Apple Tries to Justify Service Warning, Disabled Battery Health Feature After Battery Replacement

Apple has issued a statement attempting to justify its decision to display a service warning and disable Battery Health after an unauthorized battery replacement.

As recently reported by iFixit and TheArtofRepair, if you replace the battery of your iPhone XR or XS with either a genuine Apple battery or a third party battery, your iPhone will indicate that the battery needs 'Service' and will refuse to display battery health information. The move is a clear attempt to discourage user replacement.

Here's Apple's statement as provided to iMore:


We take the safety of our customers very seriously and want to make sure any battery replacement is done properly. There are now over 1,800 Apple authorized service providers across the United States so our customers have even more convenient access to quality repairs. Last year we introduced a new feature to notify customers if we were unable to verify that a new, genuine battery was installed by a certified technician following Apple repair processes. This information is there to help protect our customers from damaged, poor quality, or used batteries which can lead to safety or performance issues. This notification does not impact the customer's ability to use the phone after an unauthorized repair.

While Apple claims the notification does not impact the customer's ability to use the phone, it disables Battery Health. That means you can no longer check your maximum capacity or whether your phone is supporting normal peak performance. iFixit likens the notification to a 'Check Oil' light that only a Ford dealership can reset, even if you've changed the oil yourself.

You can learn more about the issue, why it's important, and how to support right to repair legislation at the link below!

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