<story><title>A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance</title><url>https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TaylorAlexander</author><text>Agreed. It’s also a waste of human labor to throw away devices when they could still be made useful with some simple repairs. To go further, it is wasteful to design hardware to be disposable rather than repairable and reusable.&lt;p&gt;People with jobs I wouldn’t want to do work very hard to bring us these devices, and the earth gives up resources to mine, transport, and shape the materials. Throwing things away when they could last 5-10x as long consumes our precious resources and wastes our collective capital.&lt;p&gt;Finally I’ll say that a lack of open software support contributes to this. If I could flash alpine linux on an old iPhone, Nexus, or Samsung, I could find great uses for the old hardware. Such a project is now underway (Alpine linux for Mobile), but mobile devices are still a morass of unpatchable secret binaries with glaring security holes.&lt;p&gt;I know we can better use our resources than to throw a two or three year old flagship phone in the trash or let it waste away in an old drawer, but it will take us demanding more of manufacturers and calling them out for their waste before they take action on it.</text></item><item><author>djsumdog</author><text>This isn&amp;#x27;t the first time this has happened to Apple. They use to not sell replacement batteries for the original iPods, and when people called in to complain, they were often told to buy an entire new iPod. This was settled in a lawsuit:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ilounge.com&amp;#x2F;index.php&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;apples-ipod-battery-settlement-explained&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ilounge.com&amp;#x2F;index.php&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;apples-ip...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another important note is this battery replacement cost only cover the iPhone6 and up. That&amp;#x27;s only the 2015 release. That&amp;#x27;s still lubricious. If we had devices as powerful as today&amp;#x27;s cellphones that cost $500+ in the early-90s, losing support after 2~3 years would be lubricious.&lt;p&gt;In 2012 I remember seeing someone with the first generation iPhone EDGE (pre-3G). That&amp;#x27;s right; the thing was like 6? 7 years old? He really only used it on Wi-Fi. EDGE data was painful, but it was still his primary&amp;#x2F;only phone for another year.&lt;p&gt;The throwaway economy saddens me, and this move doesn&amp;#x27;t really do enough to prevent the continuing pileup of e-waste being shipped on boats to China and Africa.</text></item><item><author>jmull</author><text>&amp;gt; Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.&lt;p&gt;There we go.&lt;p&gt;It took too much trouble and too long for it to happen, but Apple is stepping up and doing the right thing.&lt;p&gt;Actually, the cost of battery replacement is now excellent. If they hadn&amp;#x27;t screwed this up by not communicating what was going on, I think they could have easily justified $49 - $59.&lt;p&gt;So I take the drop to $29 as a tangible apology, which I appreciate. (Well, personally, I&amp;#x27;ve already replaced my battery using a $25 kit from Amazon, but obviously that&amp;#x27;s not viable for the great majority of iPhone owners.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>raquo</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s because everything is so cheap nowadays, because all the externalities that we worry about (pollution, resources running out, etc.) are left for the public and future generations to bear, with those who actually cause those externalities not paying their dues.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I don&amp;#x27;t see this changing within our culture of mindless consumerism and a governance system based on what is essentially legalized bribery (&amp;quot;lobbying&amp;quot;).</text></comment>
<story><title>A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance</title><url>https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TaylorAlexander</author><text>Agreed. It’s also a waste of human labor to throw away devices when they could still be made useful with some simple repairs. To go further, it is wasteful to design hardware to be disposable rather than repairable and reusable.&lt;p&gt;People with jobs I wouldn’t want to do work very hard to bring us these devices, and the earth gives up resources to mine, transport, and shape the materials. Throwing things away when they could last 5-10x as long consumes our precious resources and wastes our collective capital.&lt;p&gt;Finally I’ll say that a lack of open software support contributes to this. If I could flash alpine linux on an old iPhone, Nexus, or Samsung, I could find great uses for the old hardware. Such a project is now underway (Alpine linux for Mobile), but mobile devices are still a morass of unpatchable secret binaries with glaring security holes.&lt;p&gt;I know we can better use our resources than to throw a two or three year old flagship phone in the trash or let it waste away in an old drawer, but it will take us demanding more of manufacturers and calling them out for their waste before they take action on it.</text></item><item><author>djsumdog</author><text>This isn&amp;#x27;t the first time this has happened to Apple. They use to not sell replacement batteries for the original iPods, and when people called in to complain, they were often told to buy an entire new iPod. This was settled in a lawsuit:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ilounge.com&amp;#x2F;index.php&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;apples-ipod-battery-settlement-explained&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ilounge.com&amp;#x2F;index.php&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;apples-ip...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another important note is this battery replacement cost only cover the iPhone6 and up. That&amp;#x27;s only the 2015 release. That&amp;#x27;s still lubricious. If we had devices as powerful as today&amp;#x27;s cellphones that cost $500+ in the early-90s, losing support after 2~3 years would be lubricious.&lt;p&gt;In 2012 I remember seeing someone with the first generation iPhone EDGE (pre-3G). That&amp;#x27;s right; the thing was like 6? 7 years old? He really only used it on Wi-Fi. EDGE data was painful, but it was still his primary&amp;#x2F;only phone for another year.&lt;p&gt;The throwaway economy saddens me, and this move doesn&amp;#x27;t really do enough to prevent the continuing pileup of e-waste being shipped on boats to China and Africa.</text></item><item><author>jmull</author><text>&amp;gt; Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.&lt;p&gt;There we go.&lt;p&gt;It took too much trouble and too long for it to happen, but Apple is stepping up and doing the right thing.&lt;p&gt;Actually, the cost of battery replacement is now excellent. If they hadn&amp;#x27;t screwed this up by not communicating what was going on, I think they could have easily justified $49 - $59.&lt;p&gt;So I take the drop to $29 as a tangible apology, which I appreciate. (Well, personally, I&amp;#x27;ve already replaced my battery using a $25 kit from Amazon, but obviously that&amp;#x27;s not viable for the great majority of iPhone owners.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>djsumdog</author><text>&amp;gt;  Such a project is now underway (Alpine linux for Mobile)&lt;p&gt;Check out PostmarketOS. It&amp;#x27;s made a lot headway into attempting to create a single, semi-universal image that can be used on multiple devices.</text></comment>