Anyone know anything about replacement iPhone batteries?
My phone is an iPhone 12 Pro that I’ve been using for about 4 1/2 years. The maximum capacity on the Battery Health & Charging screen says it’s at 82%. I had some time this weekend so I booked an appointment at the Apple Store Genius Bar to get the battery replaced. (For this model phone, their standard charge for this is $89 and I was prepared to pay that.) But the guy who met me there advised against it, saying that a replacement battery wouldn’t last any longer. He said that only once the maximum capacity dropped to 79% or less would a replacement battery help. Does that sound right? It doesn’t to me; if a battery with maximum capacity of 79% is worth replacing, why isn’t it worthwhile to do so for one at 82%?
Thanks but that doesn’t answer my question. And the ifixit kit is $45, or about half the cost of paying a (presumably) trained person at the Apple Store to do it. I’ve done computer repairs and sometimes you make mistakes the first time you do something. So I figure they’re not likely to screw up the repair on mine.
It will make a difference in run time per charge. However it won’t make a difference in performance - yet. iPhones will reduce the performance when the battery runs weak which is set at lower then 80%.
So at this point if time if you are not running out of charge, practically you will see no benefit in swapping batteries (you may be recharging at maybe 40% instead of 25% at the end of the day, but either works) and better to wait till either you see degraded performance due to a degraded battery and thus iPhone throttling, or it doesn’t hold enough charge anymore for your needs.
Though with the current political climate if you are in the US (tariffs), and the likely cost rise, and if you plan to keep your current model long term, it may make sense to upgrade the battery now.
For Apple’s policy, it is right. iPhone 12 is designed to get 500 charge cycles and still retain 80% of the charging capacity from when it was new. So 80% is the official cutoff for Apple. The Apple guy is basically saying that right now your battery is still working as it is supposed to.
Thanks. It sounds like he was thinking of that 80% threshold. And note that he wasn’t declining to go ahead with the battery replacement but just advising me against it. Previously I replaced my phone every three years but didn’t replace this one then or even at four years, so I fully intend to do so this autumn, when it will be roughly five years old.
The Apple rep did suggest I disable Background App Refresh on as many apps as possible, saying that doing so will do more to maintain battery charge. I did go through and disabled that for most of the apps.
Some of the more meaningful ways to extend the battery life are
— turning down the screen brightness
— if you’re a big email person, turn off push data and switch from automatically fetching new email to manual (or at least hourly).
— turn of notifications
— switch Voice and Data from 5G to LTE
I think switching to Low Power Mode automatically does all those (and others) except for notifications.
You can do other stuff like turning off location services, but then you’re kind of beginning to get into the “why bother have a smartphone” area.
I’m wondering if the percentage reported is (intuitive to me) actual capacity / label capacity = %* or something else. If the former, what the guy is telling you doesn’t make sense. But maybe they calculate something else
*The 12 has a 2815 mAh battery. 82% suggests it’s dropped to a 2308 mAh capacity.
Based on your post, I got the replacement battery and needed tools from i/Fixit to replace the battery on an iPhone 10. I’m pretty good at this stuff as I’ve built a lot of models and can work with my hands. Where I ran into trouble was that Apple used adhesives in assembling the phone. That means prying at different parts, including the case. Also, the interior screws are incredibly tiny. I don’t fault Stranger or iFixit. It’s just that it’s not a straightforward task to do the replacement. I ended up struggling with the screws (using magnifying glasses) and I damaged the phone case. I basically bricked it.
So, it can be done but I don’t recommend it if you are not experienced in taking an iPhone apart. Proceed at your own peril. I’ve learned my lesson.
I believe the Apple Stores and independent shops that service smartphones have a vacuum machine that can pull the phones apart. I believe it uses heat to melt the adhesive. That’s one reason I went to them for the battery replacement.
I haven’t worked on iPhones, but I have worked on Samsung Galaxy phones, which are as bad with adhesive as any modern Apple product.
The key is application of controlled heat with a heat gun to about 200° F, and gently broad prying along the edges with a blunt pry tool (like the flexible prying cards iFixit sells).
Without warming the adhesive, you’re nearly guaranteed to fail.
As to the ridiculously small screws, a precision screwdriver set with a broad selection of interchangable bits is my go-to. I use an iFixit product for that as well.
(No specific product endorsement intended; just listing what I use.)
I haven’t needed to use a suction system to do a screen replacement yet, since the replacement I bought in that case was the entire screen assembly subframe with the phone edge molding included, but heat + scution cups would probably have worked.
Whether solvent, dental floss or heat (and at what level) will work is the kind of thing that requires some experimentation to determine. Now I’m sure you can Google and find out which is best for your phone model but as I said, I was perfectly willing to pay the Apple Store $89 to replace the battery in my phone.
The iFixit site has extensive videos or written tutorials on all of its repair/replacement products that go into detail on the steps necessary to release adhesive, sequence cable removals to avoid damage, et cetera.
That’s how essentially all modern smartphones are held together.
(An aside: last year the battery in my Android phone started swelling, actually popped the back plate off the phone. Battery replacement cost around $100. Around 6 months later the glue they used to reassemble it began to fail. Now the back plate of my phone is held on with electrical tape.)
That reminds me that in August 2020, I had an iPhone X with a swollen battery that I had replaced at the Apple Store for $69. Oddly, though I noticed the swelling for a couple of weeks (maybe even a month) but it didn’t occur to me that this was a Bad Sign. And they also replaced the speaker at the same time. There was some reason for them to do that but I don’t remember what it was now.
For the DIY replacements, how does that impact water resistance? Many modern phones are IP68 rated… will mucking around with the adhesive on your own screw that up? For that matter, will official or thrift party repair shops do any better?