>They are not locking the replacement, they are refusing to guarantee the performance of parts they can’t certify are genuine.
According to the article:
> is shown regardless of whether a genuine Apple battery has been installed in the phone — it all comes down to whether Apple or one of its Authorized Service Providers installed the replacement.
So the theme is not on the genuinity of the part (unless we assume that Apple doesn't know how to recognize an "own" original part or that third party, unofficial batteries are indistinguishable from the original ones [1]), it is only on the fact that the person that changed it (and regardless of how good the work was performed) did know the "secret handshake".
Very likely it is a matter of either a sequence of commands/taps/whatever or of connecting the device to some program (or server or whatever) to "reset" a flag.
And yes it shouldn't be so different from how a number of cars have "reset codes" for errors or for oil/filter change log.
Now in the car, the on board oomputer has no way to know if the oil you (or the dealer) changed is good or bad, but a battery on a smartphone?
[1] even if it seems I am saying the same thing twice, the meaning is actually slightly different
As far as I understand it, it’s not uncommon for third party parts to try to appear genuine. There’s usually imperfections in the faking that Apple hones in on, but it’s a bit of a cat and mouse game.
There’s also the possibility of repairs being performed with used or otherwise tampered with genuine parts, which are almost as much of a wildcard as third party parts.
Maybe things have improved with smartphones, but I remember third party replacements for MacBooks with swappable batteries being worse than a crapshoot — on top of bad capacity and faster degradation they also often caused kernel panics and power management issues. I can see why Apple might want to not be stuck with supporting that.
If an original (used) battery is installed, it should be recognized as original and graded accordingly to its state (let's say 80% of what it should be).
The current provision doesn't prevent the use of a defective or used or sub-standard battery, it only prevents non-Apple personnel from performing a repair without triggering the (possibly unjustified) alarm.
I agree with your original assessment and support this move from Apple. I am glad there is a mechanism for determining whether work done on a device I might purchase (such as a used iPhone) was done by Apple certified technicians. I do not think Apple should spend time or money attempting to certify or measure every battery that a person could put in the phone.
This is a pro-consumer move, because it gives the consumer more information about the state of a product. They can ignore it if they want, it doesn’t impact the operation of the device.
But there is no reason for Apple to "guarantee the performance of parts they can’t certify are genuine".
This is not pro-consumer any more than saying that only Ford-certified auto shops are able to disable the "check engine" light, because Ford can't guarantee the performance of auto parts they can't certify are genuine.
> iFixit likens it to an “Oil Change” indicator light in a car that will only turn off if a Ford dealership changes the oil.
With the whole "iPhones throttle" thing a couple years ago, and how simple this comparison is, hopefully this will get picked up by mainstream news and be changed.
I mean Apple used to say your battery is pretty bad so we’ll slow down your device, so your device didn’t exactly work fine, just like how the printer prevented you from regularly printing with it.
Not defending them, but I think they were capping high current draw performance to prevent low voltage shut off, which seemed to be an issue with aged batteries in certain, now older, models, which was perhaps a reasonable way to address the issue, but only if coupled with informing the user, which Apple failed to do. A 3 year old battery that can't maintain voltage should be replaced. Apple quietly opted to let the phone limp along.
I think two distinct issues were conflated in irate/conspiratorial users minds, that when Apple introduced new OS versions, they were optimized for the newest hardware, but seemingly not the prior gen hardware, which seemed increasingly sluggish. This was true before iOS 12, which miraculously brought back older devices to their original speed, through a years worth of extensive optimization.
I think certainly Apple benefited in new sales from upgraders of sluggish devices, but I'm not certain it was intentional. Despite their hoards of cash, Apple employs fewer engineers than almost any tech company proportional to their revenue, which requires focus, and leads to blind spots.
If it was intentional, they've changed course now, with iOS 12, and maintaining usability of older devices, even to the extent of accepting fewer upgrade sales as more users retain older devices, which is definitely now a more viable path for users of older devices, like me. (I nearly upgraded from my iPhone 6s, prior to iOS 12, but decided to keep using it.)
You were forced to do until the whole slowing down phone on upgrade scandal. As a direct result of this action, Apple discounted battery replacement until the end of 2018.
Seems like a good thing for consumers buying second-hand phones.
That’s not to say all third party batteries (or unauthorised replacements of genuine batteries) are bad, but as a consumer it’s nice to at least be aware what’s in your phone.
Its also nice to not be forced to pay the Apple tax to repair your device. Apple is trying their darnedest to prevent independent repair shops from extending the life of Apple products, while Apple tosses boards out, and generates more e-waste, instead of actually repairing components. But yeah, it is certainly nice to have Apple tell you that Apple thinks your Apple authorized battery, that was installed in an Apple authorized store, by an Apple trained and Apple authorized Genius is working just fine. Priorities.
There are third party battery health checking apps on the App Store that replace this functionality.