[ChickeNES]

That's to prevent people from taking old batteries and modifying them to appear new.

>So you would want to know if the phone was blessed by an apple genius when you buy/sell ?

Very much so, I don't want my phone catching fire in my pocket or while charging, or people with little technical knowledge being scammed.

Would you want to know if the home you were buying was wired by a licensed electrician, designed by a licensed engineer, etc?

[temporaryvector]

>Would you want to know if the home you were buying was wired by a licensed electrician

No, not really. I'd want it inspected, of course, but that's about it. Same with buying used cars. If the house wiring or my used car fucks ups, I'm safe in the knowledge that I can just hire someone to fix it for a reasonable price, and I can be reasonably confident that they'll do a decent job because the knowledge and the parts to fix it are freely available to anyone.

>designed by a licensed engineer, etc?

Maybe, but then designing a product is different than repairing an already designed product. We also have regulations for that kind of thing, so even if I have no idea who designed the house, I can be fairly confident that it's going to be fine because the house was built in the first place, and as before, I can also have it inspected and repaired if something is wrong.

Nothing of this is new, people have been going through the same shit for a couple of centuries now, we went through it with cars and appliances earlier in the last century. Don't let Apple and other electronic manufactures convince you that they're somehow special or different. It's not arcane magic and these problems are not unsolvable. They're just not willing to solve them in a way that's not user-hostile because they have not real incentive to do so.

[ChickeNES]

I think you miss my point. The average person just wants their phone fixed, not to be able to fix it themselves. And they want to have confidence it was done right.

Also, a fun fact: an iPhone XR replacement battery is $80USD from iFixit (the only vendor I'd trust) vs $69 for out-of-warranty replacement from Apple themselves, labor included.

[temporaryvector]

I specifically avoided mentioning anything about people doing repairs themselves because that's not the most important consequence of right-to-repair.

Also, good luck finding an Apple store or getting your battery replaced in reasonable time anywhere outside the major cities, and especially anywhere outside the US.

[ChickeNES]

> Also, good luck finding an Apple store or getting your battery replaced in reasonable time anywhere outside the major cities, and especially anywhere outside the US.

No need! That's why Apple has certified third-party affiliates, including Best Buy in the US [1]. Prices are identical to service from the Apple Store.

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/apple-partners-with-b...

[magashna]

Being able to fix a battery used to be as simple as popping it open and putting in a new battery, rather than having an Apple "Genius" hold my hand and whisper sweet nothings while they charge me an exorbitant amount for the most basic of fixes.

[jpttsn]

The bigger issue is when Ford put the motor inside the car. Now I need a mechanic to replace the motor. Horrible. Use to be anyone could just switch it out.

[gandalfian]

Yes but almost no one needs an xr battery yet. They are still all new and under warranty. In two years when people actually need new batteries they will be much cheaper, as are the older iPhone batteries today.

[michaelt]

  That's to prevent people from
  taking old batteries and
  modifying them to appear new.

Strange that, for all their security chops, Apple can't make or buy a battery fuel gauge with a trustworthy cycle count.

[ChickeNES]

You mean like they just did with this change?

[bubblethink]

>That's to prevent people from taking old batteries and modifying them to appear new.

But the phone is old. That is known. You are buying/selling an old phone which has old parts. Whether the old part was genius blessed or not is of little concern as long as it is a genuine part. It is common knowledge that batteries age and that is implied when you buy an old device. If you are unhappy with that, ask for user replaceable batteries, not more DRM in batteries. I don't get this warped logic at all. Some amount of risk is assumed whenever you buy anything used. That's just life.

[ChickeNES]

>Whether the old part was genius blessed or not is of little concern as long as it is a genuine part.

How do you know it's a genuine part? Maybe even the seller truly believes it is a genuine battery, but counterfeits getting into a supply chain is common unless very tightly controlled.

[bubblethink]

Battery and other checks have existed forever. Even my ancient thinkpad does it, and lenovo/ibm are kings of whitelists. They've been nickle and diming people for a few decades now. Long before the iphone existed. That's not what is being discussed. This goes a step further and requires an apple store employee to sell and insert the battery. That's how your freedoms erode. Slowly, and in the name of safety/security.

[ChickeNES]

I have no use for conspiratorial ramblings. Again, how do you propose protecting consumers from faulty batteries? This goes beyond Apple to other devices, for example vaporizers, which have caused burns and even deaths from improper use of batteries not designed for end-user replacement.

[bubblethink]

You can implement genuineness checks for equipment without requiring a stooge to install the equipment for you. The car industry does it, and cars are much more likely to kill you. Other electronics with batteries do it too. Nothing about a phone is unique. Again, this is mostly a problem of education. If it takes me 5 comments on HN to explain that you are capabale of replacing a battery, it's a lost cause.

[vile_wretch]

You're far less likely to find a cheap counterfeit aftermarket battery than you would Kirkland or Bosch or something, which comes with way more assurance than a random no-name lithium ion battery that has been hacked to appear new and healthy and which is capable of exploding while firmly placed near your waist.

[ChickeNES]

It's literally cheaper to pay Apple to replace an iPhone XR battery than it is to buy a trustworthy replacement from iFixit, and a modest (~$25 at worst, though I'm not including shipping cost from iFixit, and labor would eat most of that margin IMO) premium for phones dating back to the iPhone 6.