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This isn't the first time this has happened to Apple. They use to not sell replacement batteries for the original iPods, and when people called in to complain,

This isn't the first time this has happened to Apple. They use to not sell replacement batteries for the original iPods, and when people called in to complain, they were often told to buy an entire new iPod. This was settled in a lawsuit: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/apples-ipod-battery-settlement-explained http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/apples-ip... Another important note is this battery replacement cost only cover the iPhone6 and up. That's only the 2015 release. That's still lubricious. If we had devices as powerful as today's cellphones that cost $500+ in the early-90s, losing support after 2~3 years would be lubricious. In 2012 I remember seeing someone with the first generation iPhone EDGE (pre-3G). That's right; the thing was like 6? 7 years old? He really only used it on Wi-Fi. EDGE data was painful, but it was still his primary/only phone for another year. The throwaway economy saddens me, and this move doesn't really do enough to prevent the continuing pileup of e-waste being shipped on boats to China and Africa.

lytedev 9y ago
Hahaha "lubricous" - what a fantastic typo!
- lytedev 9y ago
  I can't read.
- russh 9y ago
  Had to look that one up, it was worth the effort.
- TheKarateKid 9y ago
  I mean, the official definition is: "smooth and slippery with oil or a similar substance." So I guess OP could've meant Apple is being a sneak like a snake oil salesman?
samb1729 9y ago
I think you mean ludicrous instead of lubricious, just fyi.
- spondyl 9y ago
  Apparently it's a real word! Here's the excerpt from dictionary.com ------ lubricious [loo-brish-uh s] adjective arousing or expressive of sexual desire; lustful; lecherous ------ It kinda defeats the purpose of using the word if no one else understands what it means :)
  - natecavanaugh 9y ago
    Thank you guys. Seeing it twice made me think someone should mention how aroused batteries were making the OP, but I'm glad to know there are some fellow folks who have this covered ;)
  - B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
    > no one else understands I understand fine.
    - andrepd 9y ago
      /r/iamverysmart?
    - HNSucksAss 9y ago
      Do you fuck batteries?
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    Sexualising battery replacement schemes needs to stop.
    - smarks 9y ago
      Rule 34 cannot be stopped.
  - rflrob 9y ago
    It's also an alternate spelling for libricous, which dictionary.com defines as: adjective 1. (of a surface, coating, etc.) having an oily smoothness; slippery. 2. unstable; shifty; fleeting. So "shifty" could be what they were going for, but my sense of the other two words in definition 2 suggests that it's not quite accurate to use that sense of shifty.
chrisballinger 9y ago
The iPhone 6 was released September 9, 2014, which is about 3.3 years ago.
- c0nducktr 9y ago
  Sure, but Apple continued to sell the 5s until 2016.
  - milankragujevic 9y ago
    And people did buy it, at least in poorer countries... I know it was on sale for less than 330 € in Serbia (istyle.eu/rs).
  - chrisballinger 9y ago
    The 5S was released in Sept 2013 and still runs the latest version of iOS. If they were still selling it in 2016 it will likely be supported with software updates until 2019. For comparison the Galaxy S4 was released in April 2013 and received its last update to Android 5.0.1 in April 2015.
    - seba_dos1 9y ago
      At least it's very easy to run 7.1.2 and soon 8.1 even on S3 (I do), while with iPhone you're completely at Apple's mercy.
      - girvo 9y ago
        Unofficial software downloaded as a binary blob from dodgy websites? I don’t miss that at all, though it’d be nice to be able to hack at my iPhone more.
        amlib 9y ago
        What's so fishy about https://lineageos.org https://lineageos.org ?
        9y ago
jsz0 9y ago
There's a huge second hand market for iPhones so I'm guessing the majority of devices get trade/sold or at least held onto as spares until they are no longer viable.
TaylorAlexander 9y ago
Agreed. It’s also a waste of human labor to throw away devices when they could still be made useful with some simple repairs. To go further, it is wasteful to design hardware to be disposable rather than repairable and reusable. People with jobs I wouldn’t want to do work very hard to bring us these devices, and the earth gives up resources to mine, transport, and shape the materials. Throwing things away when they could last 5-10x as long consumes our precious resources and wastes our collective capital. Finally I’ll say that a lack of open software support contributes to this. If I could flash alpine linux on an old iPhone, Nexus, or Samsung, I could find great uses for the old hardware. Such a project is now underway (Alpine linux for Mobile), but mobile devices are still a morass of unpatchable secret binaries with glaring security holes. I know we can better use our resources than to throw a two or three year old flagship phone in the trash or let it waste away in an old drawer, but it will take us demanding more of manufacturers and calling them out for their waste before they take action on it.
- goialoq 9y ago
  > It’s also a waste of human labor to throw away devices when they could still be made useful with some simple repairs. Are you sure? Assembly line production is highly efficient, that's why warranty service usually means "throw way the old one into the refurbish or recycle pile and give you a new one", not "fix your old one"
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > Assembly line production is highly efficient The highlevel production may be, but rare-earth mining is incredibly dirty (and some of them, if not sourced from fair trade, directly fund warring groups), and IC manufacturing isn't exactly environment friendly too, lots of nasty chemicals used there.
    - LaGrange 9y ago
      There's quite a bit of work into recycling those, and Apple has already has the means of recovering much of it - pity people don't generally return their used phones to them, though. Your replacement battery is unlikely to be recycled better than when it's done in an automated manner on a fairly large scale. Of course Apple can get away cheap because of that "people don't even try to recycle" thing. Forcing the industry to do the same thing that happened with bottles (everyone has to accept bottles over certain capacity they sell, and _pay for them_ — though right-wing governments are shuttering those programs) would work wonders, and likely be far better than the romanticised "repairability."
Aloha 9y ago
You act as if there is no method to replace batteries for the previous generations of iPhone.
bartread 9y ago
The first generation iPhone was released in 2007 so the device you're talking about would have been at most 5 years old at the time. Nevertheless that's still considered extremely old for a modern device. (For reference, my current device is a 4 year old iPhone 5S because I like the form factor, and it still does what I need. It's just about getting to the point where I'd like to upgrade it, but that's mainly because I keep running out of storage space.)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Polyisoprene 9y ago
Still got my iPhone 3G and it’s suprisingly fast with iOS 4. Had to downgrade though to get back some performance
Shivetya 9y ago
My concern is that is some lawmakers get their way; this is not just a US concern but there is an interesting lawsuit in France pending; we could end up never owning devices. As in, if the mandated lifetime exceeds what is efficiently manufactured one direction they could go is the phone is never owned by the consumer. Its a lease. Option number two is simply higher prices with replacement costs built into the sale price but not disclosed as the reason for the elevated cost. Option three, We could end up having devices with reduced battery time so they can use the space in a managed manner to give similar run time over the course of the mandated lifespan. Initially they could increase battery size which normally would give more time but instead limit how much per charge you get to use. (example, my car has 18kw but only 14.2 is usable per run)
2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
Even back when batteries were easily replaced, I don’t think that stopped people from getting new phones every couple years. I still have a perfectly useable Android with a replaceable battery. People still upgraded right past it to built in batteries.
- TheKarateKid 9y ago
  The build quality of phones back then usually didn't last longer than the battery. Keypads would die, screens would stop working, accidental damage, etc. With phones that are now waterproof, dustproof, and have powerful CPUs and cameras, the time to replace them has lengthened. I know a bunch of people who have owned iPhones for 4+ years and were very satisfied until they finally upgraded.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
    The phone I have is a Google Galaxy Nexus. It only has 3 buttons, power, volume up and volume down. 6 years old, still works. I don’t think replaceable batteries were phased out on flagship phones that long ago.
    - TheKarateKid 9y ago
      Still works is different than still working really, really well and feeling comparable to phones on the market today.
tinus_hn 9y ago
The update that ‘caused’ this issue only did so for the iPhone 6 and up so a replacement wouldn’t be necessary for older models. Also, if you must keep using these old phones when they are no longer supported and have known and unpatched vulnerabilities, please be a good citizen and keep them off of our internet.
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  I find that very hard to believe. We've been witnessing these slow downs since the beginning
  - primrose 9y ago
    My 3G slowed to a crawl with an update. Made me switch to Android for a few phone till I realized Apple's software was way better.
    - rorykoehler 9y ago
      I use a powerful xiaomi android phone and an ipad pro. Apart from the amazing apple pencil enabled apps which i would never use on an iPhone i can't see any way ios outperforms android.
  - tinus_hn 9y ago
    Should be easy to prove that then now that it is clear what to look for.
cpcallen 9y ago
I'm still using my 2009 Nexus One. It is painfully slow, and won't run any modern apps, and I've tried to find a suitable replacement several times but it seems a shame to throw away a perfectly good phone and I just haven't found anything that is of comparable size and build quality without having to sacrifice screen resolution, FM radio, removable battery or microSD slot.
eltoozero 9y ago
> The throwaway economy Apple is thinking about this, see the Liam[0] robot that takes an iPhone down to constituent parts, and consider that the aluminum, steel, and glass are all quick turnaround raw materials. It's a start. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc

lytedev 9y ago

Hahaha "lubricous" - what a fantastic typo!

lytedev 9y ago
I can't read.
russh 9y ago
Had to look that one up, it was worth the effort.
TheKarateKid 9y ago
I mean, the official definition is: "smooth and slippery with oil or a similar substance." So I guess OP could've meant Apple is being a sneak like a snake oil salesman?

samb1729 9y ago

I think you mean ludicrous instead of lubricious, just fyi.

spondyl 9y ago
Apparently it's a real word! Here's the excerpt from dictionary.com ------ lubricious [loo-brish-uh s] adjective arousing or expressive of sexual desire; lustful; lecherous ------ It kinda defeats the purpose of using the word if no one else understands what it means :)
- natecavanaugh 9y ago
  Thank you guys. Seeing it twice made me think someone should mention how aroused batteries were making the OP, but I'm glad to know there are some fellow folks who have this covered ;)
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
  > no one else understands I understand fine.
  - andrepd 9y ago
    /r/iamverysmart?
  - HNSucksAss 9y ago
    Do you fuck batteries?
- lostlogin 9y ago
  Sexualising battery replacement schemes needs to stop.
  - smarks 9y ago
    Rule 34 cannot be stopped.
- rflrob 9y ago
  It's also an alternate spelling for libricous, which dictionary.com defines as: adjective 1. (of a surface, coating, etc.) having an oily smoothness; slippery. 2. unstable; shifty; fleeting. So "shifty" could be what they were going for, but my sense of the other two words in definition 2 suggests that it's not quite accurate to use that sense of shifty.

chrisballinger 9y ago

The iPhone 6 was released September 9, 2014, which is about 3.3 years ago.

c0nducktr 9y ago
Sure, but Apple continued to sell the 5s until 2016.
- milankragujevic 9y ago
  And people did buy it, at least in poorer countries... I know it was on sale for less than 330 € in Serbia (istyle.eu/rs).
- chrisballinger 9y ago
  The 5S was released in Sept 2013 and still runs the latest version of iOS. If they were still selling it in 2016 it will likely be supported with software updates until 2019. For comparison the Galaxy S4 was released in April 2013 and received its last update to Android 5.0.1 in April 2015.
  - seba_dos1 9y ago
    At least it's very easy to run 7.1.2 and soon 8.1 even on S3 (I do), while with iPhone you're completely at Apple's mercy.
    - girvo 9y ago
      Unofficial software downloaded as a binary blob from dodgy websites? I don’t miss that at all, though it’d be nice to be able to hack at my iPhone more.
      - amlib 9y ago
        What's so fishy about https://lineageos.org https://lineageos.org ?
      - 9y ago

jsz0 9y ago

There's a huge second hand market for iPhones so I'm guessing the majority of devices get trade/sold or at least held onto as spares until they are no longer viable.

TaylorAlexander 9y ago

Agreed. It’s also a waste of human labor to throw away devices when they could still be made useful with some simple repairs. To go further, it is wasteful to design hardware to be disposable rather than repairable and reusable. People with jobs I wouldn’t want to do work very hard to bring us these devices, and the earth gives up resources to mine, transport, and shape the materials. Throwing things away when they could last 5-10x as long consumes our precious resources and wastes our collective capital. Finally I’ll say that a lack of open software support contributes to this. If I could flash alpine linux on an old iPhone, Nexus, or Samsung, I could find great uses for the old hardware. Such a project is now underway (Alpine linux for Mobile), but mobile devices are still a morass of unpatchable secret binaries with glaring security holes. I know we can better use our resources than to throw a two or three year old flagship phone in the trash or let it waste away in an old drawer, but it will take us demanding more of manufacturers and calling them out for their waste before they take action on it.

goialoq 9y ago
> It’s also a waste of human labor to throw away devices when they could still be made useful with some simple repairs. Are you sure? Assembly line production is highly efficient, that's why warranty service usually means "throw way the old one into the refurbish or recycle pile and give you a new one", not "fix your old one"
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > Assembly line production is highly efficient The highlevel production may be, but rare-earth mining is incredibly dirty (and some of them, if not sourced from fair trade, directly fund warring groups), and IC manufacturing isn't exactly environment friendly too, lots of nasty chemicals used there.
  - LaGrange 9y ago
    There's quite a bit of work into recycling those, and Apple has already has the means of recovering much of it - pity people don't generally return their used phones to them, though. Your replacement battery is unlikely to be recycled better than when it's done in an automated manner on a fairly large scale. Of course Apple can get away cheap because of that "people don't even try to recycle" thing. Forcing the industry to do the same thing that happened with bottles (everyone has to accept bottles over certain capacity they sell, and _pay for them_ — though right-wing governments are shuttering those programs) would work wonders, and likely be far better than the romanticised "repairability."

Aloha 9y ago

You act as if there is no method to replace batteries for the previous generations of iPhone.

bartread 9y ago

The first generation iPhone was released in 2007 so the device you're talking about would have been at most 5 years old at the time. Nevertheless that's still considered extremely old for a modern device. (For reference, my current device is a 4 year old iPhone 5S because I like the form factor, and it still does what I need. It's just about getting to the point where I'd like to upgrade it, but that's mainly because I keep running out of storage space.)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Polyisoprene 9y ago

Still got my iPhone 3G and it’s suprisingly fast with iOS 4. Had to downgrade though to get back some performance

Shivetya 9y ago

My concern is that is some lawmakers get their way; this is not just a US concern but there is an interesting lawsuit in France pending; we could end up never owning devices. As in, if the mandated lifetime exceeds what is efficiently manufactured one direction they could go is the phone is never owned by the consumer. Its a lease. Option number two is simply higher prices with replacement costs built into the sale price but not disclosed as the reason for the elevated cost. Option three, We could end up having devices with reduced battery time so they can use the space in a managed manner to give similar run time over the course of the mandated lifespan. Initially they could increase battery size which normally would give more time but instead limit how much per charge you get to use. (example, my car has 18kw but only 14.2 is usable per run)

2muchcoffeeman 9y ago

Even back when batteries were easily replaced, I don’t think that stopped people from getting new phones every couple years. I still have a perfectly useable Android with a replaceable battery. People still upgraded right past it to built in batteries.

TheKarateKid 9y ago
The build quality of phones back then usually didn't last longer than the battery. Keypads would die, screens would stop working, accidental damage, etc. With phones that are now waterproof, dustproof, and have powerful CPUs and cameras, the time to replace them has lengthened. I know a bunch of people who have owned iPhones for 4+ years and were very satisfied until they finally upgraded.
- 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
  The phone I have is a Google Galaxy Nexus. It only has 3 buttons, power, volume up and volume down. 6 years old, still works. I don’t think replaceable batteries were phased out on flagship phones that long ago.
  - TheKarateKid 9y ago
    Still works is different than still working really, really well and feeling comparable to phones on the market today.

tinus_hn 9y ago

The update that ‘caused’ this issue only did so for the iPhone 6 and up so a replacement wouldn’t be necessary for older models. Also, if you must keep using these old phones when they are no longer supported and have known and unpatched vulnerabilities, please be a good citizen and keep them off of our internet.

rorykoehler 9y ago
I find that very hard to believe. We've been witnessing these slow downs since the beginning
- primrose 9y ago
  My 3G slowed to a crawl with an update. Made me switch to Android for a few phone till I realized Apple's software was way better.
  - rorykoehler 9y ago
    I use a powerful xiaomi android phone and an ipad pro. Apart from the amazing apple pencil enabled apps which i would never use on an iPhone i can't see any way ios outperforms android.
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  Should be easy to prove that then now that it is clear what to look for.

cpcallen 9y ago

I'm still using my 2009 Nexus One. It is painfully slow, and won't run any modern apps, and I've tried to find a suitable replacement several times but it seems a shame to throw away a perfectly good phone and I just haven't found anything that is of comparable size and build quality without having to sacrifice screen resolution, FM radio, removable battery or microSD slot.

eltoozero 9y ago

> The throwaway economy Apple is thinking about this, see the Liam[0] robot that takes an iPhone down to constituent parts, and consider that the aluminum, steel, and glass are all quick turnaround raw materials. It's a start. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc