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Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

ifixit.com

211–220 of 259 posts

Re: Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would I give them that? So they can repair your phone. And they get the same thing when they give you the rogue phone back and you try to unlock it, at which point it sends the PIN to them and they can use it to unlock your original phone and then mount it over the network to display the same data until they've finished copying it.

Why do they need my phone to be unlocked to repair it? They just take off the back and put in a new battery.

We're talking about the fingerprint reader, which makes sense to require the phone to be unlocked to replace to prevent someone from doing it without your knowledge.

Though even that only makes the attack more expensive, because again, they can just replace the whole phone. Doing that undetected is harder because you have to connect the rogue phone to the original one as soon as they give the rogue phone what you need to unlock the original, which is a sophisticated attack. Though manufacturing custom malicious hardware already implies a pretty sophisticated attack.

Re: Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

#212
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would it be a disaster? All they have to do is determine it's a third party battery and all the tech blogs move on.

By then the damage to the brand has already been done.

The chances of a fire are slim otherwise we’d hear more about it. And seriously, everyone has already forgotten about samnsung’s exploding phones.

Re: Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

#213
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

> The only genuine part you can get is a second hand battery from a broken phone

Sounds like a problem deliberately created by Apple.

Re: Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

#214
A lot of comments in defense of Apple seem to have overlooked something very important.

> If you replace the battery in the newest iPhones, a message indicating you need to service your battery appears in Settings > Battery, next to Battery Health.

This is not a warning that you are using a non-OEM part. This is an imperative for the user to get the part replaced.

Even if most non-Apple batteries are terrible, this is not a reasonable approach. IMO, it is bad for Apple to refer to anything they have not approved as defective and very misleading to the customer.

Re: Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

#215
post #40

To give another perspective: I bought a used iPhone SE about a month ago and was worried about battery health because many sellers didn‘t mention it. After passing some more shady offers I found an SE for cheap (around 100€) that claimed 95% battery health. And I could verify that in the settings. Seller mentioned the iPhone was never serviced and only used as a backup phone. Perhaps that should have ring an alarm, b…

I’m not sure how this is supposed to help you in your situation. In fact it has muddied the waters for all situations because now even perfectly fine batteries will show a bad battery status.

In the situation where you're buying a used phone, it's better for some fine batteries to show a bad status than for some bad batteries to show a good status.

Re: Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

#216
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. They may replace the phone sometimes but I’ve only ever had them replace the battery.

I've had 4 battery replacements and Apple has never done anything other than exchange the whole phone.

I've had 2 battery replacements and both times they only replaced the battery.

Re: Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

#217
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I partially disagree. The simple truth is that the market for third party non-Apple replacement parts is super sketchy. In the US and other countries where it's convenient to purchase from a reliable site like ifixit, you have legitimate options. For the rest of the world, you have AliExpress. It's not a matter of finding a local reseller, you really just don't have many good options. I opted for my own 3rd party rep…

I think the big issue here is that Apple seems unwilling to distinguish between reputable aftermarket companies and those that aren't. I can see how they're trying to protect consumers from shoddy batteries, but this goes beyond that. If someone hasn't seen it yet, there are youtube videos of people having their iphones damaged and not having their photos backed up. The Apple Geniuses and on the offical forums tell t…

Elsewhere in this thread people talk about batteries bought from iFixit lasting only a few months.

They don’t seem reputable.

Re: Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

#218
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I partially disagree. The simple truth is that the market for third party non-Apple replacement parts is super sketchy. In the US and other countries where it's convenient to purchase from a reliable site like ifixit, you have legitimate options. For the rest of the world, you have AliExpress. It's not a matter of finding a local reseller, you really just don't have many good options. I opted for my own 3rd party rep…

I'd say Apple is partially to blame for the replacement parts market being shady, for three reasons: 1. You can't get genuine Apple replacement parts in such a way that the end-consumer can actually verify they are not counterfeits. 2. Apple charges an exorbitant brand premium for genuine Apple products. 3. Apple doesn't believe that unapproved persons are capable of repairing its devices correctly. If one could orde…

Batteries have serious shelf life issues.

There would be nothing to prevent there being poorly stored batteries that are genuine being sold and causing the same issue.

Re: Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair

#220
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took an iPhone SE to an Apple Store for a battery replacement program last year. Spent 4+ hours waiting with minimal status updates until the genius finally came back out to say that the battery was replaced but TouchID was now broken, they didn't have any replacement parts and it would take a week for a refurbished unit to arrive. Had to pay to take the broken phone away with no other recourse. Six months later, t…

Went to their repair center with 2 phones. 1 hour later went home with 2 fresh phones. Amazing experience, but heard, it’s not that good in big cities.

Heard of friends getting new phones immediately in LA, so it happens here too.
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