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Apple Will Replace Old iPhone Batteries Regardless of Diagnostic Test Results (macrumors.com)
After apologizing to customers for slowing older iPhones down as the batteries degrade, Apple has started offering battery swaps for $29. This has led to some confusion as Apple did not clarify how it qualified batteries as eligible for the discounted replacement, as the Apple Genius Bar uses a diagnostic test to check whether a battery can retain 80 percent of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles. According to Mac Rumors, Apple has confirmed that they will replace the battery if your iPhone 6 or later even if it passes a Genius Bar diagnostic test. From the report: Apple has since independently confirmed to MacRumors that it will agree to replace an eligible battery for a $29 fee, regardless of whether an official diagnostic test shows that it is still able to retain less than 80 percent of its original capacity. The concession appears to have been made to mollify the anger of customers stoked by headlines suggesting that Apple artificially slows down older iPhones to drive customers to upgrade to newer models. Anecdotal reports also suggest that customers who paid $79 to have their battery replaced before the new pricing came into effect on Saturday, December 30, will receive a refund from Apple upon request.
Apple really is the master of profit, you have to give it to them! The reports say it costs them $10 for the battery replacement, so they will charge you $29 and make a few quick million from the whole debacle...
Good show on apples behalf...
...the anger of customers stoked by headlines...
Anger stoked by headlines and not facts seems to be key here.
I'd say the low IQ twitter crowd en masse has done it again.
I had my old iPhone 6 battery replaced today for $29+tax. The free "Battery Life" app said the raw data on the battery was about 39% of capacity (700mAh of 1810mAh) while the in-store Apple diag said it was 91% good.. The Apple Genius only asked if I was sure I wanted it replaced. I said, "yes please". Then they gave me the speech about everything is void if they find 3rd party parts in the phone and would NOT replace a non-apple battery at all. It took them 2 hours. After the replacement the free battery app says 100% good (1810mAh of 1810mAh). All I know is the old battery only lasted 15 minutes playing Jedi Challenges... I have not had time to try the new battery yet.
to not do it. They denied all seven company 6S pluses I tried today. For most, they claimed the glass wasnâ(TM)t perfect so they wouldnâ(TM)t replace the battery at any price. Another one is missing the volume button so they refused to replace the battery unless we also paid to fix it. Apple wants you to buy a new phone.
What about my iPhone 4, Apple? No free battery replacement for me?
What about my iPhone 3GS?
#DeleteFacebook
Yes... I signed for the work order and pickup. It was mostly a push about Apple will not cover 3rd party parts or be responsible for any data loss and they may use new or "equivalent" parts. There's a lot of usual service language about warranty and claims and not being responsible for other stuff. I would guess there would be something enforceable about me paying and accepting a discounted battery as the resolution for any performance complaints. I'll take the $30 battery including the labor to install it. I spent more on a new battery for my Android phone and I had to take it apart myself to install it. I think Apple should have been more up front about reducing the CPU speed on old batteries to ensure phone stability and usability. Maybe they would have sold more replacements at full price if they were honest about the battery health vs. performance. My ThinkPad has a battery health tester so I know what's going on and it does not slow my CPU, it just runs for less time until I buy a new battery. Batteries are consumable but companies should not be doing sneaky things to hide the issues.
seriously only the dumb will buy apple after this incident, which exposed even to the dumbest in very blatant fashion, what everyone with above average intelligence already knew, apple's total disrespect for its customer base.
apple buyers after this , and all who buy products that prevent repairs and battery changes, are born idiot losers by definition.
Do you even understand what the slowing down does? if you have a bad battery, you have a choice between no phone, or a slow phone.. guess which one is more useful? I think it's actually a smart feature but they handled it quite poorly.
You assume it is smart to buy products that are cheaper; money is not necessarily the main factor when people decide what fits better.
Some of people change phones regularly; I don't care if the battery last for years, nor if I can change it myself. It's totally irrelevant when it comes to my choice of phone.
If battery replacement is a factor for you, don't buy Apple.
It's incredibly narrow minded to believe that people that have different priorities, or maybe different financial abilities, are stupid.
I have a refurbished 6S, which I'm now planning on getting a new battery for in December.
#DeleteChrome
"Apple has confirmed that they will replace the battery if your iPhone 6 or later even if it passes a Genius Bar diagnostic test."
There are too many IF's in that sentence.
I do think it is not a bad idea to manage the old batteries the way they did it. My worn out iPhone 6 Plus (could keep 1/3 of the original charge) didn t suddenly shut down but yes it slowed down, and after battery replacement 2 weeks ago it works well again. Replacement took 2 hours, a reasonable small inconvenience after 4 years, really I prefer a slim phone with better water resistance over a battery lid.
The one thing where they messed up was communications, they should have been transparent about it from the beginning and most people would turn have found it reasonable.
Had my battery replaced on 12/17/2017. They announced this later than that, so I contacted Apple about a refund for the $50. Turns out they have a refund program if you had your battery replaced on or after the 14th of December. So, give them a call and they'll get your refund processed.
If it was my phone, I would still be mad. They built something with a design flaw
The "design flaw" is that batteries are batteries and electronic circuits take a minimum amount of power to run. In other words not a flaw, it's how the real universe works.
The fix they delivered ensured that your phone would not just simply die randomly if the battery was getting really old. Instead it would do it's best to stay on for you.
Phones that are not doing this are screwing you over, because ALL PHONES WORK THIS WAY since they all have electronics and batteries. You can certainly find other makers of phones that let you phone randomly crash as the battery ages - if your preference is random data loss by all means choose that option.
In the meantime Apple users now enjoy not only a sane battery management policy that keeps the phones alive longer, they also enjoy cheap battery replacement.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What about my iPhone 4, Apple? No free battery replacement for me?
No, because Apple was only using the new battery management system with the iPhone 6 and above, and then only running iOS 11.
Your older iPhones continue to enjoy the same battery aging issues as every other Android phone maker on the planet, so because Apple did not help you out on older phones you have to replace the batteries yourself when you feel it is time.
Maybe some disgruntled and ill-informed internet mob will target your models of phones at some point in the future, but today is not that day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Today I took the iPhone 6s Plus in for a battery replacement. They must have damaged something so they gave me a brand new phone. They performed the test and asked some questions, had no problems (in Canada) $35 + tax
I have an iPhone 6, and the battery performance was noticeably lower after a year. Why is it that electric vehicle manufacturers claim their lithium ion batteries retain something like 90% charge after 10 years? Serious question, why do Apple batteries suck so much? Do they use cheap batteries? It is usage patterns (in which case it doesn't sound good for using batteries for commercial driving purposes)?
Yes, slowing down the system to conserve energy is a good thing, but only if minimal usability is preserved
Usability is preserved - the system is slightly slower, but the battery lasts longer than it would have otherwise, and you avoid mysterious crashes under load. Indeed this is the ONLY approach where usability is preserved, if you keep the processor at full speed with shorter battery life you ALSO have the side effect of random phone reboots well before the battery is actually out That is simply less usable.
the system warns the user that the consumable part needs to be replaced.
I totally agree Apple should have done that, and I guess so does Apple because it sounds like they are adding that feature. But you naturally get that signal to some extent simply through shorter battery life as the battery ages (software can only compensate so much and I'm sure they have some floor on processor slowdown that is practical or possible).
The upcoming battery diagnosis tools Apple plans to add to iOS sounds ideal; because it will let anyone judge at any time if they think the battery is degraded about to be worth replacing...
It's worth remembering that these are all issues that surface after about two years of use, before then the battery is usually performing pretty well the whole time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I see that Jobs' reality distortion field is still alive and well. This is a design flaw.
This is reality, not fantasy. The reality is that Android phones as they age suffer from random shutdowns even as they keep the processor at full speed, because they have not made the same (recent, iOS11) choices Apple made in regards to battery aging. The iPhone as the battery ages slows down the processor a little so you'll get a longer time of use from the battery, and also avoid random data-killing shutdowns.
Only an Apple Hater could claim they prefer random shutdowns at 20% of battery over any other option. It's people like you that utterly screw over Android users, as technically stupid choices are made for the entire globe so you can keep your CPU maximized....
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Laptops don't go through the same degree of power variance that phones do, and also they are generally configured to run slower on battery anyhow. That's how they can advertise -- and actually deliver -- eight or nine hour run times.
I don't let my hacked Chromebook do any of that shit. No dimming the display, no throttling the CPU, no switching off the WiFi (because it doesn't always switch back on). It still runs three to three and a half hours with a Minecraft server running in the background. That's long enough for me to be "off the leash", as that was the optimistic runtime of laptops on batteries just ten years ago. Longer runtimes are nice, but I got quite used to not having them, and now I prefer to keep my experience as pleasant as possible rather than maximize battery life.
If I do have to replace the battery, it will be as simple as swapping out the SSD. Take off the back (13 screws), then the bracket retaining the part in question. Replace, and reassemble. It's a ten minute job, though the lack of NVRAM on Chromebooks does mean rEFInd is probably going to have a seizure on the first boot after the swap.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Apple takes steps to ensure my privacy (even from them.) Safari is pretty good out of the box, there's a single checkbox for "don't send stuff to Apple" in the settings, and they let me give apps whatever permissions I want, not whatever they ask for when they install. Android would require learning a new distro, installing it, finding an alternative to GApps (which is supposed to be fairly hard.) All in all, an Android phone is a project. Which would be fine, except I use my phone as a way to get things done.
I think of an Android device like I do a FreeBSD one. On paper, the openness is awesome, and as a second device I may fuck up, fine. But not as my primary.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Today I arrived at a Genius Bar appointment and was told they ran out of replacement batteries for the iPhone 6S.
That's pretty funny. I hope he has both phones, and maybe his Nexus 6P can't handle the "heavy load" of posting to slashdot, but that is funny. Or it's a clever troll, but I doubt it.
Might I ask exactly what "design flaw" you are talking about?
You are correct. At $29 they will take a loss on the battery replacements.
Consider this - this guy is lying, anonymously, on a web forum, to defend a product that he almost certainly has no personal stake in.
It really ought to punch a hole in time with sheer patheticness. Why it doesn't is an enduring mystery.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Top marks for telling us the name of the supervisor. That was crucial to the fucking story, as were the hashtags.
Slashdot doesn't use hashtags, mate.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Looks like it. The choice is clear: either have a crippled phone or give Apple more money. I guess folks dumb enough to buy an iPhone will claim that this is awesome customer service.
You are correct. At $29 they will take a loss on the battery replacements.
So you have access to validated internal cost detail for a company who buys this specific component in massive bulk?
And regardless if you are technically correct here, this move by Apple exists for two reasons; to keep you as a customer, and to maintain share price. Both of those are worth a fuckton more than a few dollars lost on the handful of people who managed to do more than just bitch about their crappy battery life.
This is good for me as the nearest Apple Store is over 200 miles away. Now, how do I test my phones battery, it has been about a once a day (but not quite) charge since I bought it two years ago. So it is probably getting close to the 500 charge mark.
Passionately Indifferent
So you have access to validated internal cost detail for a company who buys this specific component in massive bulk?
It would not matter if Apple got them free. The major cost is plant and labour. The cost of an employee and the place for him to do it is way in excess of what apple want ($29) for the service. They probably did not make much at $79. Remember they also have to accept the breakages that happen as an earlier poster mentioned happened to hime. He got a brand new phone for his $29. That was part of the cost of doing business, fixing the phones.
And regardless if you are technically correct here, this move by Apple exists for two reasons; to keep you as a customer, and to maintain share price. Both of those are worth a fuckton more than a few dollars lost on the handful of people who managed to do more than just bitch about their crappy battery life.
Well, you are not wrong in that. But how is Apple wrong in this? And it works well for me. Any time I have a problem I squawk and I get a response. Problem solved. It is one of the reasons I am a customer. No more than nominal bullshit in the customer service which proves to be excellent.
I think looking at your response is enough for people to decide who is stupid and who is not. Arrogance is no argument.
I broke a Nexus 5 phone and replaced it with an iPhone 6 while I ws waiting for my Nexus 6P pre-order, figuring my daughter would be happy to get a couple month old iPhone. This worked out great and let me get to know iPhone. Over all it was a MUCH less painful experience than I expected. No Google rewards surveys and no dedicated back button. Nexus 6p finally arrived and I moved over to it , used it a year and change and the battery went to crap. Full charge to your phone is turning off due to dead battery in minutes or less. I then went back to the iPhone, which my daughter was reporting a similar issue with. It was working better than the Nexus 6P and so long as I had a charger on had I got by. I 'almost' did the $79 battery replacement but Apple store said ti's fine, in spite of the 40% to 0 being almost instant. Luckily... it worked well until the 40% dive bomb..... so I lived with it, until Samsung offered a deal I couldn't refuse crediting $400ish for giving them my iPhone and picking up a Note 8 at about 1/2 cost (I had bought and returned via a recall a Note 7). This was a no-brainer and now I'm a Note user and the battery life is amazing. I am glad to see Apple eventually did the right thing with the battery replacements through. $29 is pretty reasonable to breathe new life into a 2 year+ old phone.
They will NOT. I went in already for mine and they said I could not get a battery for $29 price because mine past a 1 Minute test they âoesaidâ the did on my phone. When I couldnâ(TM)t understand this answer they gave me Appleâ(TM)s 1-800 number and a VERY rude supervisor named Audrey at this number said she looked up my visit to the Apple store and saw the test results and that they were correct in saying Apple will not honor that price to me. They wouldnâ(TM)t even give my phone a try to see how crappy it is. I literally lay it down and wait for things to load as it spins and spins. My phone also randomly every single day will not respond to the touch screen. Apparently know as âoeTouch diseaseâ. They said they didnâ(TM)t know of that and wanted to replace my screen for $189. I asked them (store & supervisor on phone)to google Apples letter they had published about this issue saying replacing the screen would NOT help and neither of them would do so. Apple is full of crap and ripping off millions of people. #stopappleslies #appleisrippingusoff
You misunderstood the time line and now you are complaining? They will NOT do it now because it is not the time. If you carefully read the blog posted on ./ last Friday, you would have known that the reduced price will start from late January 2018, not now. Also, others who side with the AC parent didn't carefully read anything as well. I guess it is typical slashdoters these days.
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.
you can get a battery for less that $20 dollars. I think that's how Apple wants to get more money from old phones :s
I asked a leading question and you refused to answer it. Any shilling I am doing is with facts. I use a lot of Apple gear because it is best and cheapest for what I require of it. That does not make me a shill. But even if it was I rather be that than what I dub thee, "shrill". Go shit somewhere else.
What about their tablets? Sure those are affected by the same problem?
You are correct. At $29 they will take a loss on the battery replacements.
So you have access to validated internal cost detail for a company who buys this specific component in massive bulk?
My guess is it isn't as much as a loss as it is a wash. The part+shipping is probably only about $9. That leaves $20 for labor, building costs, and accidental breakage. $20 likely wouldn't cover all that on an ongoing basis but as the employees are already on the payroll, the building is already there, etc... then it should mostly let them break even while helping with the Public Relations. Throw in a few upsells while people are in the store and they might even come out a little ahead if you only look at parts+labor.
As a side note, I personally would love for this to blow up so badly that companies start having user replaceable batteries again but Apple has instead decided that thinner is better even when that thinness is a determent to features like user replaceable batteries and longer battery life.
Apple designed their chips to be like this in the first place. So there's no excuse that this is a good solution. It's a screwup by Apple, whether you blame hardware design or software. And in either case, their arrogant attitude towards their customers is astonishing.
Best Buy, MicroCenter, etc.? If they will do the same, then how good are they compared to Apple's fixers?
Thank you in advance. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
https://ifixit.org/blog/9491/a... is also doing $29 for those who want to do it on their own or have someone else do it.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Not sure if this is double posting, /. ate the first two posts. "Apple has since independently confirmed to MacRumors that it will agree to replace an eligible battery for a $29 fee, regardless of whether an official diagnostic test shows that it is still able to retain less than 80 percent of its original capacity. " Does not parse unless s/less/more/. All fucking batteries can retain 80% or less. Fucking morons. Fuck these people who can't fucking write and then take a job where it's their job to write.
Glad to see you will bit pout your name to slander coward.
If you consider actually, physically saving my life 'shitting all over me' then I would have to agree with you. Thanks to that Apple has put you of through the misery of communication with me because I remain alive. Besides you can't tell shit from rose petals.
And wankery can flood the forum to (in fact that is more common).
The fraud is clear: Apple let customers wlith old iphone versions believe their own phone was faulty, which increased iphone sales. Every customer who upgraded his/her iphone could claim compensation. Apple's excuses won't wash: lying to users about the cause will make them liable; and the slowdown was entirely the result of avoidable design choices - choices not disclosed to users.
No fraud has been demostqrsted. Fraud requires intent, in order to prove fraud your must be able to demonstrate mens rea. I don't think you can so good luck.
The rest of your post is just garbage. You cannot demonstrate the lie that you claim exits and there is no slowdown unless the battery will cause a crash. The lowdown ends the microsecond the stress stops. The alternative would be to let the phone crash. That has dangerous implications. It was the right choice.
If any of the class actions succeed it will not be on technical issues. They put in a good fix. A lot of people who do not understand it are squawking about it (and lots of people are going "Free Money!") so Apple responded with a change and are changing (not fixing) the software so there is no cause for any complaint. Being that Apple has responded to user input in a quick and timely fashion there is not much scope for accusation of misbehaviour. Like people, corporations are not necessarily expected to be right all the time but they must be responsive when and if they are wrong. Just like you.
The sum total of these choices is enough to establish likelihood of intent.
That is just pure self agrandising bullshit. You judge the choices and you decide the guilt. You are right the law does not work that way. You are not the judge. As a rule the law does not treat conspiracy theories well and that is all you have. A silly conspiracy theory that ignores all counter evidence. You have joined the 'get apple' religion and nothing will sway you from your faith.
PS. Would you like to re-evaluate that 'PS" after you have learnt something about scheduling about scheduling, normal CPU usage and a whole swathe of other things you clearly do not understand. Servers require high CPU usage to save dollar costs but for most multi, general use devices (see definition of a computer) that is far from the case. Always, always, always there is contention between process. There is an inevitable trade off. Your fast machines are the idle ones, the slowest ones are the ones with the highest CPU utilisation. Do you understand that using Von Neuman machines makes this inevitable? Increasing cores and threads can only partly address this.
Are you Lennart Poettering perchance? You display similar misunderstandings./p.
You seem to be assuming that the employees would be doing nothing instead of replacing batteries. If replacing batteries takes them away from other necessary functions, Apple has to hire additional people. If they have to hire too many additional people, they run out of room and have to pay more for the space.
Look up "opportunity cost". Every employee replacing a battery isn't doing something else.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You seem to be assuming that the employees would be doing nothing instead of replacing batteries. If replacing batteries takes them away from other necessary functions, Apple has to hire additional people. If they have to hire too many additional people, they run out of room and have to pay more for the space.
No, I'm assuming that $20 mostly covers the labor. Even if they get a mad influx and have to hire a few temps and set up card tables to do it, it should mostly cover the labor. They likely wouldn't expand their space for a temporary extra busy time. Apple is used to temporary surges when they release a new phone, etc. so should already have a plan in place to handle surges.
Nope. Your first sentence tells exactly why the comparison is valid. You make all kind of assumptions and then use them as reasoned acts. They are not and you have no idea why Apple does what it does.
But still you make the claim "which is why" and assume it fact. Dubbing you Lennart seems bloody accurate. Same kind of bloody mined "I decide the facts" attitude.
Because I believe in innocent until proven guilty I am a hypocrite? Ha, ha, ha....
Poor little fascistii
I don't know how that is going in the USA, but I' surprised that you seem not to have the 'cheap chinese repair shops'.
On the other hand we don't have those in Germany either,
I do repairs for electronic equipment usually in Paris. Depending on are you have half a dozen or more phone shops that also offer repairs in the streets, e.g. iPad screen replacement about $40, never checked for Batteries.
I'm in Bangkok right now and replaced my iPad 2 screen for about $60 (2000 TB), a bit expensive ... I guess they ripped me off as I don't speak much Thai.
But I will replace the battery of my iPhone 4 next week for â12 / $15.
I had assumed in bigger US cities you had similar options.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.