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> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. Battery replacement costs at Apple are $69-99 and offered all the way
by arcticbull 2y ago
> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse.
Battery replacement costs at Apple are $69-99 and offered all the way back to the iPhone SE 1st Generation. That's the all-in cost where you bring it in, they open it up, swap it out, and give your phone back to you.
An OEM battery for an Android phone is like $50.
Budgeting $69-99 once every 3-4 years hardly seems like it's going to nuke their business from orbit.
- jazzyjackson 2y agoAgreed. Apple phones are quite repairable (just not DIY-able), no one is dropping 1000 dollars on a new phone because their current one has a cracked back glass. Watching their live feed, one of Apple's selling points on such an expensive phone is that it will last a long time and have a higher re-sale value than other phones. It's not a case of planned obsolescence.
- FireBeyond 2y agoThere are absolutely cases where they have artificially gated features to new devices, even when the hardware is capable (I'm thinking around Handoff/Continuity, etc.). Where the initial reaction is "maybe it's a new BT chip or ..." but it can be shown that the functionality is perfect when some trickery is done to fool the OS its running on more modern hardware.
- twoodfin 2y agoThis is a consequence of Apple’s deeply ingrained (and hugely successful) product design culture. When you’re trying to develop a vertically integrated feature across a synchronized release requiring potentially new silicon, a new device, new OS frameworks, new app code… you have to express your requirements precisely. Either the M1 is being designed to support three displays or it’s being designed to support two. Not “as much display support as we can squeeze in where performance is still OK end-to-end”. By the time you know if end-to-end looks good for all the features you built up depending on lower layers in the stack, it’s too late. You’re also likely not to trust “hey, seems like our tolerances were excessive and it works great on older hardware”. And building up that trust is time-consuming and difficult, so they rarely go back to do it without a strong market justification. Stage Manager being the most recent—somewhat odd—example.
- throwaway290 2y agoWhat do you mean about stage manager?
- twoodfin 2y agoThey originally claimed it was going to be supported only on the most recent SoC’s, then backtracked. Which is weird because who really cared about stage manager? I guess they decided the media kerfuffle was making owners of unsupported recent hardware feel put down.
- wolpoli 2y agoThere was also that instance where Siri was gated from the iPhone 4. It was later shown that it was possible to install the Siri interface on the iPhone 4 through a Jailbreak - the only thing that prevented full functionality was a device serial number embedded in the request to the Siri server.
- jmb99 2y agoNot even just iPhones - I ran Siri on a 3rd gen iPod Touch. Anything that could run iOS 5 could use Siri with a jailbreak.
- threeseed 2y agoiPhone 4 was first generation of iPhone to have a second microphone used for noise cancellation. So whilst Siri could technically run on older devices the experience was unacceptably poor.
- badpun 2y agoSiri! What a blast from the past. I wonder if there are people still using it nowadays, now that the novelty is long gone.
- sroussey 2y agoEh, sometimes. Other times, a newer piece of internal hardware has no new “feature” but just works better and has fewer failures. This is particularly true with every kind of wireless networking, including Bluetooth. It may work, but not have hit the quality bar.
- scosman 2y agoExactly. Almost anything can kinda work on older devices. But lots of little details make the difference between a good experience and a poor one. Which simd instructions did it support. What’s the battery impact on that BT chipset. Did the ANE support NN layer style X? Apple has a great track record of brining new features to old hardware. I don’t see example here or elsewhere that I think were purely greed and not quality driven.
- FireBeyond 2y agoTrue, sure. But someone mentioned the canonical example I was thinking of: Stage Manager. That is a 100% software feature that was arbitrarily gated.
- scosman 2y agoUnless I'm mistaken, stage manager requires running 5 apps simultaneously when iPads were previously limited to 1 or 2? That includes 5 render pipelines (way more pixels to push than exist on the physical display). There would be hardware load on pretty much every key piece of hardware (GPU, CPU, memory, caches, disk), and by a non trivial factor.
- FireBeyond 2y agoSo why gate it on macOS?
- scosman 2y agoSame reason. Rendering more apps at full screen in real time takes a ton of GPU. Adds ~5x the pixels, and 5x screen scale transforms+effect. All the optimizations for “that’s hidden”/“that’s background” go out the door.
- kaba0 2y agoThere are cases, but credit where its due, I think they are generally very generous in bringing new features to older devices, compared to plenty other companies that basically forget about they ever released another device the moment a new one drops. E.g. the apple watches really “inherited” a good chunk of all the new features to the point that there are several versions that are basically identical. Like, I have the 6, and besides the on-screen keyboard (for which I guess the screen was too small based on their testings) and temperature-sensor reliant features, it does almost everything the new 10 will be able to do.
- barbs 2y agoAbsolutely disagree. Having replaced the screen, battery and home button on my 1st gen iPhone SE myself I can confidently say that Apple do not make these easy to repair yourself, and arguably make it more difficult to drive business for their own repair service. Lots of tiny screws requiring particular tools of different lengths that can't be mixed up, lest you permanently damage the phone. Glue that needs to be carefully removed or you risk dangerously damaging the battery. Just look at their repairability scores on iFixit: https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairability-scores https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-repairabilit... .
- npunt 2y agoRepairability was bad but has gone up a lot, they did a big internals redesign for iPhone 15 to make it easier to swap batteries and replace screens. Still not something they want user serviceable, I imagine mostly because it creates headaches for everyone involved. Most people struggle fixing big things, let alone sub-mm precision things. But this helps the 3rd party repair shops a lot.
- randmeerkat 2y ago> Still not something they want user serviceable, I imagine mostly because it creates headaches for everyone involved. User replaceable cell phone batteries used to be the norm, not the exception.
- kaba0 2y agoAnd at the time they were comparable to a flashlight in terms of complexity, not running AAA games with raytracing and a camera pipeline of untold complexity. It’s almost like having anything this complex working requires insane engineering and miniaturization, this is not due to “planned obsolescence”, especially if you take a look at the second hand market. No other brand has even remotely similar resell value.
- randmeerkat 2y ago
- detourdog 2y agoApple also has to develop technology at their own pace. I used to get an iPhone every year. Eventually it stopped making sense and I just now had to check to see which one I had .(14 Pro)I remember noticing a big difference when I bought this iPhone with the camera. I know whenever I upgrade it will always be to a current state of Apple”s art because of these incremental consistent upgrades. I”m very tempted to buy a new one. The last time I waited till it broke to upgrade.
- user3939382 2y agoAssuming those prices are correct and the procedure is that convenient, it doesn't practically exist if most people aren't aware of it. From my casual observations most people suffer with bad batteries until buying a new model.
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- dghlsakjg 2y agoWhat more can they do to let people know? You can google it, go to the website, go to any of their stores or authorized dealers, or click the link the phone gives you in the battery health view. Short of apple beating down your door, what more do you expect
- SSLy 2y agoIt also complains in your settings app main screen if the battery is too low.
- pishpash 2y agoIt's a psychological game. People are primed to want new things, and more investment into something old is hard to justify even if it's financially right. Also OS's lose supprt, softwares bloat, and bundled offers from carriers are toward replacement. You'd have to be really disciplined to not succumb to upgrade pressure when you go into an Apple Store of all places where the entire setup is to generate sales.
- avidphantasm 2y agoBring it in where? I have to drive an hour one way for an Apple store. It’s easier to order a new device than be without my phone.
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- leejoramo 2y agoLast couple of times I have done this, I used Apple’s online system to schedule the battery replace at a locally owned Apple dealer or at the nearest Best Buy. Same price and warranty as at the Apple Store. Turn around time was 2 hours.
- avidphantasm 2y agoHelpful tip. Thanks!
- Detrytus 2y agoLucky you. I would need to drive to another country for an Apple store... And I don't live in Third World either (theoretically), but in Central Europe.
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- mvdtnz 2y agoApple store doesn't even exist in my country.
- conductr 2y agoMy thing is the battery timeline matches pretty closely to when I’m just ready for something new. I go bare, no case, so by 3-4 years my screen is scratched and scuffed enough to just do full replacement. I usually notice the speed leap too and how certain apps were severely unoptimized for my older device. So that’s nice too. But it’s not ever felt like a “upgrade” in a very long time because I don’t have any new features unlocked (not any that I use), so I’m my mind it’s a “replacement”.
- wpm 2y agoThe one consumable much harder to replace is the oleophobic coating. There are drops you can buy and apply, they seem to work alright, but don't last nearly as long as the factory coating. By year two, the screen just gets grubbier and grubbier. By year three its just plan nasty.
- arcticbull 2y agoIf you get AppleCare+ the screen replacement is $29. I usually get it replaced right before I can hand it off to my family. It's not as good a deal obviously if you don't plan on getting AppleCare+ anyways.
- Dylan16807 2y agoIf the drops work, then are you forgetting to reapply them every few months, or is that not viable, or what?
- jtriangle 2y agoYou missed the user bit of what you're replying to. There are android phones that have this ability, I have one. New batteries are ~20 bucks, and they take about 5 minutes to swap, most of which is shutdown/boot time. I can take my phone out innawoods and use offline GPS all day, and as a flashlight at night, by just bringing a pocketfull of batteries. When a battery goes bad, I toss it in the recycle bucket, and buy a new one. I currently have 10 of them and they're on rotation. What that means is, I get a new phone when apps stop working, and I use very few apps, so, that's been 5+ years since I adopted this model. It'd certainly be better for the environment and better for the consumer if manufacturers were on-board with this idea, but, it'd be far worse for their margins, so, these devices only exist on the periphery. That said, I do think that Apple could make this work for the masses. Simply pair the batteries with the phone, keep everyone in the walled garden, don't allow 3rd parties in willy nilly, and then charge more for new batteries. That that system and spin the hell out of it, make android/google/et al look like evil megacorps filling the earth with chemicals leached from 1-time use android phones, and call it a day.
- Terretta 2y ago> the user* bit* "The masses" do not want to carry a bag of spare batteries. The masses don't want to have to think about it. The latest generation devices are mostly "don't have to think about it" on batteries. > New batteries are ~20 bucks Gotta love those after-market or counterfeit high density inflammable energy packs crammed against your body or the bagful of 9 spares left in your car... https://www.motleyrice.com/news/lithium-ion-batteries-explosion-risks-2 https://www.motleyrice.com/news/lithium-ion-batteries-explos... Getting worse, not better: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/09/tech/lithium-ion-battery-fires/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/09/tech/lithium-ion-battery-fire... I want real ones from a real company spending real money on R&D, that I "know where they live" if it's a problem. Speaking of quality, I can use current iPhone off grid with offline GPS all day, and use it again the next day — without taking any battery packs. The new "max" devices clock effectively two day battery life if you are conscious of what you're using it for (say, camping out off grid instead of doomscrolling Insta, for instance). I find even 3 or 4 sometimes if you're not picking it up and are in low energy and low data mode. Definitely 3 - 4 if you shut it off while asleep. It's nuts.
- smitelli 2y agoAnd sometimes they rip the display cable while they’re trying to swap out the battery, and you end up with an entirely new SE2 in the end. Happened to us about 1-2 months ago.
- meragrin_ 2y ago> Budgeting $69-99 once every 3-4 years hardly seems like it's going to nuke their business from orbit. Apple's business model partially depends on selling people a new phone every few years. If people switch to battery replacements in place of new phones in large quantities, that is going to significantly hurt their business model.
- acdha 2y agoApple makes a ton of money from services: https://www.statista.com/statistics/382136/quarterly-segments-revenue-of-apple/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/382136/quarterly-segment... That’s not an accident, they spent a lot of effort building up their portfolio when this trend was obviously unavoidable. They’d love it if you buy a new phone every year but they’re almost as happy if you keep the same phone for 5 years, buy apps, and subscribe to Apple One. One of the really big questions is what impact the EU DMA will have on this strategy: a lot of what’s kept them ahead of Android on things like CPUs is the geyser of App Store cash stabilizing revenue for long-term commitments.
- wooger 2y agoInterestingly, it was recently revealed that 22% of their services income is comprised of payments from Google to keep their search engine as the default in iOS / Safari. Soon to disappear given the antitrust case.
- szundi 2y agoIf this becomes the dominant source of revenues, it makes sense for them to make the phone more repairable and to have a longer lifetime - but then this dominance have to really show, otherwise it is a future revenue instead of a present one.
- makeitdouble 2y ago> iPhone SE 1st Generation To note, that's a regional thing. It seems to stop at gen2 for Asian countries for ex. > Budgeting $69-99 once every 3-4 years iPhone batteries become subpar way faster than that, especially the older models who get more strained as they bear the heavier OS. Once every year and a half looks more realistic to me.
- northernman 2y agoNonsense
- yreg 2y agoSoutheast Asian countries have no lack of cheap 3rd party shops that can do high-skilled repairs on pretty much any iPhone model. Also, 3 year battery life is much more realistic to me than 1.5 years, but that's just personal experience.
- makeitdouble 2y agoOn the battery thing, that might depend how much games are run on it. We hand down devices, and replace the battery if its life is below the 70% mark so to somewhat refresh the device. The SE 2nd gen we handed down already had two battery replacements at this point and I'll probably ask for a third before it falls off the support list. On third party repairs...it's sure getting better, hopefully in other regions as well.
- yreg 2y ago> On the battery thing, that might depend how much games are run on it. Ah, could be. I use iPhones intensively, but almost never for gaming.
- givinguflac 2y agoFWIW I got a launch iPhone X I gave to my dad with original battery now at 73% health, OLED screen burn in, and a broken charging port (wireless charging still works), and he’s still using it as a daily driver lol. So while batteries certainly can go subpar faster, they can and do last much longer sometimes. I also babied it and rarely charged above 80 or fell below 25, which may have played a part but who knows.
- cogman10 2y ago> An OEM battery for an Android phone is like $50. I just got mine replaced on my pixel 6, total cost was $200. Still gonna hang onto it because there's no reason to replace but yeah labor costs for android are a bit ridiculous.
- 93po 2y agoscreen repair on my iphone 13 mini is $230, it sucks on both sides depending
- jsheard 2y agoThe Pixel 6 was one of those awful designs where you have to go in from the front and risk damaging the screen in order to get to the battery, it's no wonder getting it replaced was expensive. That price has to factor in a potential screen replacement if they mess it up. Thankfully later Pixels can be opened from the back instead.
- Mistletoe 2y agoI think people are just too lazy, don't know, or don't want to go to the trouble of getting the battery replaced.
- reisse 2y ago> An OEM battery for an Android phone is like $50. I've done four or five battery replacements on various Pixel phones, each time battery was 15$ max. I've done the replacement myself, but I know that in an (unauthorized, obviously) repair shop the work costs maybe 10-15$ and takes twenty minutes. The math is the same for iPhones, maybe 10$ more. 69-99$ is an "Authorized Apple Service" tax.
- ClumsyPilot 2y agoI really don’t like this “unauthorised” language - when you change light, washing machine or the whole kitchen in your house, so we cal it ‘unauthorised?’ Both are your property
- valval 2y agoUnauthorised by the warranty agreement. Applies to near every consumer electronics product, for frankly quite obvious reasons.