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Despite all the HN comments, Apple's made an absolute killing and charges FAR FAR higher margins for their products in part because they design them so normal p

Despite all the HN comments, Apple's made an absolute killing and charges FAR FAR higher margins for their products in part because they design them so normal people don't get totally f'd over. And yes, the scam of a trash after market battery to make the iphone battery life look good is well known. And guess how many parents and grandparents then go to apple to "fix" something that has nothing to do with Apple? The scammers are the people putting the bogus batteries in. Apple saying that the battery is not confirmed genuine is not a scam. Its the truth. People can't figure out why apple can charge such ridiculous premiums on what is otherwise a commodity product. This is why. From applecare to the activation lock to app permissions to alerting user to bogus behavior to app store quality to reversible charging cables - all the activities HN considers "anti-consumer" have helped make consumers value apple products. This will be one of those situations. Now when you buy a used phone, much more likely to have a real sense of the battery quality in what you are buying. 3 year used apple products ALREADY carry a much higher premium vs android phones, this will help continue that trend. And no, it's NOT that hard to replace a battery in an iphone, seriously, for all the folks complaining about that go to an apple store or buy a kit, and compare the hassle to doing the same thing with a android phone.

radiorental 7y ago
I'm having a very hard time following your logic: Apple charges lots of money on commodity parts because they don't want users getting, as you say, "f'ed over" There is a healthy after market ecosystem primarily because apple charges so much. Not the other way around. Furthermore, in the video on the ifixit site, the blogger replaced the battery with a genuine secondhand apple battery and it would not recognize it. This is predatory behaviour from Apple on its consumers.
- privateSFacct 7y ago
  I think we are seeing the predatory behavior of scammers here. For example, you are claiming that just attaching a chip from an old apple battery to a new one should read as genuine in the phone. That is a total scam. The detection feature is tied to a chip, not to the cell chemistry itself. If chips from old iphone batteries are all it takes to show a scam battery is genuine, given the high volume of old batteries, EVERY scam battery would show as genuine. This is a workaround already used and well known in other situations. To avoid this workaround you need to tie a specific chip in, not just any apple chip in. Seriously - how do YOU propose apple alert the user to a bogus third party battery.
  - gsich 7y ago
    Show a warning, click ignore and be happy. Display battery information regardless.
    - 14 7y ago
      This. I bought a second hand phone off some guy who does phone repairs in my area. Didn't realize the fingerprint reader did not work until a few days later as I had never owned a phone that new that had one and did not know it was supposed to work. When I looked on the internet it seemed that the reason was the home button was swapped out but without taking the chip that ties it to the phone with it from the old button. Asked the seller and he admitted that the home button was swapped, poorly at that. I still can not use the home button to unlock even though the phone is not stolen and I own it. So I personally am not a big fan of apple locking parts down. I personally had an iphone 4s up until half a year ago. I still have it I just happened to get an iphone 6. But my iphone 4s I have put at least 4 screens on it, a new battery, a new set of speakers and a power button. I laugh at the amount of work I have done on it. It is my Theseus iPhone :)
      - rgovostes 7y ago
        To phrase this another way: a third party made some modification to the biometrics sensor that is used to control access to your private data, including all of your device’s encryption keys, stored passwords, and payment information. The phone detected this tampering and disabled the compromised component. And you are disappointed that the part has been “locked down”.
        14 7y ago
        That is not how I would rephrase it. And that is simply not true what you claim. Simply replacing the fingerprint scanner does not allow any access. The moment the phone is off the phone will require a password entered manually. Unless you suggest an actor can replace a home button all while not powering down the phone and I suppose that is possible but that to me would seem state level actor and they probably have other ways. So no there doesn’t seem to be a threat to my data if the fingerprint sensor is replaced. It would still require my password upon restart and if I failed to provide it at that point then sure good move Apple. The fact is they know they can force people like me, or people who’s home button is actually broken into their store if they want that magic button. Don’t kid yourself that they are doing this in the name of my security. But thank you for actually commenting I wish more people here on HN would justify their down votes with some conversation on the subjects. Edit: I realize that perhaps someone could swap the button without my knowledge and upon me restarting it I would enter my password and the phone is compromised. But in all honesty who falls under that threat model? Apple simply could notify you of the change and allow you to accept the risk. That’s all it would take.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jotm 7y ago
Well, it literally says the message is there even if you swap in a genuine Apple battery yourself. Whatever, can't lose if you never play Apple's game.
- privateSFacct 7y ago
  How would you do this? Remember, the chips in old apple batteries can be removed and used in other batteries.
  - m0xte 7y ago
    I doubt they would be. Even laptop battery BMS systems brick themselves so they can't be reused. It's where I get all my 18650's from. They are all NOS batteries that were never used and the BMS disconnected the cells due to fractionally too low voltage. Cells are fine but the BMS chip will never work again.
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  Apple doesn’t sell genuine Apple batteries to anyone but authorized service providers who can only use these to install them in phones themselves. The only genuine part you can get is a second hand battery from a broken phone. Who wants that?
  - root_axis 7y ago
    > The only genuine part you can get is a second hand battery from a broken phone Sounds like a problem deliberately created by Apple.
    - tinus_hn 7y ago
      It is a situation deliberately created by Apple. Whether it is a problem is an opinion.
S_A_P 7y ago
I purchased a few iFixit iphone batteries and was less than impressed with their performance. I think what iFixit is doing is awesome, and I am a huge fan of them. I used their iMac kit to put an SSD in my family iMac and it made the job simple. The iPhone 5s/and iPhone 6 plus batteries I bought from them are trash though, and they lasted a few months before degrading severely. I took those same phones to apple and the batteries were markedly better.
chmod775 7y ago
Hassle of doing it on an Android phone? I pop open the back and put in a different battery. No tools required. And it's even got a decent water proving rating.
- e40 7y ago
  I've been on Android since the OG Droid, and I can't remember the last time I had a replaceable battery. 4-5 years or more.
  - chmod775 7y ago
    I don't buy phones that don't have a replacable battery or don't let me flash a custom OS. This is true for all my electronics tbh. I had to upgrade my S2 after 5 years of service because it was getting too slow for the crap people call a navigation app nowadays. Now I'm on an S5 that has easily kept up so far.
  - aembleton 7y ago
    Nokia 2.2 has a removable battery [1] 1. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/one-of-the-cheapest-nokia-phones-comes-to-the-us-the-139-nokia-2-2/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/one-of-the-cheapest-...
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    The hermetically sealed glass and aluminum phones don't usually let you do it but more sensible plastic bodied phones often still do.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  It's hit or miss. Some, while non user replaceable, are very easy. Others require you to take the phone almost entirely apart to replace it
msla 7y ago
> Despite all the HN comments, Apple's made an absolute killing and charges FAR FAR higher margins for their products in part because they design them so normal people don't get totally f'd over. Explains the butterfly keyboards: Can't get fucked over if you can't type anything to fuck yourself over!
ChuckNorris89 7y ago
Apple doesn't want their customers to get f'd over you say? You might want to check out Luis Rosmann's videos, a famous Apple repair geek who fixes for cheap the products Apple themselves misdiagnose[1] in order to rip off their customers[2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7RXJP4mxCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7RXJP4mxCc // teenager's MacBook's display is not working correctly so Geniuses tell him he needs a new motherboard replacement while Luis discovers in 2 seconds that the lid-close sensor cable is broken so he replaces it for $8 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ4tfLns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ4tfLns // customer's MacBook's display is not working correctly so Geniuses tell him he needs a new motherboard and display replacement while Luis discovers in two minutes that the display connector has a bent pin and fixes it for free
- teej 7y ago
  Nothing in your sources indicate there's intention in Apple driving folks towards these repairs. Geniuses don't work on commission, they have zero incentive to tell people to fix things they dont need to. I think this is a Hanlon's razor situation where you're assuming Apple is malicious when really it's just lack of knowledge on behalf of some Geniuses.
  - vxNsr 7y ago
    No one is claiming that apple is training their geniuses to intentionally guide people to more expensive repairs. In fact they are accusing apple of a lack of adequate training, These guys just don't know that what they're saying is untrue. Apple's failed to train their technicians to repair anything. all they can do is replace.
    - teej 7y ago
      The commenter I responded to literally said that the genius intentionally told the customer the wrong thing. They have since edited that part out. So yes, folks right here are claiming intent where there is none.
      - 7y ago
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> People can't figure out why apple can charge such ridiculous premiums on what is otherwise a commodity product. This is why. It's why they can charge such a premium for commodity batteries -- which is the problem. > From applecare to the activation lock to app permissions to alerting user to bogus behavior to app store quality to reversible charging cables - all the activities HN considers "anti-consumer" have helped make consumers value apple products. Let's apply this logic to history. Suppose Microsoft makes it so that Office doesn't run on anything but Windows and Windows won't run any office suites other than Microsoft Office. Now you argue that Microsoft is doing their customers a great favor -- they can make sure nobody sells them a computer with some off-brand office suite that can't read their documents. But it's pretty clear what the problem with that argument is at this point, right? People should be able to make that choice for themselves. Corel shouldn't be able to call their office suite Microsoft Office, but it should still be possible to use it with Microsoft Windows when people are informed of what they're actually getting. And then, does the fact that Windows and Office are tied together cause more people to buy them? Maybe, but not in the good way where people like it. In the anti-competitive way where you need Windows and some office suite and you choose Microsoft Office only because none of the others can run on Windows and the choice is forced on you.
Zak 7y ago
I'm no fan of Apple's domineering attitude, and repairability is very important to me. If I have broken or worn out hardware not covered by a warranty, I will always attempt to repair it myself, and I usually research repairability before making any significant purchases. I don't own any modern Apple hardware. That said, I think this mostly OK as long as Apple doesn't actually try to prevent replacement batteries from working. They could probably do a bit better with the messaging here, letting the user know there's not necessarily a problem, just that the provenance and quality of the battery can't be verified.
lloeki 7y ago
> And yes, the scam of a trash after market battery to make the iphone battery life look good is well known. And guess how many parents and grandparents then go to apple to "fix" something that has nothing to do with Apple? This very situation happened right in front of me while I was waiting at the Apple store to pick up my 4yo 6s after a screen repair. A helpless woman had strange issues with her new iPhone. Turns out it was a “refurbished” phone from a shady shop. The Apple guy went through half an hour of diagnostics and calmly explained all the little details (manufacturing date, battery cycles, actual mAh, various parts misbehaving and reporting obviously bogus information to the diag tools) that had no way of adding up, which led to the conclusion that she had been scammed (although he could not be sure so he never stated it as such). As it turns out, no, you can’t get a brand new iPhone X for less than 200€.
m463 7y ago
A cracked screen repair on a recent iphone is $200, which I think is very high. I think if they lowered the price of common repairs to "reasonable", then good things would happen. If instead of becoming a source of profit, repairs became more costly to apple, maybe they might: make things more modular and repairable, make parts available, allow external repairs. (I could be idealistic and wrong)
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  You're not wrong, but Apple won't do that while there are still people who accept and encourage this kind of consumer-hostile behavior.
thelittleone 7y ago
After many hours and tiresome calls with Apple global support and getting nowhere I told them I must take the issue to social media so others might avoid the same issue. The service agent responded “we have a large team of people who respond to such posts”. I wonder if they're required to disclose they’re employees of Apple. If so, they could hire an external company to do the Job. Hard to know these days.
winrid 7y ago
But if you replace the battery with one from the Apple store it'll still say the battery needs replaced right? That's the issue - even with a new OEM battery. Only Apple can replace it and get rid of that message.

radiorental 7y ago

I'm having a very hard time following your logic: Apple charges lots of money on commodity parts because they don't want users getting, as you say, "f'ed over" There is a healthy after market ecosystem primarily because apple charges so much. Not the other way around. Furthermore, in the video on the ifixit site, the blogger replaced the battery with a genuine secondhand apple battery and it would not recognize it. This is predatory behaviour from Apple on its consumers.

privateSFacct 7y ago
I think we are seeing the predatory behavior of scammers here. For example, you are claiming that just attaching a chip from an old apple battery to a new one should read as genuine in the phone. That is a total scam. The detection feature is tied to a chip, not to the cell chemistry itself. If chips from old iphone batteries are all it takes to show a scam battery is genuine, given the high volume of old batteries, EVERY scam battery would show as genuine. This is a workaround already used and well known in other situations. To avoid this workaround you need to tie a specific chip in, not just any apple chip in. Seriously - how do YOU propose apple alert the user to a bogus third party battery.
- gsich 7y ago
  Show a warning, click ignore and be happy. Display battery information regardless.
  - 14 7y ago
    This. I bought a second hand phone off some guy who does phone repairs in my area. Didn't realize the fingerprint reader did not work until a few days later as I had never owned a phone that new that had one and did not know it was supposed to work. When I looked on the internet it seemed that the reason was the home button was swapped out but without taking the chip that ties it to the phone with it from the old button. Asked the seller and he admitted that the home button was swapped, poorly at that. I still can not use the home button to unlock even though the phone is not stolen and I own it. So I personally am not a big fan of apple locking parts down. I personally had an iphone 4s up until half a year ago. I still have it I just happened to get an iphone 6. But my iphone 4s I have put at least 4 screens on it, a new battery, a new set of speakers and a power button. I laugh at the amount of work I have done on it. It is my Theseus iPhone :)
    - rgovostes 7y ago
      To phrase this another way: a third party made some modification to the biometrics sensor that is used to control access to your private data, including all of your device’s encryption keys, stored passwords, and payment information. The phone detected this tampering and disabled the compromised component. And you are disappointed that the part has been “locked down”.
      - 14 7y ago
        That is not how I would rephrase it. And that is simply not true what you claim. Simply replacing the fingerprint scanner does not allow any access. The moment the phone is off the phone will require a password entered manually. Unless you suggest an actor can replace a home button all while not powering down the phone and I suppose that is possible but that to me would seem state level actor and they probably have other ways. So no there doesn’t seem to be a threat to my data if the fingerprint sensor is replaced. It would still require my password upon restart and if I failed to provide it at that point then sure good move Apple. The fact is they know they can force people like me, or people who’s home button is actually broken into their store if they want that magic button. Don’t kid yourself that they are doing this in the name of my security. But thank you for actually commenting I wish more people here on HN would justify their down votes with some conversation on the subjects. Edit: I realize that perhaps someone could swap the button without my knowledge and upon me restarting it I would enter my password and the phone is compromised. But in all honesty who falls under that threat model? Apple simply could notify you of the change and allow you to accept the risk. That’s all it would take.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

jotm 7y ago

Well, it literally says the message is there even if you swap in a genuine Apple battery yourself. Whatever, can't lose if you never play Apple's game.

privateSFacct 7y ago
How would you do this? Remember, the chips in old apple batteries can be removed and used in other batteries.
- m0xte 7y ago
  I doubt they would be. Even laptop battery BMS systems brick themselves so they can't be reused. It's where I get all my 18650's from. They are all NOS batteries that were never used and the BMS disconnected the cells due to fractionally too low voltage. Cells are fine but the BMS chip will never work again.
tinus_hn 7y ago
Apple doesn’t sell genuine Apple batteries to anyone but authorized service providers who can only use these to install them in phones themselves. The only genuine part you can get is a second hand battery from a broken phone. Who wants that?
- root_axis 7y ago
  > The only genuine part you can get is a second hand battery from a broken phone Sounds like a problem deliberately created by Apple.
  - tinus_hn 7y ago
    It is a situation deliberately created by Apple. Whether it is a problem is an opinion.

S_A_P 7y ago

I purchased a few iFixit iphone batteries and was less than impressed with their performance. I think what iFixit is doing is awesome, and I am a huge fan of them. I used their iMac kit to put an SSD in my family iMac and it made the job simple. The iPhone 5s/and iPhone 6 plus batteries I bought from them are trash though, and they lasted a few months before degrading severely. I took those same phones to apple and the batteries were markedly better.

chmod775 7y ago

Hassle of doing it on an Android phone? I pop open the back and put in a different battery. No tools required. And it's even got a decent water proving rating.

e40 7y ago
I've been on Android since the OG Droid, and I can't remember the last time I had a replaceable battery. 4-5 years or more.
- chmod775 7y ago
  I don't buy phones that don't have a replacable battery or don't let me flash a custom OS. This is true for all my electronics tbh. I had to upgrade my S2 after 5 years of service because it was getting too slow for the crap people call a navigation app nowadays. Now I'm on an S5 that has easily kept up so far.
- aembleton 7y ago
  Nokia 2.2 has a removable battery [1] 1. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/one-of-the-cheapest-nokia-phones-comes-to-the-us-the-139-nokia-2-2/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/one-of-the-cheapest-...
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The hermetically sealed glass and aluminum phones don't usually let you do it but more sensible plastic bodied phones often still do.
raverbashing 7y ago
It's hit or miss. Some, while non user replaceable, are very easy. Others require you to take the phone almost entirely apart to replace it

msla 7y ago

> Despite all the HN comments, Apple's made an absolute killing and charges FAR FAR higher margins for their products in part because they design them so normal people don't get totally f'd over. Explains the butterfly keyboards: Can't get fucked over if you can't type anything to fuck yourself over!

ChuckNorris89 7y ago

Apple doesn't want their customers to get f'd over you say? You might want to check out Luis Rosmann's videos, a famous Apple repair geek who fixes for cheap the products Apple themselves misdiagnose[1] in order to rip off their customers[2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7RXJP4mxCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7RXJP4mxCc // teenager's MacBook's display is not working correctly so Geniuses tell him he needs a new motherboard replacement while Luis discovers in 2 seconds that the lid-close sensor cable is broken so he replaces it for $8 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ4tfLns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ4tfLns // customer's MacBook's display is not working correctly so Geniuses tell him he needs a new motherboard and display replacement while Luis discovers in two minutes that the display connector has a bent pin and fixes it for free

teej 7y ago
Nothing in your sources indicate there's intention in Apple driving folks towards these repairs. Geniuses don't work on commission, they have zero incentive to tell people to fix things they dont need to. I think this is a Hanlon's razor situation where you're assuming Apple is malicious when really it's just lack of knowledge on behalf of some Geniuses.
- vxNsr 7y ago
  No one is claiming that apple is training their geniuses to intentionally guide people to more expensive repairs. In fact they are accusing apple of a lack of adequate training, These guys just don't know that what they're saying is untrue. Apple's failed to train their technicians to repair anything. all they can do is replace.
  - teej 7y ago
    The commenter I responded to literally said that the genius intentionally told the customer the wrong thing. They have since edited that part out. So yes, folks right here are claiming intent where there is none.
    - 7y ago

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> People can't figure out why apple can charge such ridiculous premiums on what is otherwise a commodity product. This is why. It's why they can charge such a premium for commodity batteries -- which is the problem. > From applecare to the activation lock to app permissions to alerting user to bogus behavior to app store quality to reversible charging cables - all the activities HN considers "anti-consumer" have helped make consumers value apple products. Let's apply this logic to history. Suppose Microsoft makes it so that Office doesn't run on anything but Windows and Windows won't run any office suites other than Microsoft Office. Now you argue that Microsoft is doing their customers a great favor -- they can make sure nobody sells them a computer with some off-brand office suite that can't read their documents. But it's pretty clear what the problem with that argument is at this point, right? People should be able to make that choice for themselves. Corel shouldn't be able to call their office suite Microsoft Office, but it should still be possible to use it with Microsoft Windows when people are informed of what they're actually getting. And then, does the fact that Windows and Office are tied together cause more people to buy them? Maybe, but not in the good way where people like it. In the anti-competitive way where you need Windows and some office suite and you choose Microsoft Office only because none of the others can run on Windows and the choice is forced on you.

Zak 7y ago

I'm no fan of Apple's domineering attitude, and repairability is very important to me. If I have broken or worn out hardware not covered by a warranty, I will always attempt to repair it myself, and I usually research repairability before making any significant purchases. I don't own any modern Apple hardware. That said, I think this mostly OK as long as Apple doesn't actually try to prevent replacement batteries from working. They could probably do a bit better with the messaging here, letting the user know there's not necessarily a problem, just that the provenance and quality of the battery can't be verified.

lloeki 7y ago

> And yes, the scam of a trash after market battery to make the iphone battery life look good is well known. And guess how many parents and grandparents then go to apple to "fix" something that has nothing to do with Apple? This very situation happened right in front of me while I was waiting at the Apple store to pick up my 4yo 6s after a screen repair. A helpless woman had strange issues with her new iPhone. Turns out it was a “refurbished” phone from a shady shop. The Apple guy went through half an hour of diagnostics and calmly explained all the little details (manufacturing date, battery cycles, actual mAh, various parts misbehaving and reporting obviously bogus information to the diag tools) that had no way of adding up, which led to the conclusion that she had been scammed (although he could not be sure so he never stated it as such). As it turns out, no, you can’t get a brand new iPhone X for less than 200€.

m463 7y ago

A cracked screen repair on a recent iphone is $200, which I think is very high. I think if they lowered the price of common repairs to "reasonable", then good things would happen. If instead of becoming a source of profit, repairs became more costly to apple, maybe they might: make things more modular and repairable, make parts available, allow external repairs. (I could be idealistic and wrong)

brokenmachine 7y ago
You're not wrong, but Apple won't do that while there are still people who accept and encourage this kind of consumer-hostile behavior.

thelittleone 7y ago

After many hours and tiresome calls with Apple global support and getting nowhere I told them I must take the issue to social media so others might avoid the same issue. The service agent responded “we have a large team of people who respond to such posts”. I wonder if they're required to disclose they’re employees of Apple. If so, they could hire an external company to do the Job. Hard to know these days.

winrid 7y ago

But if you replace the battery with one from the Apple store it'll still say the battery needs replaced right? That's the issue - even with a new OEM battery. Only Apple can replace it and get rid of that message.