I will admit that I may not have parsed “second party vs third party” closely enough here, but to the extent that a business relationship with Apple makes the store not “third party”, you are correct. I tend to think of second party as being like an agency relationship, which is not true in this case. But maybe I’m wrong about that? You don’t hear about “second party” relationships that often. The independent Apple-certified shops do have a business relationship with Apple that the non-certified shops don’t.
Well, no, he wasn’t right about that because he never brought it up. If you’re referring to the Register link he posted which mentions the Battery Health stuff, I don’t think he actually read the whole article because it directly contradicts what he claimed.
Apple did in fact put a chip on their batteries and if you don’t have that chip because your battery wasn’t replaced by an authorized repair place then you don’t get full functionality of your phone.
That’s not exactly the same as “Apple put a chip in to force you to get your battery replaced at an authorized store”, but that statement isn’t totally wrong either, and it’s clearly what he was referring to. Anyway.
The statement he made “They only solder a chip on the battery so it must be replaced at a certified Apple repair store” is totally 100% wrong. I don’t really think there is a way around that, especially considering that he never mentioned anything at all about full functionality in his posts. I mean, that’s what the Register link is about, yes, but he clearly misinterpreted that story, so it wasn’t anything he was referring to.
Note that when I had my iPhone X battery replaced, they also changed the speakers. (I don’t know why; it was part of the package.) The iFixit website sells the battery for $40 or $45 for the battery and the necessary tools. They also sell the speaker for $30. So getting the battery and speakers replaced at an Apple Store for $69 plus sales tax was a good deal.