Preorders for the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max, and customers will surely be thinking about how to take care of their new iPhones when the first units arrive on September 20.
Apple offers a variety of first-party support, including a number of paid services and repairs – although a new price increase means iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max users may want to be extra careful in taking care of their phone’s battery.
Apple has increased the price of getting a battery replacement for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max over the previous generation by 20%, meaning you'll need to pay $199 rather than $99 in the UK to get a fresh battery.
We see this increase mirrored in the UK, too, where the price has increased from £95 to £109, and also in Australia, where it's increased from AU$169 to AU$199.
The base-model iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus retain the previous battery replacement price of $99 / £95 / AU$169, as does the entire iPhone 15 family.
While Apple touts green credentials, increasing the price of battery replacement for its new Pro iPhones stings. One could argue that Apple should be decreasing prices in order to encourage people to use their iPhones for longer and thus be kinder to the environment.
However things could get worse, as The Verge notes, lightning could follow thunder when it comes to Apple’s other battery replacement services. When Apple increased the price of the iPhone 14’s battery swap, we saw the same happen to several iPhone, iPad, and Mac products in the following months.
For now, though, it’s just the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max that are affected.
Don’t be shocked by batteries degrading
Some parts of an iPhone will degrade over time with normal use, and this most notably includes the battery.
Lithium-ion batteries, the kind used in iPhones and most other smartphones, lose a small amount of their maximum capacity with each cycle, an effect that can be accelerated by higher temperatures or power-intensive use. You can track the battery health of your iPhone – represented as a percentage of its initial capacity – in the Settings app, under the Battery section.
Faulty batteries are covered by Apple's one-year limited warranty, but outside of this customers have a handful of options. Apple offers its battery repair service for iPhones either at an upfront cost or as part of its AppleCare+ insurance product, wherein battery replacements are included at no excess cost if battery health drops below 80%.
Third-party repair shops may also be able to replace an iPhone battery, but there's no guarantee that they'll use genuine Apple parts. Replacing an iPhone battery can extend the device’s usable lifespan and help to reduce carbon impact and e-waste.
Hopefully, new iPhone owners won’t need to think about replacing their batteries for a while yet, as Apple claims the iPhone 16 Pro can sustain 27 hours of video playback, climbing to 33 hours for the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
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