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Good catch! I will adjust my original message with an edit. That is straight up anti-competitive. Egg on my face for giving apple the benefit of the doubt.

Betelgeuse90 7y ago
To be even more fair... ;) We don't know what Apple does when they replace batteries for customers. Maybe there's a calibration process or something of the sort. After all they're reporting battery health, which nobody else does, and that's notoriously difficult to get right. I think there's still room for giving the benefit of the doubt. We're just assuming that all they do is plop a battery with an Apple logo on it and call it a day, but we don't know that.
- protomyth 7y ago
  They replace the whole phone. They do not swap batteries when you bring it in for a battery replacement.
  - zwily 7y ago
    That’s not true. They may replace the phone sometimes but I’ve only ever had them replace the battery.
    - protomyth 7y ago
      I've had 4 battery replacements and Apple has never done anything other than exchange the whole phone.
      - kalleboo 7y ago
        I've had 2 battery replacements and both times they only replaced the battery.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    That has not been my experience. They will swap the battery as long as there is no reason to believe it has damaged the phone (if it has swelled at all, they replace the phone).
sjwright 7y ago
How is it anti-competitive if the swapped battery works perfectly fine? Who cares about what the battery status page says?
- mebo 7y ago
  A company that cares about eroding trust in third-party repairs shops getting blamed for ripping off their customers when the battery still reports as broken.
  - derefr 7y ago
    It’s not reporting as broken; it’s just reporting as “not our problem if it fails.” The Right-to-Repair discussion often ignores a key problem companies have: figuring out whether a device is under warranty (i.e. whether they’re obligated to repair the device for free) when it’s submitted for repair. Some repairs make themselves obvious, and so make the removal of warranty obligation obvious. Other repairs—like third-party battery replacements, done following the Apple process for repair and with Apple OEM components—make the warranty status of the device illegible. If the phone accepted a new Apple OEM battery without saying anything about it, the user might be misled into thinking that the device is still under warranty. But it’s not. It’s been repaired by a non-authorized third-party. It’s no longer Apple’s fault if the device breaks, because that third party may have screwed things up inside the device in any number of ways. This is, in a sense, a “chain of trust” thing. It’s the same reason Chromebooks have that on-boot warning in development mode. The user needs to be aware that the chain of trust between the OEM and the end-user has been broken; and that, when that happens, anything may potentially have been done to the device. That’s not to argue against Right-to-Repair. Non-authorized third-party repair shops should have every right to operate as businesses, and end-users should have every right to do business with them. But Apple also should have every right to warn users that the chain of trust has been broken—because it has. The user knowingly broke it themselves! (And, of course, Apple shouldn’t have the right to misconstrue breaking the chain of trust as anything more than that. The battery health is unknown because it’s not an Apple-certified repair, certainly; but that doesn’t mean that the battery is bad, and it would be anti-competitive to claim that.)

Betelgeuse90 7y ago

To be even more fair... ;) We don't know what Apple does when they replace batteries for customers. Maybe there's a calibration process or something of the sort. After all they're reporting battery health, which nobody else does, and that's notoriously difficult to get right. I think there's still room for giving the benefit of the doubt. We're just assuming that all they do is plop a battery with an Apple logo on it and call it a day, but we don't know that.

protomyth 7y ago
They replace the whole phone. They do not swap batteries when you bring it in for a battery replacement.
- zwily 7y ago
  That’s not true. They may replace the phone sometimes but I’ve only ever had them replace the battery.
  - protomyth 7y ago
    I've had 4 battery replacements and Apple has never done anything other than exchange the whole phone.
    - kalleboo 7y ago
      I've had 2 battery replacements and both times they only replaced the battery.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  That has not been my experience. They will swap the battery as long as there is no reason to believe it has damaged the phone (if it has swelled at all, they replace the phone).

sjwright 7y ago

How is it anti-competitive if the swapped battery works perfectly fine? Who cares about what the battery status page says?

mebo 7y ago
A company that cares about eroding trust in third-party repairs shops getting blamed for ripping off their customers when the battery still reports as broken.
- derefr 7y ago
  It’s not reporting as broken; it’s just reporting as “not our problem if it fails.” The Right-to-Repair discussion often ignores a key problem companies have: figuring out whether a device is under warranty (i.e. whether they’re obligated to repair the device for free) when it’s submitted for repair. Some repairs make themselves obvious, and so make the removal of warranty obligation obvious. Other repairs—like third-party battery replacements, done following the Apple process for repair and with Apple OEM components—make the warranty status of the device illegible. If the phone accepted a new Apple OEM battery without saying anything about it, the user might be misled into thinking that the device is still under warranty. But it’s not. It’s been repaired by a non-authorized third-party. It’s no longer Apple’s fault if the device breaks, because that third party may have screwed things up inside the device in any number of ways. This is, in a sense, a “chain of trust” thing. It’s the same reason Chromebooks have that on-boot warning in development mode. The user needs to be aware that the chain of trust between the OEM and the end-user has been broken; and that, when that happens, anything may potentially have been done to the device. That’s not to argue against Right-to-Repair. Non-authorized third-party repair shops should have every right to operate as businesses, and end-users should have every right to do business with them. But Apple also should have every right to warn users that the chain of trust has been broken—because it has. The user knowingly broke it themselves! (And, of course, Apple shouldn’t have the right to misconstrue breaking the chain of trust as anything more than that. The battery health is unknown because it’s not an Apple-certified repair, certainly; but that doesn’t mean that the battery is bad, and it would be anti-competitive to claim that.)