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Apple Apologizes For iPhone Slowdown Drama, Will Offer $29 Battery Replacements (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Apple just published a letter to customers apologizing for the "misunderstanding" around older iPhones being slowed down, following its recent admission that it was, in fact, slowing down older phones in order to compensate for degrading batteries. "We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down," says the company. "We apologize." Apple says in its letter that batteries are "consumable components," and is offering anyone with an iPhone 6 or later a battery replacement for $29 starting in late January through December 2018 -- a discount of $50 from the usual replacement cost. Apple's also promising to add features to iOS that provide more information about the battery health in early 2018, so that users are aware of when their batteries are no longer capable of supporting maximum phone performance.
1. User buys iPhone.
2. iPhone gets "slow."
3. Users sells iPhone back.
4. Replace battery.
5. Sell "refurbished" iPhone to another user for a tidy profit.
A battery pack costs Apple about $5: https://technology.ihs.com/api/binary/595761
Which means they are only making a $24 profit instead of $74.
$29 is actually a fair price price that an independent repair shop might charge.
Oh, fuck off.
/r/iamverysmart enough to operate in the Windows/Android space.
I know this is Slashdot, so everyone likes to paint Apple like they are complete corporate assholes, but let's consider this for a second: Maybe Apple started slowing down phones with diminished batteries because they realized that their customers, on average, prefer a phone that lasts 20 hours with diminished performance, than one that operates at peak performance but is dead after they've been out of the house for four hours? And I can see where having a phone that doesn't die midday would cause you to keep using your current phone for LONGER!
This is the same company whose major selling point is "it just works" -- "It's still works fine, but is slightly slower" is a lot closer to that goal than "it works great until lunchtime and then it's completely unusable."
I'm also willing to bet that have most of you assholes making snide remarks are Android users who are wholly unaffected (I am an Android user myself, if it matters), but feel a need to take it to the company whose users aren't quite
As for my personal opinion, I don't think Apple made a bade decision here. They should have been transparent about it from the get go, but I do not think they were acting in a nefarious way or with poor intentions.