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Apple Is Seeing 'Strong Demand' For Replacement iPhone Batteries (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the next-up dept.

In a letter addressed to the U.S. lawmakers, Apple said earlier this month that it was seeing "strong demand" for replacement iPhone batteries. The company added that it may offer rebates for consumers who paid full price for new batteries. From a report: Apple confirmed in December that software to deal with aging batteries in iPhone 6, iPhone 6s and iPhone SE models could slow down performance. The company apologized and lowered the price of battery replacements for affected models from $79 to $29. In the letter released Tuesday, amid nagging allegations that it slowed down phones with older batteries as a way to push people into buying new phones, the company said it was considering issuing rebates to consumers who paid full price for replacement batteries.

6 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. That's not surprising really by the_skywise · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many people would take advantage of a sale to get new laptop batteries at 60% off?
    I've got an iPhone 6 with a replaced battery a little under a year ago (woohoo rebate!) and I FULLY intend to purchase the replacement around the end of the year just to extend the life of my 6 by another 2 years or so.
    It also ups the resale value.

    1. Re:That's not surprising really by the_skywise · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not just a nefarious conspiracy. Modular components (ram, network cards) require physical connections which are never as good as a soldered connection as well as layout space to replaceable. The whole move towards thinness and lighter phones and laptops was a great driver to the soldered components and to pack as much tech into as small a space as possible.
      I'm sure some of that was also a drive to lock the customer into certain features and specs but this happened with PC laptops long before Apple jumped back into the game. I've gone through my share of gaming laptops and which at least allowed me to expand memory and hard drives. (and more recently WiFi - In THEORY I can change out the GPU but it's ridiculously expensive and a pain to do so and a typical customer probably wouldn't do that.) Can't do that AT ALL with my Surface Pro 4 but I see that as a move towards computers as an appliance. Same with cars these days. It used to be that you could do most of your own repairs on a car - not these days.

  2. Because they got caught. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple doesn't do things out of the goodness of their heart. Apple execs realized they had been caught and it would have serious repercussions in the EU, so they decided to simply reduce their profit margin. They are still making a killing on replacing batteries but now they look charitable despite being anything but.

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  3. DON'T! YOU! SAY! by grungeman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Only Captain Obvious could have seen this coming.

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  4. Re:$29 for battery replacement is a good deal by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What if there was a way to make this easier to do? A 'replaceable' battery, if you will?

    Standard Slashdot trope - but the market has spoken. IF there was a STRONG demand for quick replaceable batteries ala early Blackberries THEN we would see them in the market. And see them successful. Certainly there are (a couple dozen) people who find this useful but not enough to push manufactures to offer it routinely. It's pretty obvious that it CAN be done.

    I remember the extra BB batteries. With the expensive and non standard charger. Which was always at home when I really needed it. Or the tiny little battery was in my backpack when I didn't have it with me. Or something.

    Now you see the 'Zombie with the USB cord' stomping around airports and pretty much every public space with a wall power outlet. We've gone to placing generic USB chargers on the wall at each bay in the ER because patients kept trying to plug their chargers in while waiting. Which drove the biomed staff bezerk because you're not supposed to plug anything in that hasn't been blessed by Biomed (basically checking for leakage current so patients and staff don't get electrocuted - not such a bad thing to do).

    So we have the blessed chargers there for people to use. They're happy (until they get the bill) and Biomed is happy and nobody gets fried.

    That pointless story is just to illustrate that the ubiquity of the USB standard and a tiny little cable has pretty much negated the need for the pop in battery.

    Progress charges on.

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  5. Isolated incident by ilsaloving · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only reason they're even doing this is cause their image got a black eye.

    I tried to get a couple of mac minis upgraded, replacing the HDD drive with a 256GB SSD. I was quoted at $1000 just for the drive . This doesn't even include the labour for taking the thing apart!

    If I were to purchase a brand new Mac Mini, an upgrade to SSD is still $240. Still more expensive than just buying an SSD from the store, but that's 1/4 of the price I was quoted for the repair.

    Apple sure loves their shenanigans.