Apple apologizes over battery fisasco, will offer $29 battery replacements for 1 year

[mr moose]

So they use an inadequate size battery, hide it with secret performance fucking software and then people are happy because they have to pay $27 to fix what shouldn't have been an issue in the first place?    

 

Righto then. 

[Matu20]

29 dollars is actually not that bad for a device that is not user-serviceable. 

[dizmo]

32 minutes ago, abazigal said:

$29 likely covers the price of the battery and the labour costs and that’s pretty much it. Doing Apple is earning all that much from this, if at all. 

 

Respect the people working at the stores. Always picking up the shit for Apple. 

The battery is $2.50. They're already paying the employee anyway, it's not like they're going to hire tons of extra staff, so that cost is negligible. Thus, profit.

[divito]

20 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Just to be clear, I am not an Apple loyalist. I am not loyal to any company. You can't escape battery degradation, and avoiding the problem altogether and allowing phones to simply shut off can also be considered a way to force people to upgrade, particularly if it's too expensive to replace the battery for the current phone and/or simply too difficult. 

 

Don't claim people are loyalists to the company because they support the way the respective company has dealt with something. 

I wasn't labeling you specifically, even though you happened to agree with the approach. You're not the first or only person to hail this as a good gesture by the company.

I agree that PR-wise, not letting your devices die based on the battery is a good thing. If certain iPhone generations all of a sudden started dropping dead quickly because of the degraded battery, this issue probably would have been found sooner.

[Dabombinable]

1 hour ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Personally, I think it's simply Apple's way of making their devices last longer and be more reliable than other devices. I know there are people that don't want their phones slowing down over time(I mean, who does?), but it's a much better alternative compared to your phone shutting off entirely, particularly since we generally need our phones to be, well.....PHONES. If there's an emergency, having our phones shut off in the middle of an important phone call is terrible, and Apple's method is best for dealing with battery degradation. 

That'd be the case....if they had provided clear warning before any iPhone started slowing down. Since people would then simply go to their closest Apple store or repair centre to get the battery replaced, thus making the device last longer. As opposed to not telling people that their phone is being slowed down, and thus meaning that they think their phone is dying, and that they need to buy a new one.

[pipnina]

2 hours ago, ionbasa said:

Unfortunately it's not that simple given a we have such a competitive market. Very few tech industries actually implement planned obsolescence. The tech industry will always be on the cutting edge due to new advancements in technology. As  new tech comes out old tech becomes obsolete, if a company fails to stay innovative or upgrade their hardware/software they risk losing out to their competitors. 

Except the problem is planned obsolescence IS a thing in the mobile market. As you are likely aware, just about every mobile device runs on an ARM CPU, which all have proprietary designs, proprietary firmware, proprietary drivers which are needed for the device to work. All of the biggest manufacturers stop supporting these drivers after exactly 2 years, and because drivers are run in Linux kernel space, you cannot upgrade your kernel without breaking the proprietary drivers and effectively softbricking your phone. Not even Google/Apple/Samsung can get around this. Hence why even the most recent Androids only run Linux 3.xx (current version of Linux is 4.15-rc's, at about 4/5 .1's per year)

 

Also, because kernel updates are very often security updates, and your phone will not update after 2 years of launch, your phone becomes increasingly vulnerable after the 2 year mark.

[xtroria]

Okay this is actually a sweet deal. My iPhone 7 is still showing its full performance on geekbench after a year of use (battery life app shows 3% of degradation). I'll upgrade the phone next year but it'll be nice to just go to apple store, spend $30 and not having to worry about bad batteries 2 years down the line

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, xtroria said:

Okay this is actually a sweet deal. My iPhone 7 is still showing its full performance on geekbench after a year of use (battery life app shows 3% of degradation). I'll upgrade the phone next year but it'll be nice to just go to apple store, spend $30 and not having to worry about bad batteries 2 years down the line

Sweet for those who don't need to replace their batteries but can,  however for those who do have shit batteries it's another $27 to keep their phone working as long as it should have in the first place.  That's neither a good product nor service.  If the phone was a $99 clunker and 2 years old I would expect that, but not for a $500-600 phone that's only a year old.

[PocketNerd]

I'm actually impressed, the only thing they could have done better with this scenario is be far quicker with the response.

- An avid Android User.

[PocketNerd]

12 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Was the hit to performance necessary? Doesn't a degraded battery just mean it holds less charge? Cant Apple just account for that with dynamic battery monitoring? Everyone should understand that battery will eventually degrade. Esp sheeple who probably give no fucks about their wonder device having to be charged more often.

Both things occur..

[Eduard the weeb]

1 hour ago, Fetzie said:

Every rechargeable battery will experience degradation when charged though.

yeah but what I am saying if they added an extra 10% battery size then they wouldn't

thats why I said it should have been future proofed so making a bigger battery would help.

[Drak3]

11 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Was the hit to performance necessary? Doesn't a degraded battery just mean it holds less charge? Cant Apple just account for that with dynamic battery monitoring? Everyone should understand that battery will eventually degrade. Esp sheeple who probably give no fucks about their wonder device having to be charged more often.

The problem is that the degraded battery can't maintain the voltage their CPU requires to run full speed.

 

1 minute ago, PocketNerd said:

the only thing they could have done better with this scenario is be far quicker with the response.

Or change the design to have batteries that are worth a fuck two years from now and replace the batteries of affected units for free.

[PocketNerd]

3 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Or change the design to have batteries that are worth a fuck two years from now and replace the batteries of affected units for free.

Not really possible, limitations of Li-Ion batteries make it so they have limited usage. I'd certainly prefer to see them offering free replacements but this is Apple we're talking about, no way they'd do that without serious embarrassment.

Now, an even better idea would be to design future phones with user-removable batteries and sell those batteries for cheap.

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

Not really possible, limitations of Li-Ion batteries make it so they have limited usage.

Life time is correlated to capacity. It's definitely possible, all they need to do is offer an adequate battery size.

[Zodiark1593]

38 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Was the hit to performance necessary? Doesn't a degraded battery just mean it holds less charge? Cant Apple just account for that with dynamic battery monitoring? Everyone should understand that battery will eventually degrade. Esp sheeple who probably give no fucks about their wonder device having to be charged more often.

Well, internal resistance increases as well when the battery ages, converting more current to heat, and reducing the voltage being output. If Apple's big CPU cores are of a particularly bursty nature (very high current in short bursts), the load can bring down voltage enough to shut down the device.

 

Bigger batteries can provide more current with less voltage drop, even in a degraded state. Most Android devices won't suffer due to lower peak current (especially the Cortex A53 chips) and overall larger batteries than iPhones with smaller batteries.

[Ryujin2003]

So, you still have to pay to fix Apple's mistake? So what? Pay this one time, but the rest of the devices it's to be expected?

[GoodBytes]

25 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

So, you still have to pay to fix Apple's mistake? So what? Pay this one time, but the rest of the devices it's to be expected?

Nope, you are not fixing anything, they are replacing with the same weak, short lasting battery (1yr vs 3-4 for 80% capacity)

[Arika]

So Apple now has a $29 annual Battery subscription? 

[D13H4RD]

Well, at least it's better than the Nexus 6P

 

Damn thing still has battery issues

 

And if you think replacing the battery in an iPhone 7 is hard enough, wait until you try replacing it on a Galaxy Note8

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, PocketNerd said:

Not really possible, limitations of Li-Ion batteries make it so they have limited usage. I'd certainly prefer to see them offering free replacements but this is Apple we're talking about, no way they'd do that without serious embarrassment.

Now, an even better idea would be to design future phones with user-removable batteries and sell those batteries for cheap.

Tell that to the 15-20 year warranty on deep cycle Lithium Ion batteries used in solar generation, you can easily make a durable battery if you want to. The issue is the design of the iPhone, it's volume is too small to allow for both a high mAh and durable battery design.

 

Many different Lithium based battery technologies, many superior technologies not even in use and many ways to make a battery more durable using the same technology. You can do a lot of things if you aren't obsessed with 2mm thinner phones which can be the difference between a 1 year 80% battery and a 3-5 year 80% battery.

[bcredeur97]

2 hours ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Just to be clear, I am not an Apple loyalist. I am not loyal to any company. You can't escape battery degradation, and avoiding the problem altogether and allowing phones to simply shut off can also be considered a way to force people to upgrade, particularly if it's too expensive to replace the battery for the current phone and/or simply too difficult. 

 

Don't claim people are loyalists to the company because they support the way the respective company has dealt with something. 

^ what i've been saying to everyone around me who has mentioned it pretty much...

 

they could make the phones a little thicker though... just so we get a bit more longevity out of them. but $29 battery replacements are fine alternative... to me anyway. too bad it's only for a year. 

 

bottom line for sure is we need new battery tech...

[D13H4RD]

Just now, bcredeur97 said:

bottom line for sure is we need new battery tech...

Word. 

 

My old Moto Z is just over a year old at this point and it keeps shutting down at 35%, sometimes more. 

 

To add insult to injury, the battery is unable to vent heat as efficiently as before, so it's a literal hot potato now. 

[Ryujin2003]

14 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Nope, you are not fixing anything, they are replacing with the same weak, short lasting battery (1yr vs 3-4 for 80% capacity)

So, you're telling me there's a catch? LOL! I didn't think of that. That is freaking epic! And an Out-of-Warranty battery replacement is what, $75 anyways?

[bcredeur97]

3 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Word. 

 

My old Moto Z is just over a year old at this point and it keeps shutting down at 35%, sometimes more. 

 

To add insult to injury, the battery is unable to vent heat as efficiently as before, so it's a literal hot potato now. 

just looked up how to change a battery in a moto z. 

 

im sorry man. they just had to glue the whole thing together didn't they? smh

[vetali]

6 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Tell that to the 15-20 year warranty on deep cycle Lithium Ion batteries used in solar generation, you can easily make a durable battery if you want to. The issue is the design of the iPhone, it's volume is too small to allow for both a high mAh and durable battery design.

 

Many different Lithium based battery technologies, many superior technologies not even in use and many ways to make a battery more durable using the same technology. You can do a lot of things if you aren't obsessed with 2mm thinner phones which can be the difference between a 1 year 80% battery and a 3-5 year 80% battery.

I don't think an extra 2mm is going to give enough room for active cooling and heating. Temperature is the big killer of batteries and phones are exposed to both extremes. Thus the conservative construction of batteries in small portable devices. Otherwise you end up with a hand grenade in your pocket.