Last week, Apple issued an apology for slowing down older iPhones without users' knowledge. It also tried making up to iPhone users by offering them a one-time battery replacement at a heavily discounted price.
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That iPhone battery replacement Apple alluded to last week is now up and running -- even in India, yes. And it will continue to run till the end of December 2018, to give affected iPhone users a chance to replace their batteries in time.
In India, starting from today, Apple will charge Rs 2,000 plus taxes for replacing the battery of any iPhone 6 or above. The original price of this service has been dropped from approximately Rs 6,000 or so -- a discount of 66% at least, if not more.
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"We expected to need more time to be ready, but we are happy to offer our customers the lower pricing right away," an Apple spokesperson was quoted by CNN, while warning that initial supplies of some models of the replacement batteries may be limited in number, at least at the initial stages of this battery replacement program.
In the apology issued last week, Apple also spoke about some changes it's making towards being more transparent about how older batteries slowdown iPhones in the longer run. To that end, an iOS update is planned for early 2018, offering new features that give users more information about the health of their iPhone¡¯s battery -- this way users can take remedial measures, if their iPhone's battery is indeed slowing down performance.