Apple Will Force You To Get iPhone Batteries Replaced Only By Apple Service Centres

According to a recent discovery by YouTuber The Art of Repair as well as iFixit, Apple is locking down its batteries to iPhones after the Xs, where you'll be forced to go to the Apple authorised service centre to get your battery replaced, post warranty period.

Reuters

iPhones aren't known to be the best when it comes to battery life (maybe iPhone XR is an exception to this, but still) and the battery gate revealed a rather dark side of Apple, where it was slowing down phone performance to reduce the strain on the battery (or so they say).

The only way one could regain the performance on their device was by getting the battery replaced, either in an Apple Store, or an authorised service centre.

But many people also liked saving money by replacing the battery themselves. Even in India, many people preferred going to third-party repair shops to get their iPhone batteries fixed, while saving a big chunk of money. However, this recent discovery makes Apple just takes things to a whole new level.

Reuters

According to these discoveries, if you were to change the battery on the iPhone XS, XS Max or XR, even if it is a genuine battery unit from Apple, it'll show a 'Service' error message under Battery health option in the settings menu. This usually occurs when your battery is in dire need of a replacement. The error further mentions- "Unable to verify this iPhone has a genuine Apple battery. Health information not available for this battery."

How is this issue occurring?

Apple was rather sly as it started to issue an authentication key that is linked to a chip on one of its batteries. For the batteries to work seamlessly, the key on the battery should match the one on the device. If it doesn't match, it'll show you the service error. Sadly, only an Apple 'Genius' has the tools to fix this error. All it needs is the company's diagnostic to make things work. Third party vendors don't have access to this and Apple isn't willing to release it to them.

The phone will still work fine, but it won't show the battery health and peak performance information, along with the service error being present till it is showed to an Apple service centre.

There is a hardware method, as revealed by The Art of Fixing where user could snip the module with the key from the old battery on to a new one, However, not only is it cumbersome but also very dangerous.

iFixit

Apple also recently did something similar with its displays. If one would replace the iPhone display (even if it was a genuine one) from a third-party service station, the phone wouldn't support the 'True-Tone' feature that shifts the color of the display according to the tone of the ambient light.

Batteries and Displays are two things people replace the most. This forced lockdown basically means people will be forced to pay the hefty charges Apple decides to levy for the complete control it has over the device it has sold to us.