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Comment by jackvalentine | Hacker News Reader

I just wish they'd been more transparent - perhaps a message in the battery section of settings saying "your performance may be impacted because of your degraded battery. It's recommended you replace it" or something.

New batteries are $119AU which I think is a reasonable price to pay after two years or so.

Everyone knows components in cars need replacing, including batteries, so I think people can be reasoned with in to accepting the same is for consumer goods you want to keep beyond the average phone contract term.

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"I just wish they'd been more transparent "

I don't see it as a lack of transparency. That smacks of underhand and fraudulent behaviour. I won't buy another iPhone.

In a similar vein, you can no longer move photos from your computer to your iPhone unless you subscribe to the paid Cloud service. iTunes will no longer allow you to do that.

OK.

Since when was this restriction imposed ?

119 for a $5 battery is not reasonable.

With installation and warranty on the work carried out it's entirely reasonable.

That's just bullshit overhead that Apple likes to bake in. How about a removable battery so customers arent screwed every 2 years?

Like a car you're welcome to do it yourself, or take it somewhere else if you think it's a better deal.

Edit: just got a quote for an iphone 7+ battery replacement from one of the mall kiosks here: $120. If there is so much fat in the cost surely they'd at least undercut Apple by $20 to get the business.

Removable batteries are a completely different conversation but you can still buy phones with them so go ahead and indulge yourself.

I bought a replacement battery kit for my non-Apple phone on ebay for about $AU15 - it came with tools to jimmy open the case and unscrew the housing.

Undoubtedly genuine Apple batteries may be better quality but that's still ~$100 for labour.

I mean I know this is supposed to be a hacker community and all, but there is no way I'd bother. Housemate did his girlfriend's iPhone 5 and just ruined it.

You're not only paying for the labour, but also a guarantee the phone will work as intended after and warranty on the replacement. $100 is cheap for that.

> Housemate did his girlfriend's iPhone 5 and just ruined it.

Because it is designed to prevent user from replacing battery, so you pay $100 for opening the lid, taking out the battery, putting in the new one, and closing the lid. $100 is nowhere near cheap for something that should be safe to do for the user.

The user replaceable battery is gone - get over it. We can only deal with what actually exists.

$100 _is_ cheap for the phone as it currently stands.

> The user replaceable battery is gone - get over it.

Only if you're Apple's fanboy. Virtually anybody else still has replaceable battery.

Only the LGv20 has a replaceable battery out of all the flagships.

So even Apple has now recognized that their price was unreasonable and bad for customers. https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/

"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."

I paid $10 for my brand new Galaxy Note 4 battery and it took 30 seconds to replace. My note 4 isn't slow at all either.

It's the end of Moore's law and they are going to start pulling this stuff so you upgrade, because the new phones just aren't that much better. Meanwhile, I'll stick to Note 4s still they stop making them and I can't get them used. Perfect phone, imho.

Was it an actual Samsung one?

Off-brand batteries can be dodgy and not have the correct protection circuitry.

I trusted the 258 reviews at 4 1/2 stars ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072KJRJ45 ). I have had it for 6 months. It works great and I haven't had any problems.

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