I guess the pressure on Apple when it comes to the iPhone battery fiasco was too much for Apple. Late today Apple put out a statement that said this in part:
We’ve been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down. We apologize. There’s been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes we’re making.
First and foremost, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades. Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that.
They then went into a bit of a science lesson about how batteries age. Then they said talked about the software changes that the did to address that. Then they said this:
To address our customers’ concerns, to recognize their loyalty and to regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apple’s intentions, we’ve decided to take the following steps:
- Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to $29 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, starting in late January and available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com.
- Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS software update with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance.
- As always, our team is working on ways to make the user experience even better, including improving how we manage performance and avoid unexpected shutdowns as batteries age.
So…. My thoughts on this are:
- The reduced battery replacement price basically is meant to take third party service centers who aren’t Apple authorized off the table. It’s also meant to give iPhone users who feel that they’ve been screwed by Apple a way to address the reason why they feel they’ve been screwed by Apple.
- The software update that is mentioned in this statement is a good idea. You could get this sort of info from a Mac for years. It’s about time this sort of info came to iOS. If that’s what shows up in this iOS update, I am all for it.
- This will not stop the nine lawsuits that have been filed. Nor will it stop future lawsuits that you know are coming. It just takes some actors off the stage.
Bottom line: It will be interesting to see how this plays out. But I don’t expect this to stop the criticism that Apple has been facing. I really think we have gone way past that at this point. But we shall see.