4 ms·

I would want exactly this. Lately I got an older model of a smartphone. It was used to present the product, so I'm the first owner. It's ok but the internal bat

by effie 6y ago

I would want exactly this. Lately I got an older model of a smartphone. It was used to present the product, so I'm the first owner. It's ok but the internal battery sucks. Original batteries aren't some magical spec devices that other batteries can't substitute. Most of them are made by the same few manufacturers and it is trivial to find a replacement with similar specs.

saagarjha 6y ago
I think you as a user should be able to make this choice, but the parent comment is talking about another scenario, where the person you're buying a refurbished iPhone from has silently replaced parts. I think that at least warrants some sort of disclaimer.
- rlpb 6y ago
  > the person you're buying a refurbished iPhone from has silently replaced parts Silently? Unless they're passing off a refurbished iPhone as a new one, replacing parts as necessary is exactly what refurbishment means! As a buyer I might be interested to know if they used only genuine Apple parts, but I'm happy that the market can take care of that and the only legal intervention should be if there was a deliberate misrepresentation. It's perfectly fine for a repairer to use third party parts without having to specifically call it out. This has been done in every other market since the beginning of time, so this would not be misleading anyone.
- toast0 6y ago
  Refurbished means previously broken and hopefully fixed. In today's reality, fixing is generally by replacing components. If Apple doesn't make repair parts available, they're either coming from other phones, non-oem manufacturing, or possibly grey/black market overproduction. Refurbished products should always tell you who refurbished them, and you can draw conclusions about the supplies from there. Ideally, they'd also tell you what was replaced, but it can be difficult to track that with the item.
npunt 6y ago
I'm not privy to anything specifically about batteries, and you may be right about the batteries all effectively being the same. However, I do know - in general - component manufacturers are notorious for cutting corners to save a few cents, doing additional factory runs after hours, altering chemistry, faking specs, etc. It's a shady business climate that needs constant QC. Also a fair amount of what you pay for is a known chain of custody from component manufacturer to your device. From what I can tell for many components there isn't a clear feedback loop to end customers, as parts travel through several intermediaries, which means its less likely bad quality will lead to repercussions to the component manufacturer. It goes all the way to the repair place, who's typically doing a one-off order for a customer rather than having an ongoing customer relationship, and who may never see a failure 6 months down the line. As far as batteries, and this may be a hypothetical as I do not know about who's manufacturing what and at what quality, but there's also legitimate safety concerns which is why a higher than typical level of scrutiny is required. These are all conditions that could lead to potentially higher failure rates. How much higher is debatable, it may be only a percent or two, and for many folks a small additional risk may be worth saving some cash for. Personally? For older devices I wouldn't care. A newer device, I would.
- rlpb 6y ago
  That's all fine. If you want a known chain of custody, you could exclusively use a manufacturer-authorized repairer, or use a third party repairer who guarantees to only use manufacturer-authorized parts, and so on. For competition however, I maintain that the consumer should have the ability to choose to do business with a repairer with no supply relationship with the manufacturer who claims to be able to do better. As long as the consumer isn't being misled, the consumer should be entitled to choose to take that risk.
  - fragmede 6y ago
    Realistically this would be far less of a problem if Apple didn't pretend that their devices (like everything else in this world) get old, and supported a robust economy around servicing older devices. Why can't I just buy an iPhone SE battery right off Apple.com? Why can't my third party repairer? How about an authorized repairer? Where are the publicly available service manuals? How about some schematics? Back in the day, high-end electronics (particularly audio equipment) had full-blown schematics, for repair. While reflow re-soldering BGA devices is way out of reach for the average non-technical home users today, with a steady hand, and the right tools, replacing an iPhone battery is only slightly more complicated than changing a tire.

by effie 6y ago

saagarjha 6y ago

I think you as a user should be able to make this choice, but the parent comment is talking about another scenario, where the person you're buying a refurbished iPhone from has silently replaced parts. I think that at least warrants some sort of disclaimer.

rlpb 6y ago
> the person you're buying a refurbished iPhone from has silently replaced parts Silently? Unless they're passing off a refurbished iPhone as a new one, replacing parts as necessary is exactly what refurbishment means! As a buyer I might be interested to know if they used only genuine Apple parts, but I'm happy that the market can take care of that and the only legal intervention should be if there was a deliberate misrepresentation. It's perfectly fine for a repairer to use third party parts without having to specifically call it out. This has been done in every other market since the beginning of time, so this would not be misleading anyone.
toast0 6y ago
Refurbished means previously broken and hopefully fixed. In today's reality, fixing is generally by replacing components. If Apple doesn't make repair parts available, they're either coming from other phones, non-oem manufacturing, or possibly grey/black market overproduction. Refurbished products should always tell you who refurbished them, and you can draw conclusions about the supplies from there. Ideally, they'd also tell you what was replaced, but it can be difficult to track that with the item.

npunt 6y ago

I'm not privy to anything specifically about batteries, and you may be right about the batteries all effectively being the same. However, I do know - in general - component manufacturers are notorious for cutting corners to save a few cents, doing additional factory runs after hours, altering chemistry, faking specs, etc. It's a shady business climate that needs constant QC. Also a fair amount of what you pay for is a known chain of custody from component manufacturer to your device. From what I can tell for many components there isn't a clear feedback loop to end customers, as parts travel through several intermediaries, which means its less likely bad quality will lead to repercussions to the component manufacturer. It goes all the way to the repair place, who's typically doing a one-off order for a customer rather than having an ongoing customer relationship, and who may never see a failure 6 months down the line. As far as batteries, and this may be a hypothetical as I do not know about who's manufacturing what and at what quality, but there's also legitimate safety concerns which is why a higher than typical level of scrutiny is required. These are all conditions that could lead to potentially higher failure rates. How much higher is debatable, it may be only a percent or two, and for many folks a small additional risk may be worth saving some cash for. Personally? For older devices I wouldn't care. A newer device, I would.

rlpb 6y ago
That's all fine. If you want a known chain of custody, you could exclusively use a manufacturer-authorized repairer, or use a third party repairer who guarantees to only use manufacturer-authorized parts, and so on. For competition however, I maintain that the consumer should have the ability to choose to do business with a repairer with no supply relationship with the manufacturer who claims to be able to do better. As long as the consumer isn't being misled, the consumer should be entitled to choose to take that risk.
- fragmede 6y ago
  Realistically this would be far less of a problem if Apple didn't pretend that their devices (like everything else in this world) get old, and supported a robust economy around servicing older devices. Why can't I just buy an iPhone SE battery right off Apple.com? Why can't my third party repairer? How about an authorized repairer? Where are the publicly available service manuals? How about some schematics? Back in the day, high-end electronics (particularly audio equipment) had full-blown schematics, for repair. While reflow re-soldering BGA devices is way out of reach for the average non-technical home users today, with a steady hand, and the right tools, replacing an iPhone battery is only slightly more complicated than changing a tire.