iBone the Repair industry - Apple locks down batteries, marking own batteries as degraded

[Trik'Stari]

58 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Of course they would. That's why we need a gov't that isn't afraid to stomp its foot for the people affected by this. 

I still think that instead of financial punishments they should go to the patent office or copyright office and start burning paperwork.

 

That would definitely light a fire under some of these companies asses.

 

Oh, you don't want to allow people to do this? Well, you just lost the copyright to the term iPhone. Or the patent to curved edges. Or something along those lines.

 

Oh and that loss of patent or copyright would be irreversible. No act of congress or supreme court could undo it, and the patent or copyright in question would be sold off to the highest bidder. With the original company not being allowed to participate.

 

And no, someone private can't buy it and then re-license it to the original company. Attempting this would result in the loss of more patents/copyrights.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

I still think that instead of financial punishments they should go to the patent office or copyright office and start burning paperwork.

 

That would definitely light a fire under some of these companies asses.

 

Oh, you don't want to allow people to do this? Well, you just lost the copyright to the term iPhone. Or the patent to curved edges. Or something along those lines.

 

That fits with my sense of justice,   a company can only hold a patent if they are being fair and reasonable with it. 

[Trik'Stari]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

That fits with my sense of justice,   a company can only hold a patent if they are being fair and reasonable with it. 

And most importantly, actually using it.

 

IIRC 3D printing was created in the 80's and some company bought certain patents to it and then sat on them for a while and did nothing with them. That should not be allowed.

 

Edit: Also see edit to earlier post. I would be goddamned unforgiving. Never again would that original company be able to use said patent or copyright. Even if they renamed themselves or had a private individual purchase the IP and then "license" it back to the company.

 

NO SOUP FOR YOU. LIFETIME BAN.

[79wjd]

23 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

The issue here is a "trusted person" meaning only an Apple store can reset the "service battery" message, it seems really clear to me that this is a anti-repair industry cash grab to get people to come into the store and pay $200 for a $50 battery. And the reason Apple would probably give is some battery "safety" excuse.

Just FYI, a bettery replacement from Apple is $69 for the X/s/r/max and $49 for everything else (all free under warranty), not $200.

 

Also, given that the service message is "buried" in settings that most people likely never look at, I'm having a hard time finding a reason to give a shit about this.

[spartaman64]

4 minutes ago, 79wjd said:

Just FYI, a bettery replacement from Apple is $69 for the X/s/r/max and $49 for everything else (all free under warranty), not $200.

 

Also, given that the service message is "buried" in settings that most people likely never look at, I'm having a hard time finding a reason to give a shit about this.

thats if you live in a country that offers that and i doubt that its just an arbitrary tag that has no other effect on the phone

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

thats if you live in a country that offers that

Well, most iPhone sales occur in countries where some authorized apple service exists. Those that don't, have a service message in settings, where they probably aren't looking anyway.

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and i doubt that its just an arbitrary tag that has no other effect on the phone

It has yet to be determined if there is an impact. However, given the amount of flak that Apple gets for anything they do, and the amount of noise created by the battery-related throttling, AND the fact that there hasn't been any mention of degraded performance, it seems like that isn't happening. Certainly there is no evidence of it occurring -- if evidence appears, then that's another story entirely.

[CTR640]

3 hours ago, steelo said:

And the izombies will continue buying them...

That's exactly the problem. As long as iSheeps keeps buying them, Apple won't change, they'll simply continue this shit. They either stop complaining or switch to other brands. 

[Blademaster91]

2 hours ago, 79wjd said:

Just FYI, a bettery replacement from Apple is $69 for the X/s/r/max and $49 for everything else (all free under warranty), not $200.

 

Also, given that the service message is "buried" in settings that most people likely never look at, I'm having a hard time finding a reason to give a shit about this.

Not everyone lives near an Apple store, and thats still more than what some 3rd party repair centers would charge.

And it isn't about most people not looking at the service message, its still a setting being locked out for no reason to only an Apple store.

2 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

thats if you live in a country that offers that and i doubt that its just an arbitrary tag that has no other effect on the phone

Yeah it also sucks if you're not even near an Apple store, I'm in the US and the nearest Apple store is like 2hrs away. This is one more reason for me to not get an iPhone, even though the software is really nice. Samsung,LG,Nokia,etc don't have this problem and i'd rather order a battery online and do it myself.

[Thaldor]

1 minute ago, Blademaster91 said:

Not everyone lives near an Apple store, and thats still more than what some 3rd party repair centers would charge.

Not to mention those 2 words that are mostly heard only in Apple Stores when iDevice is brought to be repaired and which always at least 10-fold the price.

Spoiler

Spoiler

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Spoiler

Spoiler

"Water Damage"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryk]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

The controller on lithium batteries is generic and only there to monitor charge an discharge to prevent the battery from exploding.  It is purely a safety device and isn't even a micro controller.   What apple are putting in here is completely different and completely unnecessary.  It serves absolutely no purpose, if a dud battery is put in the ios software should read the battery condition accurately enough for the consumer/repairmen to know the battery is dead, they don't need false signals making all batteries look dead just because apple didn't do the repair.

Is it unthinkable that Apple might have designed a proprietary control chip which monitors things and allows them to get more performance out of the battery?

[DrMacintosh]

For the record, we only have sensationalized headlines and reporting to go by. 

 

A iPhone has no way of reporting that a battery is new or old unless it’s been calibrated, aka charged and discharged all the way after being installed. If the cell was previously experiencing issues, the OS is going to assume they are still there unless given a reason to say otherwise. 

 

These batteries don’t have imbedded logic to independently report their condition. (Yet)

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, harryk said:

Is it unthinkable that Apple might have designed a proprietary control chip which monitors things and allows them to get more performance out of the battery?

That's not what you said.  You claimed batteries already have control chips in them  and that there is "no guarantee they will return correct and safe in formation".   There is no such chip in said batteries and they do not provide the phone with any information, they merely limit the current in and out and shut off when the cell voltage drops below 2.8V (3V in some cases). 

 

 

[ARikozuM]

@Trik'Stari I wouldn't even consider selling it. Just place it in the open-source/open-license pile and be done with it. If you want to compete, you better compete. If you don't want to compete, ... fuck off. The gov't is the only entity protecting those patents and those protections should only apply as a positive influence. 

[Yongtjunkit]

That sounds a bit ridiculous, maybe they would give discount for battery replacement again 

 

well they should warn the user that it may not be the original battery but not block the battery health data in iOS/ battery diagnostic software on pc/ iOS( they’ve blocked it since iOS 10 ) 

[ARikozuM]

3 hours ago, 79wjd said:

Well, most iPhone sales occur in countries where some authorized apple service exists. Those that don't, have a service message in settings, where they probably aren't looking anyway.

Doesn't matter. Mailing your phone to a service center is not a good alternative to having a repair shop locally. 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Yongtjunkit said:

That sounds a bit ridiculous, maybe they would give discount for battery replacement again 

 

well they should warn the user that it may not be the original battery but not block the battery health data in iOS/ battery diagnostic software on pc/ iOS( they’ve blocked it since iOS 10 ) 

Forget about warning users etc,  that's for the power saving software features when the battery degrades, I am still trying to think of a reason for this to be needed in the first place.  It won't make phones run longer because there is nothing you can do electronically to make the battery supply more power, it won't keep the battery cooler for the same reason.  Anything they add to the battery only increases cost and adds another point of failure,  I really see no benefit to the end user in this.

[Arika]

2 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

For the record, we only have sensationalized headlines and reporting to go by. 

so this screenshot is fake?

 

 

 

i don't know how this paints any other message than apple messing with how it reads new batteries so every replacement not done by them makes you think you got a dud battery, therefore making the customer lose trust in third party repairers (which is exactly what they want) because "they only give me bad batteries" and then making them shell over hundreds to apple to do the same thing

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

so this screenshot is fake?

 

 

Given no context, I would say yes. 

[Arika]

2 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Given no context, I would say yes. 

so didn't read the article or watch the video?

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We first saw this phenomenon in a damning video from Justin at The Art of Repair, and we were able to replicate it on an iPhone XS running both iOS 12 and the iOS 13 beta. Swapping in a new genuine Apple battery from another iPhone XS resulted in the “Service” message popping up in the Battery Health section, followed by an “Important Battery Message” telling us that it’s “unable to verify this iPhone has a genuine Apple battery.” Justin says this only affects the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max for the time being.

so ifixit and Justin are just lying for shits and giggles?

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Arika S said:

 

so ifixit and Justin are just lying for shits and giggles?

 

I would say that given that an actual genuine battery was used, that something else is going on. 

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

I would say that given that an actual genuine battery was used, that something else is going on. 

Yeah, Apple requiring a diagnostic system to clear the error. 

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Yeah, Apple requiring a diagnostic system to clear the error. 

Any evidence of that?

[ARikozuM]

4 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Any evidence of that?

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The only way around this is—you guessed it—paying Apple money to replace your iPhone battery for you. There’s a Texas Instruments microcontroller on the battery itself that provides information to the iPhone, such as battery capacity, temperature, and how much time until it fully discharges. Apple uses its own proprietary version, but pretty much all smartphone batteries have some version of this chip.

If the user can't replace the battery themselves without being able to clear this error, it's a problem. 

 

It's like BMW and their damn check engine light clear sequence. 

Spoiler

Turn the key to ON

depress the brake

press the odometer button for three seconds

release the brake

call your mom for lunch

turn the key to OFF

go to the dealership

 

disclaimer: I'm joking.

 

There needs to be an easy way to let the phone recalibrate its new battery without Apple's intervention. 

[Arika]

4 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

There needs to be an easy way to let the phone recalibrate its new battery without Apple's intervention. 

you mean just like every other phone and iphone up until now?

[harryk]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

That's not what you said.  You claimed batteries already have control chips in them  and that there is "no guarantee they will return correct and safe in formation".   There is no such chip in said batteries and they do not provide the phone with any information, they merely limit the current in and out and shut off when the cell voltage drops below 2.8V (3V in some cases). 

Yes, all lithium batteries have some form of control circuitry, typically an analog IC chip which merely controls the safe charge and discharging of the battery. Apple has gone a step further and utilized a micro controller to accomplish the same and more.

 

According to the folks at iFixit, from the original article linked by OP, the micro controller, "provides information to the iPhone, such as battery capacity, temperature, and how much time until it fully discharges. Apple uses its own proprietary version, but pretty much all smartphone batteries have some version of this chip".

 

Looking at the data sheet for the Texas Instruments bq27546-G1 control chip, it "uses the patented Impedance TrackTM algorithm for fuel gauging, and provides information such as remaining battery capacity (mAh), state-of-charge (%), run-time to empty (min.), battery voltage (mV), and temperature (°C). It also provides detections for internal short or tab disconnection events".

 

Thus it could be important for iOS to get trustworthy information from this chip for proper power management. Without some form of authentication it'd be easy to spoof the output from the chip in a cheap knock-off battery.