iP6, 11.3 and battery

After multiple Restore and Factory Restores and a session online with Apple Support that resulted in "put an Apple-branded battery in it", I have come to the conclusion that the 11.3 beta for iPhone 6 is incompatible with non-Apple-branded batteries.


The result: my iPhone 6 is now worthless until I can get an Apple-branded battery installed. Right now there's a 5-week queue in the Portland area for an iP6 battery.


My battery life was poor (6 hours) so I knew it was time for new battery. Running 11.2.5 at the time, Apple announces battery replacement program. Immediately Apple batteries are at a premium and I can't get one. So I ordered an iFixit battery and installed. New battery, new lease on battery life. Wonderful.


Then I install 11.3 and suddenly the phone is shutting down with 30-70% charge remaining indicated. When I plug into external source, phone restarts and battery shows the same 30-70% charge level within one minute of booting up. Upon boot it shows 10% range. No Li-ion battery charges that fast without heating up dramatically. If I immediately unplug external source, phone shuts down again in a few minutes. If I let it charge to 100%, it runs for a couple of hours then shuts down somewhere in the 30-70% range. 11.3 beta 2, no difference - except the battery health management function says battery at "maximum performance" - as a new battery should...


So, Restore to 11.3 beta 2, no change. Factory Restore to 11.2.5, no change. Apple Support does diagnostic on battery life over internet, no issues. Then they tell me "put an Apple battery in it." Not "we know there's a conflict with non-Apple batteries", just "put an Apple battery in it." Which, of course, has a 5-week queue.


One of two obvious conclusions: either Apple knew 11.3 battery health management function doesn't support non-Apple batteries and pushed out the beta program anyway, or Apple didn't test the beta program for non-Apple batteries.


Either way, I have a brick iP6. One obvious result: I'm done with the Apple Beta program for iOS.

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>Then they tell me "put an Apple battery in it." Not "we know there's a conflict with non-Apple batteries", just "put an Apple battery in it."


Reminds me of the same thing they used to say about ram...problem is, Apple never made ram - or batteries, BTW.


Sounds like Apple support wants to be disassociated with the beta, and they're just using the battery as an excuse to get you off the call.


I'm assuming you didn't buy extended Apple Care for that device.


I put a 'non-apple' replacment battery in my IP6s+ and it made no difference in the 86% max charge figure. My opinion is that power managment in these phones is jacked up, and the problem isn't with the batteries or betas.


And no, I don't allow it to date betas 😉

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KMT
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Forgot a couple other things...


I'm an electrical engineer with 25 years in the mobile phone IC chipset business - including work on the first type-approved GSM digital handsets. I bought my first Apple product in 1988. My house is fully Apple products; I tried a Samsung Galaxy on Android when it first came out, absolute rubbish for battery life. I won't allow a Windows product within my sphere of awareness. And I remain in the macOS Beta Program because it's wonderful.


Apple has made a mess of this older-batteries-in-older-phones issue. First Apple takes the Microsoft approach - "we'll throttle back the processor to avoid crashes without telling users." Yeah, that won me over - waiting for a keyboard to appear in Message almost made me bounce the phone off pavement in frustration. With that being my only alternative for performance when Apple batteries became scarce, I bought an iFixit kit to get past the "throttle down the processor" bit. What did that buy me? 11.3 and incompatibility issues with the non-Apple battery...and a useless iP6.


News to the mobile phone industry: an $800 smartphone is not a 2-year throw-away, so you're going to have to sort out replacement batteries and screens (can't wait to see those OLED iPX displays after 2 years of operation..."barely visible" is my prediction...). The performance improvement curve is flattening out with new phone generations...just like it did in PCs 10 years ago. So we're going to keep these things beyond 2 years. Time to build that into your product models...

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