Apple’s cheap battery replacement program might have come to an end, but the folks over at iFixit have extended their own $29.99 replacement program for the rest of 2019.
The company’s kits provide everything you need to replace the battery for your iPhone, with batteries available for handsets going all the way back to 2011’s iPhone 4s.
“When Apple announced their $29 battery replacement program in December 2017, we lowered the price of our iPhone battery fix kit to match,” Kay Kay Clapp, iFixit‘s communication director, writes in a blog post.
“Apple’s battery replacement program ended on December 31, 2018, and they raised the price of their battery service from $29 to $49 (or $69, depending on your model). That blows. Because there are still hundreds of millions of affected iPhone owners who didn’t get a battery replacement—or didn’t know they needed one. So in a fit of righteous solidarity, our iPhone battery prices will remain at $29.99 for at least the rest of the year.”
Apple’s battery replacement program
Apple doubtless has mixed feelings about its battery replacement offer. While it was a nice gesture which saved it negative publicity at the time of the iPhone speed throttling controversy, it also bit into Apple’s bottom line.
That wasn’t only due to the maximum of $40 per handset Apple was losing for each battery replaced, but also because the increased publicity meant that plenty of folks chose to replace their batteries rather than upgrading to a whole new phone.
In total, Apple reportedly replaced 11 million batteries through their $29 replacement program, more than 10x its average repair rate. Tim Cook has singled this out as one of the reasons for last year’s disappointing iPhone sales.
For more on iFixit‘s offer, you can check out the details on their website here. Of course, if you’re not comfortable with the idea of replacing the iPhone battery on your own, you can still head to your local Apple Store where they’ll be happy to do it for you. Just not as cheaply as they were previously.
