a new 6s, FedEx it overnight, I migrate to the new iPhone and send the old one back. Nice. I don't have to send my iPhone to repair with a round trip of 3-5 business days. I just paid $29 shipping and my replacement iPhone is already out for FedEx delivery, about 16 hours after my call to Apple. Oh no, I just realized, I forgot to make sure they sent me the same 64Gb Space Gray model, all my accessories are Space Gray.

Anyway, this is why I buy Apple (and I told this to Apple too). They offer extended warranty terms that are sometimes generous and resale prices on good used iPhones are surprisingly high. I also told them, I only burned up this battery with too many recharge cycles because I use it all the time. I watch DirecTV for hours, as well as other videos I download. But the big battery burner seems to be games that show 30 to 60 second commercials. Good thing I have an unlimited data plan, but I didn't consider the iPhone battery life isn't unlimited. People often complain about iPhones' battery life, and I always tell them, well the battery life sucks because you're always using it. Maybe you should just put it down and stop using it occasionally. As Groucho Marx once said, "I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while!"