Assuming those prices are correct and the procedure is that convenient, it doesn't practically exist if most people aren't aware of it. From my casual observations most people suffer with bad batteries until buying a new model.
At what point are people responsible for their own actions or ignorance? Apple hardly makes the battery replacement option a secret, and there are plenty of 3rd party retailers that advertise them too. Anyone who bought a new iPhone because they didn't realize they could get the battery replaced has failed to do even the most cursory research into what options are out there for solving their problem. It would be one thing if we were talking the 1st generation iPhone days, when the "battery replacement" option was the usually "out of warranty" device replacement that was effectively Apple's entire repair process for the phone at the time. Then your "battery replacement" costs were ~50% of the cost of a new phone, and that definitely gets into the "buy a new phone instead of replacing the battery" territory. But the ~$100 battery replacement option has been around since at least 2010[1], now 14 years later there's no excuse for not being aware, or becoming aware when you need it.
My SE battery will cost $80 to replace, but since I only paid $120 for the phone it's not a good deal. I'll just wait a bit and get another used SE for $120 when the battery life gets too annoying. I doubt that many other customers are ignorant or irresponsible.
You can google it, go to the website, go to any of their stores or authorized dealers, or click the link the phone gives you in the battery health view.
Short of apple beating down your door, what more do you expect
It's a psychological game. People are primed to want new things, and more investment into something old is hard to justify even if it's financially right. Also OS's lose supprt, softwares bloat, and bundled offers from carriers are toward replacement. You'd have to be really disciplined to not succumb to upgrade pressure when you go into an Apple Store of all places where the entire setup is to generate sales.
An Apple Store is one of the least sales oriented retail environments. You can go in and play with stuff for hours, chat with people who work there who can’t even make sales, and drop things off for them to repair. They don’t even have cash registers in most of them.
Most of the time I go into an Apple Store I don’t buy anything, and I’ve never gone in and bought something that I didn’t plan on buying before I arrived.
Of course they gross more money than a jewelry store. That sounds impressive, but really isn't if you think about it. They sell very popular items that almost everyone in any mall in the country owns some version of that people WANT to buy every few years at most(computer, phone, headphones). Jewelry stores sell items that a lot of people will never own, and they sell items that people might buy every 5 years if they are really good customers.
The phones and software don't stop working when they aren't supported anymore. They just don't get more free updates. You can keep using the device in perpetuity with the same software that you have on it right now. Its a relatively recent phenomenon that the OS and all updates are free.
You used to have to pay for the OS on your hardware at each update. If I wanted to go from OSx Tiger to OSX leopard on my first Macbook, it cost me $99 at the time. That computer still works fine with Leopard. It does everything Apple said it would do when they sold it to me. Why would I be entitled for it to do the things that the latest macbook does?
Again, the phone won't stop working. It will still do everything that it did the day you bought, and in many cases more. It will connect to any 2g/3g network that you subscribe to, and connect to any server that operates on the same protocols that existed on the last day it was supported.
You can't blame Apple that network and site providers don't continue to provide service, anymore than model T drivers can be upset that their local tire store doesn't stock tires for their car.
How is any company supposed to provide updates in perpetuity for technology advances that wasn't even planned at the time of purchase.
The fact that Apple has teams of developers providing free seamless updates to my iphone 11 from 6 years ago is a modern miracle. What other item in the market can you expect the maker to provide free maintenance and functional improvements for years after purchase?
I am not blaming Apple. But I am saying that older phones will stop functioning as phones eventually.
Apple isn’t supporting older phones out of the goodness of their hearts. The larger the installed based, the more they can sell you. There biggest revenue increases are coming from Services
I agree with you, the fact that they are providing security updates for a phone that came out in 2015 as a recently as two months ago is remarkable
Were you around during the first 17 years of personal computers?
A computer from 1986 would be useless in 1996. A computer from 1996 would be useless in 2006.
Computers were getting so much faster so fast back then, that obsolescence was really a big deal.
There is physically no hardware support for 32 bit software on modern iPhones. Do you suggest that Apple still supports 32 bit iPhones and 64 bit iPhones?
Would third party developers want to support phones back to the iPhone 6 that is 6x slower and has 1/8 the RAM of a modern iPhone?
Should Apple support phones like the 3GS that doesn’t support LTE and has 256KB of RAM?
They do. You're notified when battery health is either unknown or reaching EOL. It points you towards replacement, not upgrade.
"If battery health has degraded significantly, the below message will also appear:
Your battery’s health is significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service Provider can replace the battery to restore full performance and capacity. More about service options…"
Apple provides a warning and a link to battery replacement options from the Battery Health screen when it detects that it's been degraded too much. So... they do provide this?
The battery gets bad after 4 years. That’s usually the moment I want to buy a new phone already, why invest $99 in a phone that I won’t be using in a year? Better deal with a bad battery for a few months or a year, then already go on and buy a new one.
I never heard of someone who bought a new phone _solely_ for a new battery
>I never heard of someone who bought a new phone _solely_ for a new battery
I did.
I had a Samsung Galaxy s10e, and I have an s23 now, which I got on its launch. The only reason I got a new phone is because they don't have legit batteries to replace my shitty s10e battery in my country of residence (very shitty European country). No Samsung support, no iFixIt (they don't ship here), nothing. Just shady shops selling shady batteries.
I preferred the smaller size of the s10e, and software-wise it did everything I needed it to do. Plus I didn't have to rely on Bluetooth earbuds when I need(ed) to wear some earbuds.
Oh, and the battery has gotten noticeably worse in the past year and a half, and the _only_ reason why I will buy a new phone in a year, year and a half is that I know for a fact the battery life will become (even more) unbearable, and there aren't any official/legit channels through which I could replace the battery.
I know I'm talking about Samsung, but the same would apply to Apple here, and any other brand.
If this wasn't an issue for me, I could see myself using the same phone for 5-6 years, probably even longer if set up lineageOS on it -- but after +5 years I imagine I would like to use some new phone with its "new" features... which I will likely never really use in the first place
One problem with extending life of your phone with lineageOS is trouble using banking apps on a rooted device. If you are lucky you could get it working with Magisk/Shamiko or similar but sometimes there will be some stubborn apps
> If you are lucky you could get it working with Magisk/Shamiko
It's a lot more nowadays. Magisk, lsposed, play integrity fork, shamiko, trickystore, custom keybox.xml, zygisk next... and with news of google now forcing certain apps (eg. chatgpt) to be installed from the Play Store + the device being of at least DEVICE integrity it's slowly all falling apart.
I don't understand this. Why not trying the "shady battery" for cheap before buying a whole new phone? Even if you somehow don't trust their batteries, I see s10e batteries on ebay for ~10€. Just buy one of those and have them install it?
Every device I've ever wanted to keep after its battery started degrading (mostly laptops, but has happened with a phone too) I've either ordered one from ebay and replaced myself or went to a cheap local shop.
I've had friends take their phones in for a battery replacement, and let's say the results were not better than before they took their phones in.
As with buying a battery from ebay, it's still not gonna be an OEM battery (or am I wrong?). OEM stuff is more important for phones than for laptops, I have found
$16 doesn't sound huge to you because you are living in a bubble.
It is for everyone that has is bank account in the red for half of their month. Which is a lot of people regardless if they live in a developing country or not. And those that can save money do not necessarily save money for a smartphone. They do it for their own financial safety. Even the streaming accounts are usually shared accross friends and families and said services don't crack down on them because they know they would simply lose their customers completely anyway. They would rather keep money in case their home need a reparation or their car they are using to go to work break down.
So when the time comes that their phone has issue, many of them are faced with a non scheduled financial issue. They will definitely repair their phone if it is more affordable than buying a new one. No wonder their are lots of repairing phones shops in every city. Where I live you can literally see a queue on the sidewalk during the opening hours. The alternative would be buying a second hand cell phone with the risk of ending up with one whose battery is already in average conditions.
> That's $16 per month. Easily affordable for most of developing world.
This argument sounds a lot like a used car salesman.
I think focusing on the monthly payment is deceptive. Especially with a device like a phone which could easily meet its doom before the 5.2 years used in your calculation are up.
It's reasonable to compare the total cost of ownership or the up front price. Your choice is a $1000 phone or (say) a $600 phone (new iPhone 14, no tax). There's $400 difference there. That's your money making the choice.
The question of whether it's worth it is something else.
$16 a month is close to the cost of financing a basic motorbike over its expected lifetime. People in developing world mostly drive 125/150 cc and expected lifetime is ~10 years
If you look up battery health and it shows as degraded (or you follow the notification to get there), it gives you support options to schedule an appointment or send it in for repair.
I’ve never seen a literal “this product sucks because I refuse to learn about it” given as an explicit argument before, usually it’s just implicit, thank you for this
The issue is probably chips or cracks on the back glass or sometimes the front.
They almost didn’t work on my daughter’s phone because of a tiny nick on front corner for fear of it spiderwebbing when they opened it. And some phones broken back glass is game over since it’s all glued to that surface.
Most people will refuse to go to the doctor when they have serious symptoms themselves. I don’t think stupid/lazy human behavior can be blamed on apple.
