Responding to criticism that it’s trying to steer consumers toward more expensive battery replacements, Apple today claimed that the “important battery message” added to iOS is there in the name of customer safety. It was recently discovered that when an iPhone’s battery is swapped out by a third-party repair shop that isn’t one of Apple’s authorized partners, the device’s battery health menu will show an ominous warning about being “unable to verify this iPhone has a genuine iPhone battery.”
This can happen even if a genuine Apple battery is used; the warning stems from a micro-controller that only authorized technicians can properly configure. If iOS doesn’t detect the right micro-controller, it hides the usual battery health stats and displays the warning.
Apple is fighting the right to repair movement and associated proposed laws tooth and nail, and this is just another salvo in the war the company is waging on its own customers.
Apple’s only got itself to blame for this. Non-genuine components are mostly apple’s own fault for withholding genuine parts from the market in the first place. Apple itself is by far the biggest barrier for 3rd parties in obtaining genuine parts. Until they answer for that fact, I don’t want to hear any more bloody excuses for their petty attacks on 3rd party repair shops and the problems apple themselves have caused. Obviously it’s just part of apple’s petty campaign to kill off competition and coerce users to do more business with apple.
Because no batteries from Apple have ever been so substandard they are banned on flights.
Oh. Wait.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/08/14/faa-flight-ban-for-dangerous-apple-macbook-pros-over-fire-risk/#2702c85236c0
I’ve got three of those MBPs sitting in my office, along with a completely dead recent-er MBP (logic board? storage? not sure which is toast) and three other assorted Mac laptops with swollen batteries not covered by the recall. I’m waiting for two more of the battery recall MBPs to come back before I organize a trip to the Apple Store for a somewhat grumpy meeting. We’ve got a few newer MBPs with the standard Butterfly Keyboard problems that Apple won’t acknowledge.
We’re a company of less than 50 people, with less than 45 Mac laptops in use.
Hardware quality has gone down hard since 2015, but we’re still paying premium prices. I’m aiming people towards System76 for Linux machines or Lenovo ThinkPads for Windows machines if it suits their work. Switched to a Mac Mini (with a Dell XPS13 running Ubuntu for portability) to avoid the current crop of MBPs after my battery swelled up.
The “1-2 weeks” service time at the Apple Store really makes Apple’s hardware inappropriate for business use.
Watch some Louis Rossmann videos on YouTube. I believe there’s an interview with one of the Apple certified repair shops that confirms quality isn’t important in the repair, they only do board swaps instead of attempting to fix the board (making repairs by Apple super expensive), and I believe the Linus Tech Tips videos of their iMac Pro reveal they’re not allowed to order any parts in advance, plus have to send back the defective parts to Apple. If you’re running a business you go with the 3/4 year lease options from companies like Dell/HP as they can do on site board swaps and get your computer back to you in a few hours. Apple’s attempts to lock out 3rd party repairs when the guy diagnosing your problem at the Genius Bar is probably a barely qualified IT guy with no circuit troubleshooting experience are ridiculous. I bet the only thing the repair tech does for these phones is access a secret menu and type in a password after the battery swap.
When people ask me why I tolerated Froyo back in the day, the answer always the same: Apple hardware. Low-quality, unrepairable, locked down. And iOS not supporting sideloading.
At the end of the day, the answer is simple: don’t buy any Apple products! You vote with your wallet. Spend your money on other brands. For instance, HP is making it very easy to fix laptops (although I’m more of a Thinkpad guy). As of phones, I would go for anything easy to fix/easy to flash. Whatever brand making it difficult to either fix or flash should be boycotted. (I still stick to Nexus 6 so far)