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0 pointsyoz-y6y ago0 comments

I am on the fence. On one side I would love if it were possible to repair your phone whenever wherever.

On the other hand, let me tell you a personal anecdote. After my wife’s iPhone got stolen we wanted to buy another one for cheaper. We chose to buy it from a big retailer in here. The phone was marked as renewed and under warranty. It cost a bit less as a refurb from Apple would.

When we got it it was immediately apparent that the screen was changed for a non first party one. The phone was thicker than original (a case would not fit) and the colors were shit.

No warnings were displayed on the phone. I have returned it immediately for refund.

Now, if somebody who does not know how an iPhone should look and behave it is quite possible that they would pay a lot of money for a subpar product and then tell about it to people around.

I think Apple should absolutely put in warning lights for any non genuine components or genuine components installed by non authorized repair shops.

But, the message here is off as it does not actually help to describe the problem.

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kuzehanka6y ago

The phone knows that the battery is a genuine Apple component, because the battery cryptographically identifies as one. What it's detecting is that a genuine Apple battery was installed in the phone, but not by Apple.

It displays the warning to scare the user and make them mistrust the 3rd party repairer. The only way to make that warning go away is to use a secret-sauce Apple programming tool that they withhold from 3rd party repairers and sue anyone that manages to reverse engineer it.

They are not doing this to protect you. They're doing this to make you distrust 3rd party repairers, or to make you avoid the nag warning, and go to their overpriced store instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlvlgmjMi98

esmi6y ago

> The phone knows that the battery is a genuine Apple component, because the battery cryptographically identifies as one.

But that’s not the error. The error is the health is unknown.

To be a devil’s advocate: How do you know the health of this first party battery is good? For example, maybe it wasn’t stored properly.

logfromblammo6y ago

I'd probably take objective measurements of physical properties over a "profile new battery" charging cycle, and not solely rely on supply-chain QA personnel, protected by DRM nonsense.

My charger for rechargeable AA (LR6) batteries can do that, recondition batteries to eke out a few more cycles, and also tell me when a battery is finally gone beyond its powers to revive.

And my charger is not a $1000 device that utterly relies on the health of its battery to function, either.

What Apple is doing is slapping an opaque cover over the report screen until someone comes along that has a company-issued "remove report cover" pass. What if someone put alkaline batteries in there, instead of metal hydride? What if they put in AAA batteries instead of AA?

The charger can detect wrong chemistry types, like alkaline and NiCd, by objectively measuring the physical properties. And it can still charge AAAs. They just have a lower capacity. The battery subsystem in the phone could analyze a new battery and report its condition, but that would require Apple to admit to itself that a battery is a 3rd-party replaceable part that will require replacement some time over the projected lifespan of the device.

How do you know? You measure. High-tech batteries have some of that capability built-in, and high-tech devices with charging circuits connected to high-powered general computing processors can certainly run automated tests after their case-intrusion sensors and/or power-interrupt sensors detect events.

kuzehanka6y ago

> maybe it wasn’t stored properly.

Then it has a smaller capacity than a brand new battery should, but still larger than a heavily used battery. It's something the phone can report on, and android phones do. Apple can't guarantee your replacement battery was 'stored properly' either. All they can do is run their little programming tool to remove the warning regardless.

This scenario is completely outside the realm of 'new genuine Apple battery detected + no Apple warning reset = permanently harass the user with false warning'.

Let's be really clear here. The warning is 'unable to verify this iPhone has a genuine Apple battery'. Which is complete bullshit. The phone is perfectly aware that the battery is genuine because it carries a crypto signed identifier.

1 more reply

yoz-yOP6y ago

I think the message could have been clearer. But to add to your point, wasn't there a case when car repair shops would rewind odometers on cars/engines to make them seem newer that they actually were?

littlestymaar6y ago

> Now, if somebody who does not know how an iPhone should look and behave

If you don't know exactly how an iPhone should look and are not annoyed by the thickness difference, how is it a problem ? You paid less for a slightly less good product that's good enough for you, and if the product is not good enough for you (like in your case) you returned it and good a refund. That sounds pretty good for me!

yoz-yOP6y ago

No. I paid slightly less for a very inferior product (non compatible with cases due to thickness, colors off by a large margin).

In this case I knew that I got a bad product and returned it, but it makes me wonder how many times I got some shoddy fake instead of the genuine thing (e.g.: because of Amazon stocking shenanigans). My reaction to bad products is usually to distrust the seller and the manufacturer brand.

This is also why brands fight fakes, if you can get a visually extremely similar object that is sold as product made by B, but it falls apart after a few months then there is a big chance that you won't buy B anymore even though their products are actually good.

Also in my case the problems were visible. If the problem was with a badly repaired internal component, the phone would have died, I would have brought it to Apple and they would refuse to repair it under warranty because it was voided by some random technician. Had the repair been done badly by an authorized repair shop, they would take the cost of re-repair or exchange on themselves.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

kuzehanka6y ago

They are not doing this to protect you. They're doing this to make you distrust 3rd party repairers, or to make you avoid the nag warning, and go to their overpriced store instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlvlgmjMi98

esmi6y ago

> The phone knows that the battery is a genuine Apple component, because the battery cryptographically identifies as one.

But that’s not the error. The error is the health is unknown.

To be a devil’s advocate: How do you know the health of this first party battery is good? For example, maybe it wasn’t stored properly.

logfromblammo6y ago

I'd probably take objective measurements of physical properties over a "profile new battery" charging cycle, and not solely rely on supply-chain QA personnel, protected by DRM nonsense.

My charger for rechargeable AA (LR6) batteries can do that, recondition batteries to eke out a few more cycles, and also tell me when a battery is finally gone beyond its powers to revive.

And my charger is not a $1000 device that utterly relies on the health of its battery to function, either.

kuzehanka6y ago

> maybe it wasn’t stored properly.

This scenario is completely outside the realm of 'new genuine Apple battery detected + no Apple warning reset = permanently harass the user with false warning'.

1 more reply

yoz-yOP6y ago

littlestymaar6y ago

> Now, if somebody who does not know how an iPhone should look and behave

yoz-yOP6y ago

No. I paid slightly less for a very inferior product (non compatible with cases due to thickness, colors off by a large margin).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse