The Cook Doctrine comes for your iPhone battery
Craig Lloyd for iFixit:
Apple is locking batteries to their iPhones at the factory, so whenever you replace the battery yourself—even if you’re using a genuine Apple battery from another iPhone—it will still give you the “Service” message. The only way around this is—you guessed it—paying Apple money to replace your iPhone battery for you.
Apple have been lauded for the Cook Doctrine: “We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make.” It’s part of how they make high quality tech.
The desire to control what batteries go into your iPhone (and who gets to put them there) is a natural extension of that. It’s even rational, in a way.
But “rational” doesn’t always mean “good”.
This change is an overreach. Your phone is your phone once you’ve bought it. Even if a third-party battery installed by a bad vendor can damage your phone, that’s your mistake to make.
I do wonder, however, if this change was driven by philosophy or by perceived consumer need. How many complaints at Apple Stores are driven by mediocre repairs from random stores? Is there a number that would make this move seem okay?
Probably not. It’s not a good look. But it’s not a surprising one either.
Published on • Whisper any comments into a leaf and let it float away on a breeze
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