AppleCare+ Now Covers Batteries That Drop To 80%

Mark Wilson writes with news that Apple's AppleCare+ plan has been updated to address one of the biggest worries that people have about products with non-removeable batteries, and that become very expensive paperweights when the juice runs out. From BetaNews: "Previously, the extended warranty only covered batteries that would hold 50 percent charge or less. Now this has been updated so that you can request a free replacement within the coverage period if your device's battery is only able to hold 80 percent of full charge. The new terms to no apply to everyone — it all depends on when you bought your Apple device. If you bought your iPhone, iPad, iPod or Apple Watch before April 10, 2015, you're stuck with the old terms. I wish this change applied to my MacBook Air, with which I'm lucky to get 90 minutes of battery power.

Comments

Instead of building thin bendable phones...

[jbssm]

Perhaps Apple could build usable phones that actually last a full day on their battery instead of competing for the biggest buzzword of the moment and be able to say: "Look, this is the thinnest phone on the market". It bends easily, it breaks easily, it's got an awful battery, but ei, they can state it's the thinnest phone on the market.

Re:Instead of building thin bendable phones...

[Anonymous Coward]

You realise an iPhone 6+ lasts about 5 days of typical usage on a charge right?

Re:Instead of building thin bendable phones...

[jbolden]

Of the major phones sold:
1st place: Huawei Ascend Mate 2 (14:43)
2nd OnePlus One (13:16)
3rd iPhone 6 Plus (10:00)

I'd say it is pretty inaccurate to say Apple phones have terrible battery life.

especially since
4th Samsung Galaxy S5 (9:42)

Re:Instead of building thin bendable phones...

[fluffernutter]

I'm curious how people are finding that a battery pack is the solution, when:
1) Usually the battery dies when you are using the phone, so you can't just put it aside at that point and charge it. I can use my phone while it is on a battery back but then it hardly charges and i'm stuck with the pack.
2) A battery back is physically bigger than a phone battery and most require an extra cable. How is that ever going to be more convienent then just carrying another charged battery?

Re:Good design, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, in order to be able to remove a battery, that battery has to be able to survive outside the device's case. That means it needs a case. Not only that, the phone needs reinforcement to not get damaged when the battery is removed. All that space could be used for... more battery.

Re:Good design, eh?

[DoofusOfDeath]

I agree - Apple products are unseemly.

Re:I have an iPhone 1

[gnasher719]

The only people who care about removable batteries are the people who want to have multiple batteries so that they can replace them in order to maintain a more or less continuous duty cycle for the device.

I thought the only people who care about removable batteries are the people who love Android and haven't figured out yet that the latest Samsung Android phones come without removable battery. Oh well, and some people who love Android and figured out that the latest Samsung Android phones come without removable battery can complain about that as well :-)

Re:Good design, eh?

[fluffernutter]

That depends entirely on whether you think functionality matters or not. Clearly, Apple users don't.

Apple fan

[fluffernutter]

I know a guy who is a big Apple fan but he won't use certain functions/apps on his phone because he wants the battery to last all day. Mostly he will not use any app that turns on the GPS.

I want to use everything on my phone and not worry about it, so unless I can have the GPS and Bluetooth on for a full day and still have a comfortable margin left to plug it in at night I'm looking for a phone with a removable battery.

Re:Apple fan

[SvnLyrBrto]

In most cases, I get a full day out of my iPhone with GPS and Bluetooth on, email set to push, and all the other battery-hungry settings enabled. About the only time I adjust the settings is when I know I'm going to be out and about all day somewhere with very poor, or no, cell coverage. That, in my experience, is the worst energy-vampire of all for any phone; as they all ramp up their own transmission power to max in a desperate attempt to reach and maintain contact with a cell.

Occasionally though there are certain apps that, either through a bug or poor design, will drain excessive battery via location services. Annoyingly enough, a while back Facebook's app was especially battery-hungry in the background, and would be one to explicitly kill after exiting.

Re:Apple fan

[SvnLyrBrto]

That's actually a situation where you *wouldn't* use a smartphone at all.

Wilderness applications like backpacking, camping, climbing, hiking, or whatever, (Not just jogging in the park.) really call for a dedicated GPS unit. Smartphone GPS chipsets have severe limitations that limit their utility when they have no data connection. Specifically, they use aGPS (Assisted GPS) to "cheat" in order to get and maintain their fix quickly and with less power consumption. And they tend to be utterly terrible at getting a "pure" GPS fix. I've also never seen a app that's really full-featured enough to use outside civilization. There could be one I've missed, of course, but that still wouldn't correct the deficiencies of the hardware.

On the other hand, my second-from-their-lowest-end Garmin (Etrex 20) uses GPS, GLONASS, and WaaS with no data connection required to cheat the fix. It's rugged and waterproof to 2 meters. The software is specifically designed for real outdoors applications and not just driving directions. It's lightweight and designed to be both held and operated in a one hand... no mucking about with a touchscreen. There's a huge variety of maps, both free and paid, I can load on it either vis USB or MicroSD card. And it will run continuously for better than 24 hours on a pair of AAs.

(Also, if you're smart, you'll still bring a paper map and compass as a backup.)

Re:Apple fan

[thegarbz]

, I get a full day out of my iPhone with GPS and Bluetooth on

GPS on and actively using GPS are not the same thing. I don't think I've seen ANY phone last more than half a day when actively using GPS. Though GPS is unlikely to the root cause since any program requiring continuous use of GPS among other things will also prevent the CPU from sleeping.

Re:a replaceable battery would be to expensive.

[fluffernutter]

Every time I use an Apple product I wonder if they test it for usability at all. Specifically, they should be bringing in people who have experience with every type of system out there and rate it in terms of usability in comparison with everything else.

It seems to me that their tests consist of bringing average people into the room while having someone experienced walk through some sort of script at the front of the room and the test subjects don't actually interact with the device. This would explain why they end up with pretty things that have a lot of issues once you take off the covers.

Re:Good design, eh?

[adolf]

Just because you can't quickly and easily remove it yourself doesn't mean that it's not removable. It is removable, you just need some time and tools to do it.

Remove the battery on an iPhone 6 in 27 easy steps. After that, reassembly is simply the opposite of disassembly!*

You just need some time and tools to do it!

*: You hope.

Wrapper != thick plastic case

[tepples]

A battery that is not user-serviceable still needs some sort of wrapper. But it doesn't need a separate case thick enough to shield the battery from rough handling while out of the device.

Re:Good design, eh?

[gnasher719]

You think when they put the battery in at the factory they are just going to inject pure battery 'juice' into the phone??

Have a look on Apple's website at the design of the batteries in newer MacBooks. It's not quite "battery juice", but the batteries do come in shapes that fill the smallest gap, something that would be impossible with a removable battery.

Re:Good design, eh?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

When the Retina Macbook Pros came out, these were the ones with the integrated battery, one of their key differences over their predecessors is that they felt a good deal more sturdy. If you lifted it without folding it up it felt like it had a good deal more structural integrity. This is partly because it's lighter and you're moving less mass around and partly because the case is just plain more rigid.

That's why the lack of seams matters.

iPhones less bendable than others

[SuperKendall]

The iPhone 6+ is in fact less bendable than the Samsung phones, and the Samsung phones have screens that will shatter instead of bending slightly...

But in fact the iPhone 6+ is easily good for more than a day of charge. So if you want an iPhone that you don't have to think about the battery, they already sell one.