Since the launch of iOS 12, repair techs are noticing a disturbing trend. Any time a battery is replaced on an iPhone XS, XS Max, XR, battery health diagnostics would report that the installed battery was unable to be verified as an authentic Apple battery and the battery health info would be disabled. This happened even when the installed battery was a verified as an authentic Apple part.
And this is why I switched to Android after owning iPhones from the first release.
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Me too. Bought a used Samsung 7 tonight at Recharge on Preston and Alpha (they resell used phones, games, tablets). My iPhone battery died and wouldn’t recharge a couple of days ago. It’s the best of yesterday’s technology – TODAY!
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With these kind of antics, they will continue to loose market share & ultimately money. Unfortunately idiots who are in charge tend to think it is a good idea at the time.
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There is only one way that a tactic like this works and that is with a monopoly. Apple thinks they are one.
That’s why many people are walking away from them after many years of dedication to the iPhone.
Market pressure is the only way to “get their attention”. Recent articles, however, seem to indicate that the iPhone X is selling pretty well.
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You have grossly overestimated the American Public. No one ever went broke underestimating them.
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Right, just like McDonalds will loose marketshare from selling unhealthy food.
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But – most people want unhealthy food. OTOH, they don’t want a product that can’t be repaired without an enormous hassle. Although – it depends on how much money you’ve got. If you can just buy a new one, you will.
I miss replaceable batteries. The manufacturers have long since addressed one of the downsides of battery swaps on smartphones - namely the 5+ minute boot time. But they think we want thin and are bothered by the slight loss of rigidity that swap-able cells introduce. That and they generate more revenue when the prime wear component is no longer user-serviceable. Thusly we have today’s glued-together electronics - but they’re oh so sekzi and thin.
I switched to iPhones way back because of their high rate of dependability. I won’t buy another due to their high price and things like this
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By designing the device and the software that runs on the device apple can completely control the the environment and offer, in their eyes and the eyes of many consumers, the best possible experience. Apple only has to worry about iOS or MacOS running on hardware they themselves developed. They set the price. They make the rules. Lots of people say “It just works!”.
Microsoft has to worry about Windows running on Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, etc, etc, etc…and Google has to worry about Android running on Samsung, LG, One+, Kyocera, Acer, ASUS, Sony, etc…There are sometimes hardware/software incompatibilities. Many android devices no longer receive steady updates from the manufacturer, but that’s the tradeoff of having a choice. When PC shopping you can look for the processor you want, RAM you want, if you still want an optical drive and compare prices and sales, and see which product you really want. (Or build your own! - hard to do that with a Mac) Same with Android phones.
I do not expect this to affect Apple’s bottom line at all, and I suspect their lawyers and business management gurus don’t either. If it bothers you then inform your friends about places like ifixit, XDA, the EFF, and Right to Repair legislation and vote with your wallet when it comes time for a new phone.
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They are losing market share however almost everywhere else. Huawei has taken over China and Europe. Xiaomi, Samsung, and BBk Electronics has taken over the Indian subcontinent. Apple is absolutely idiotic to not have their own much cheaper, more open sublines to sell in poor places so they dont become completely dependent on the US for sales.
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A 925 Billion market cap disagrees with this statement (as a blanket). They have no reason to adjust their market strategy at the moment. As soon as they have a need, they will. Their capability to stick to a high profit margin for so long, has been an incredible business move. Their focus on security is something that is appealing to me to the point that it does offset at least some of these decisions that I dislike.
Their revenue growth and sales are going down. Huawei, on the other hand, is on track to beat Samsung for the most phone shipments. While they are moving to a services business to higher margin while sales are decreasing, just relying on margin to counteract the topline not growing or even beginning to decrease will not work in the long term. There is a reason why their stock price dropped from over a trillion to where it is now. Microsoft and Amazon have long term growth in multiple areas with lots of potential, mostly focusing around the cloud. Apple does not. Even to keep their services growing, they need to keep their userbase expanding. Just selling $1100 phones doesnt do that.
They need to either move into another industry and become more like Samsung, Huawei, Tata, and other conglomerates, or make sublines like BBK Electronics(who own OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo) so that they can sell super cheap phones in Africa and India and keep their top line growing without harming Apple luxury brand value. If they do that, they could probably stop selling lower margin iPhones like older models, turning cheaper customers towards their cheaper phones(maybe Mango?) and keeping their margins even higher.
I think the percentage of iPhone users who would rather replace their battery than get a new phone is fairly small. They’ll be fine.
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I have had a Huawei P30 for a couple of months. Best phone I have ever had. And yes I have scanned it and run a network monitor on it to see if I’m being spied on my China. Actually it’s mostly Google/Android doing the spying. 
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Unfortunately, Apple, with 10x more resources in the bank than Huawei and a 5 year headstart in smartphones, decided that stockholders matter more than customers.
I’ve heard (but not ever researched or tried to verify) that Huawei has the advantage of their price being subsidized by the Chinese government, making them tough compete with.
They probably are. But Apple could price their phones at the same price as Huawei and still be profitable, especially since iPhones have far less features. They stopped being innovative a few years after Jobs died.
They could also sell cheaper lines like Huawei does and make them more accessible.
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Huawei stopped offering codes to unlock their bootloaders last year.
Although I’ve heard it’s still possible.
The option to install a custom recovery and custom ROM is a requirement for me so I bought a OnePlus device instead and have been very happy with it. Before that I used multiple HTC devices.
Installing a custom ROM (like LineageOS https://lineageos.org/ )allows for the removal of nearly all of Google’s bloatware.