nrg2

But, I'm not sure it is common knowledge as you say. Yes, we know batteries - before Lithium Ion - often died quickly, but people have gotten used to Lithium Ion now... and in other devices, the batteries are often essentially lifetime (laptops, iPads, iPods). My son drains his iPad battery at least once each day, fully, and we just sold his old iPad mini and the battery life was just fine, after several years of use. I've drained and charged laptops, iPod touch, etc. nearly daily, at least half or more, and used them for years.

Lithium ion batteries in most manufacturers laptops are generally expected to last far less time than you give them credit. I am a system support analyst at a global company, with our primary computers coming from, shall we say brand “D”. I mainly support our local office of 300-400 employees with about 75% of systems being laptops. We have to replace laptop batteries that no longer hold a charge quite regularly in the office I support and the ones my colleagues support at other locations around the globe. In fact even if the system has the three year warranty coverage, “D” only covers the battery for one year, unless a special extended warranty is purchased specific to the battery. Not only is that a common occurrence, in the past year, I have worked on two “D” systems that have batteries bulging out of their plastic housing. “D” does let you find out the battery status - but it’s not through any readily apparent function - it requires booting to the onboard diagnostics and checking the battery health. In my experience if the health of the battery shows less than 60% the laptop usually runs for a half hour or less when not plugged in.  

In contrast, at least our secondary brand of systems - Apple, covers the battery with the three year AppleCare+ warranty during that full timeframe. Though, I have yet to run across any of our MacBook Pro systems that need a battery replacement for any reason. That said, you also mention iPods lasting the lifetime of the product and that is certainly erroneous - I have helped family members replace the batteries on iPod classics, Mini’s and Nano’s and I’m sure many others have done so also. 

So in summation, lithium ion batteries are not some error proof energy source and are subject to many variables in how well they function and last.

As for having an iPhone pop up with messages and such if there are issues with the battery, I think this would be an incredibly horrible way to handle it and anyone that works in support would know why. A certain percentage of people would be sent into a panic seeing it and another percentage would just tap “OK” not reading it and live in ignorance. A more simple means would be to make the battery symbol border on the phone go red and periodically flash to alert of a problem or an overlay similar to the charging lightning bolt of a red arrow pointing down to symbolize lower performance. The battery icon could then also be made to bring up a statistics and health page by tapping on it. 

This issue has reminded me of a scene in Star Trek many years ago. Anyone believing this is a simple matter and Apple should just "give in" is incredibly myopic. Privacy is not something one should hand over freely and allow to be trodden on under the erroneous thinking that "I'm not doing anything wrong, so it doesn't matter." Privacy and other rights once stepped on are not easily reversed - once the line has been crossed where does it get drawn again - if ever?