Apple’s iPhone 14 series of phones on the market for less than a year and there is a battery health decline too fast problem. Some users have reported that their phone batteries have lost more than 10% of their capacity after a few months of use. Apple says this is normal, and only when the battery’s capacity falls below 80 per cent will it be eligible for a free replacement under warranty.
If users want to replace their batteries, they have two options: either pay Apple $99 to replace it with a genuine battery, or go to a third-party repairer and have it replaced with a non-genuine battery. However, the latter carries a risk because Apple serializes the parts.
Serialization processing means that Apple adds a unique serial number to each part and requires a match between the part and the logic board. If the battery is replaced with a non-genuine battery or one if removed from another iPhone 14 handset, the phone will not recognize the new battery and will disable the battery health feature, which means the user will not be able to view the remaining capacity and performance status of the battery.
Repair expert Ricky Panesar says that to avoid this problem, you have to use proprietary software provided by Apple to synchronize the serial numbers of the old and new parts. However, doing so requires specialized microelectronics and genuine batteries. Currently, there are not many repairers around the world who can provide this service.
Serialization not only affects the iPhone 14 series phones but also other Apple products such as the Apple Pencil, iPad Pro and MacBook Pro. If parts of these products are replaced without being matched, issues such as drawing lines not being straight and shadows appearing on the screen may occur.
This practice has sparked some criticism of Apple as limiting the free choice of users and third-party repairers, increasing the cost and difficulty of repairs, harming consumers, and not helping to protect the environment.
