Apple has been in the news recently regarding their battery issues. Whether we are talking about Apple supposedly throttling back performance on older iPhones to extend battery life or the more recent complaint that the company may have implemented wireless charging incorrectly thereby expending battery cycles quicker than one would expect. Whatever it is, Apple can’t seem to please anyone when it comes to their battery management decisions.
I’ve been an Apple customer what seems like forever. I was an original iPhone owner. You know, the one that came out before the App Store? Yeah, I am really that old. I think I have owned pretty much ever model of the iPhone that has come out and for the most part I’ve been fortunate when it comes to batteries and phones.
The way things work in our house is that I get a new phone every year when it is released. My wife then gets my phone from the previous year. Now before I get a massive amount of email asking why my wife doesn’t get the new phone let me explain.
My personality type is definitely an early adopter. I’m also trying new technology that more times than not is on the bleeding edge rather than the leading edge. Given my background and personality I am eagerly awaiting whatever new is coming out regardless of whether it is ready for mainstream usage or not.
My wife is about the polar opposite of me when it comes to technology. Normally I have to drag her kicking and screaming to use new technology. She likes to find something that works and stick with it until it literally turns to dust well past its end-of-life date. So, it works out well for both of us. I have a year working with a specific model of phone then when she gets it, she has built-in technical support that can provide her with real world examples of how she can use it.
And since I always pack as much into the model of phone I get, she is assured that she will have enough memory or the right carrier settings to be bulletproof. Last fall when the iPhone Xs was introduced, I purchased it the minute it was online for pre-order. When it arrived, my iPhone X was wiped clean and her iPhone 8 Plus was restored onto it.
Things were working well. She had finally gotten more at ease with Face ID and the new gestures required to use the iPhone X. At this point in the year she is most confident. The learning curve has been climbed and from now until the next new phone is released in September, she settles into her comfort zone. I was therefore surprised when she brought the iPhone X to me saying something just wasn’t right.
I took the phone from her thinking perhaps there was a new setting or feature that I forgot to set or tell her about. Instead I looked at the iPhone which now resembled a dromedary camel. It definitely had a hump in the middle the screen. Not only that but setting the phone on the desk it would rock back and forth meaning the back was not straight either.
The bulge was the result of a swelling battery within the iPhone X. I’m not talking a slight bulge, this was so large that you could literally see inside the iPhone it had separated from that body that far. On the back it had bulged there too making the center larger than the ends allowing it to rock.
I looked online to see if there were any comments about swelling batteries in the iPhone X wondering if this was something that was affecting a large number of phones. I didn’t see anything. I backed the phone up as quickly as I could to make sure we didn’t lose any data then scheduled an appointment with the “genius bar”.
From my research it looked as though this would be a billable repair to the tune of around $69. For whatever reason I didn’t include AppleCare on the device so this was definitely going to cost me.
At the Apple Store I checked in and explained the problem showing the tech the device and the amount of swelling it had. He of course asked if I had backed up the device which I answered very proudly in the affirmative. They ran diagnostics on the device, and it passed all tests. Ironically it said that the battery was working correctly. I guess the test didn’t include whether the battery had doubled in size or not.
I braced myself for the inevitable where I would be told the cost of the repair and how things would go. My first shock was when the tech said they would not attempt a repair. I guess Apple doesn’t want to mess with swelling batteries due to the potential that they might explode. Instead, the phone would be replaced with an identical one. That came as a pleasant surprise. Of course, in the back of my mind I wondered how much a phone replacement costs.
As I was pondering that the tech began to talk about next steps where we would get the phone, activate it, make sure the SIM card was working then I would need to restore the backup to the new phone. At the same time, I needed to deactivate the old phone, turn off Find My iPhone and wipe it clean. Then came the moment where we discussed the cost of the repair/replacement.
This service would be no charge. I asked if he could please repeat that I obviously misunderstood what he said. No, I heard correctly there would not be a charge for this. My conscience took over and reminded the tech that I didn’t have AppleCare as I hung my head in shame having to admit that. It didn’t seem to matter.
By the time he completed repeating that for the second time the phone replacement was delivered, and he began to set up the phone. Within 15 minutes I had walked into the Apple Store with a phone which was having a battery issue and I was walking out with a replacement iPhone X. I don’t care what others say but my experience is that Apple always tries to do the right thing for the customer.
0 Comments