More about what can happen when you fit an unauthorised battery in an iPhone
In a recent blog I confessed to having a senior moment and asking a “non-authorised agent” to replace my iPhone battery. I concluded that I’d bought a pig in a poke.
Last week I booked a session at the “Genius Bar” of Apple in Regent Street to have them replace the offending battery with a “proper” one.
I was in for a bit of a shock.
The perils of “unauthorised” battery replacement
The patient and professional Sophia explained what can happen when you try to remove an unauthorised battery from an iPhone. Among the possibilities are:
- The unauthorised agents damaged the screen
- The unauthorised agents damaged the phone’s electronics
- They damaged the screen and replaced it with a non-authorised one
- The old battery can not be removed because it has been (super)glued in and the “geniuses”are not allowed to use brute force to try and get it out (there are health and safety issues around puncturing a battery and leaking nasty things)
This sounds like a scare story from Apple to warn of the evils of “non-authorised agents and batteries”. Even if there is some truth in that, they must have come across cases of such problems and they have to point them out before starting work.
If they didn’t, there’s a possibility that they start work on a phone only to discover that they can’t successfully replace non-authorised parts with genuine ones and the phone may have been further damaged in the process of trying.
Then where are we? They have to point out that the risk is with the client, and that sounds reasonable to me (as the plonker who made the mistake in the first place).
Worst case scenario
Sophia surprised me by saying that they keep a stock of “re-manufactured” phones (going all the way back to the iPhone 6) that they offer to customers in such cases. They did, indeed, have a 256gb iPhone 11 Pro the same as mine and it would cost me £579.
This is an awful lot of money to pay for the mistake of fitting an unauthorised battery, but the retail price of the phone when it came out was about £1000. It was a good offer and I was impressed that they were able to make it.
So, I gave my digital squiggle of a signature a couple of times on one of their ubiquitous iPads. This authorised them to try and fix my phone or replace it if that didn’t work.
An hour then spent wandering around looking at the Carnaby Street Christmas lights. I spent the time wondering how to jiggle my finances to reduce the pain of an unforeseen bill of £579. At least I wouldn’t have to pay the expected £85 for a battery replacement.
So, what happened?
Back in the store on the dot of 5pm. Out again by 10 past – clutching my old phone, shiny and clean and sporting a new authorised battery. The old battery had come out without problems and there was no sign of any other damage.
I have no way of assessing the probability of a “non-authorised” battery replacement righting off the phone when the battery next needs replacing.
Without doubt, though, if I ever make the same mistake again, then my memory will most certainly have deserted me.
PS: Nine months later, my phone is reporting that its battery is charging to 97% of its original capacity.
Image: Apple
Screencaps from iPhone 11 Pro
