bcla
On our rugged Eastern foothills.....
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2012
I don't know who's been following this. It's definitely been in the news that Apple had a software "fix" to keep phones with older/degraded batteries from shutting down due to maximum power demands that outstrip a battery's capabilities as it gets older. Some of the claims were that this was intentionally done such that users would find performance lacking and then upgrade.
The method to restore performance had of course been to pay Apple for a battery replacement, but that was $79 - most of which was labor and profit. The battery itself is probably a small cost, but then again it's not generally a DIY thing unless you're a serious hobbyist and willing to invest in equipment like a heat gun, specialty screwdrivers, and spudgers.
As someone who has done a fair bit of electronics engineering work, I understand what Apple was doing, although I would have preferred they be more upfront about it. I'm pretty Apple isn't the first to think of this. There are a lot of electronics that age as we use them.
https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387
The solution seems to be twofold. One is that starting sometime next month, Apple will lower the price of a battery replacement service to $29 from the previous $79. The other is that they will make battery condition information available on iOS when previously it would require some sort of specialty equipment to access this information. I'm pretty sure that all this information was stored somewhere as part of the battery management software, but for whatever reason it wasn't something that the user could access.
The method to restore performance had of course been to pay Apple for a battery replacement, but that was $79 - most of which was labor and profit. The battery itself is probably a small cost, but then again it's not generally a DIY thing unless you're a serious hobbyist and willing to invest in equipment like a heat gun, specialty screwdrivers, and spudgers.
As someone who has done a fair bit of electronics engineering work, I understand what Apple was doing, although I would have preferred they be more upfront about it. I'm pretty Apple isn't the first to think of this. There are a lot of electronics that age as we use them.
https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208387
The solution seems to be twofold. One is that starting sometime next month, Apple will lower the price of a battery replacement service to $29 from the previous $79. The other is that they will make battery condition information available on iOS when previously it would require some sort of specialty equipment to access this information. I'm pretty sure that all this information was stored somewhere as part of the battery management software, but for whatever reason it wasn't something that the user could access.