> Why do people have to come in to the Apple Store to replace their batteries?
You don't. Thousands of people replace their own iPhone batteries every week. Even I've done it, and I'm not especially dexterous.
Just go to Amazon or Google and search for a $20 replacement kit. Or, if you're not a DIY person, where I live there are places on every other streetcorner that will replace your battery for you.
> Meanwhile, I know loads of people who have traded in, or simply handed in, their old iPhones in an Apple Store. I can’t imagine anyone casually tossing an old iPhone in the trash the way my feckless bench-neighbour did.
Or just get the battery replaced at the Apple Store and keep using your phone an extra year or two. It's even cheaper than buying a new phone!
> Why do people have to come in to the Apple Store to replace their batteries?
That’s how Apple tends to handle almost all warranty issues. Either that or you can mail it in.
iPhones are not exactly designed to be easily opened and messed with by normal people. It’s part of how they get them so thin (insert various other theories that may or may not apply here).
> It's much easier to do battery replacements on apple products
> just pay them...$99...to do it [for you].
That's not doing the replacement, that's paying a significant amount of money to have a specialist do it for you. Having the specialist available does not remove the original problem, it solves it with the side effect of cost and inconvenience.
Just because the side effects don't bother you doesn't mean everyone should be subjected to them. Replacing a battery should not require a specialist in the first place. Most people consider $99 a very expensive repair.
OS updates are orthogonal. We are talking about hardware.
> The problem is Apple makes the other option, battery replacement, extremely difficult
Take it to an Apple store, call Apple support, or take it to any one of your friendly neighborhood repair shops?
> ludicrously high amount
Battery replacement costs:
Google Phones: $79
Apple Phones: $79
Samsung Phones: Nothing 1st party, $50 was the cheapest 3rd party I could find.
This honestly doesn't even seem like that much when the battery itself retails for $25 before shipping. That plus an hour of skilled labor to do the replacement puts us right around $80-$100. And when a new battery extends the life of your $800 phone for another 2 years its hard to say the value isn't there.
Lol, the person who I did it for (this was a while ago) was told $150 to replace the battery in her old iphone. I bought a battery on ebay for $5, delivered from China, including the tools I needed, and did it for her.
It was nerve wracking, quite delicate and fiddly and easy to break something. The first time I forgot to reconnect the tiny microphone flex cable so I had to open it up again to reconnect it, but I got there in the end. She was very happy but I wouldn't do it again for someone.
TLDR: quoted $150 at Apple store, did it for $5 and about 30 minutes of hassle. Apple is a planned obsolescence scam.
>Apple will not provide user replaceable batteries. It’s probably too expensive and complicated for them to do that and have waterproof devices.
I just want Apple to sell ME the battery. I dont want my battery to by crypto signed to my device.
>They instead offer replacements
Exactly, _replacement_. They wont just sell me a battery. You have to give them serial number, which in most cases means client PI. You also have to send old battery back for ~$40 credit to make the whole thing any financial sense.
>and third-party shops know how to replace batteries too
Apple store replaces battery in 2 hours, third party needs to explain to every single client why he needs to wait couple of days because you cant actually keep a stock of genuine batteries. Apple also wants to have access to third party service center books for 3 (or was that 5) years for "auditing :)))
> Its a phone for christ sake, they only last a few years, where have you seen this issue even come up
On this point I don't agree. My iPhone is about to be 5 years old, it's fully functioning and I'm about to pass it to my daughter. The only repair I did was changing the battery at an Apple Store, which cost around 100$ and took a couple of hours.
For me this is a decent service and a decent device lifetime (provided it will stay in my kid's hands for a few years more).
In the past I had to deal with non original repairs (in specific batteries for HP laptop) and my experience was truly truly bad. True, it was 15 years ago, so battery technology might have changed.
I don't really care for self repairing. I understand that there are people that care for that and I respect that; for them Apple probably is not the right brand. For me, personally, a phone or a laptop must work as expected, have a decade of lifetime, and might require servicing a couple of time during its lifetime max, for a reasonable price.
> but I never in my life purchased a brand new device with intention or plan to repair it
We all expect our devices to work forever and never break while we are still using them.
Yes, Apple handles the repairs, but they are _expensive_. If you are not in the US, chances are that some 'authorized' third party will repair it. So now you are into 'expensive' and potentially dodgy territory. I've seen substandard repairs over the years. One common issue is that a repair is done but FaceID (or Touch ID) no longer works.
Repair shops manage to repair some things but many repairs are not economically viable. A phone that's easy to repair is also cheaper to repair.
Case in point: you have to take your phone to a repair shop to replace the battery (unless you are pretty handy yourself). That costs money. When phones had removable batteries, repair labor cost was $0. Just get a new battery and replace yourself, in seconds.
> I'm not sure battery replacement falls under the category of repair, more like required maintenance.
Which would suggest that Apple's glued-in batteries are a bad idea? Whatever one chooses to call the process of changing a battery, this is unnecessarily difficult with Apple hardware.
> I'm pretty sure Apple isn't making gigantic bank off battery upgrades.
Agreed. Considering that getting an iPhone battery replaced directly by Apple costs about $49-$69 overall (as others have mentioned in the thread already), they almost definitely are not making bank off it.
> As a consumer, why not just order the battery when your battery is down to 80-85% health and it’s about to be convenient to spend a half-hour of quality time with your phone? As repair shop, Apple has already undercut your price to use official supply chain parts, so you’re likely already using the <6CAPITALS> branded batteries and the $100 bootleg part programmer.
In my case self-repair is more about convenience than money. Bootleg parts/tools are still a better experience for me than shipping a phone to Apple for repair or making appointments to the Apple Store and then reinstalling the software on the new phone (twice, if you have to do it on a spare device to use in the interim).
Regarding batteries specifically, I agree, Apple's prices are unbeatable. In my case, my main use-case for self-repair is screens - the batteries are just a bonus because if I'm already in the phone I may as well put a new battery in there. The pricing on screens (including the "core charge") is much higher and makes self-repair more attractive.
Sorry, excuse me while I go burst my sides from laughter. Apple does battery replacements for more than a (entry-level, admittedly) new phone costs. And that new phone includes a battery. ;)
Moreover, Apple refuses to do battery repairs if your phone has other problems, even if those problems have absolutely no relation to the battery, like... a cracked screen. (I'm not kidding, but hey, props to them for actually being honest[1] for a change. That's a refreshing surprise.) Personally, I know very few people with Apple phones over a year or two old who don't have a cracked screen.
> The only reason the average consumer would want to open up an iPhone or a MacBook is to do something like swap out the battery.
I think that the average consumer is more likely to go buy a new one, or put up with the nuisance of a short battery life. Almost all the Apple replacement batteries that I see on Amazon come with the special screwdrivers anyhow. So if they're determined enough to actually order a battery, it's almost inevitable that they'll also get the tools to do whatever damage they can.
> Apple has a responsibility to remove the obvious easy ways for a customer to accidentally destroy their device.
I don't think that Apple has a responsibility to protect customers from their own conscious actions, but I think some of the minor roadblocks make sense from a business perspective; no manufacturer wants to deal with a customer that "repaired" their own device and expects the company to still honor the warranty.
> Especially since you note that we can't keep living like we do: Reparability is an active attempt to reduce the harmful effects of consuming by reducing waste.
Or is it an active attempt to soothe our consciences without sacrificing very much?
> Bringing it to Apple for repair might take weeks to process, a repair shop might not always be available and I might lose my local data. That's definitely a lot more friction than ordering a new battery (or hypothetically even buying it at the store) and taking a few minutes to put it in, all in the comfort of my home.
Do you know _why_ most phones are filled with glue? Vibration resistance. You're going to mess with far more than replacing the battery, meanwhile the expected lifetime of an unrepairable phone is limited by software updates and carrier support anyway.
> You have to admit that requiring 79 lbs of equipment, a 1200$ deposit, and so much effort just to swap a friggin’ battery is a tad overkill
You know people were swapping batteries long before this was available, right? And that you don’t have to rent the official factory tools?
Apple did a great thing by providing this option at a loss to themselves. The fact that people are rushing to criticize the move suggests more that people like to find reasons to complain about everything.
It’s surreal to read HN threads where people are floating ideas about making laws to prevent companies from designing better hardware products just because they want to replace batteries with a screwdriver. I guarantee if you put a screwdriver-repairable phone and a modern iPhone in front of average consumers, 99% or more would choose the modern iPhone without a second question. The obsession with easy battery replacement seems limited to a very narrow set of people while the rest of the population has moved on to appreciate the benefits of modern sealed phones such as impressive resistance to water damage.
> If apple no longer sells the battery, it will be trivial to find a suitable replacement. As long as there is demand, there will be loads of shops able to replace the battery for you.
Its a niche product. You will bot find replacement batteries for it. Heck it is even hard to find replacement batteries for 10 year old MacBooks.
> The real question is: will people who buy $500 branded headphones really have their 5+ year old headphones repaired, or will they but the latest-and-greates shiny new thing?
That’s my whole point. These things are not build (and bought) to last anymore but to be consumed. You used to retain some value when buying into expensive headphones.
> The problem is that Apple intentionally insists that this is the only way to do a repair to scare people away from it
As they should.
If Apple had instead shipped batteries with instructions for pure DIY repair, we’d be reading an article about “I tried to replace my iPhone battery but I destroyed my iPhone in the process”
And if Apple redesigned the iPhone to be bigger so it could have a separate battery compartment with screw and a big old gasket so users could swap batteries, we’d be reading an article titled “Apple ruins new iPhone design for a feature you don’t need”
Apple did a great thing with this program. That fact that journalists and HN commenters are getting worked up into a frenzy to complain about it is disappointing.
It’s also telling they many people here haven’t worked on car repairs in detail. It’s standard practice for manufacturers to cite specific manufacturer tools as required in the repair manual and want you to pay hundreds or thousands to buy them. And it’s standard practice for DIYers to improvise around it (at their own risk) or purchase cheaper aftermarket custom tools. It would be great news if they offered subsidized tool rental programs like Apple for the repairs.
This whole article and the rage around it is beyond silly.
You don't. Thousands of people replace their own iPhone batteries every week. Even I've done it, and I'm not especially dexterous.
Just go to Amazon or Google and search for a $20 replacement kit. Or, if you're not a DIY person, where I live there are places on every other streetcorner that will replace your battery for you.
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