“Some people across the country are reporting that they’re having a tough time getting their iPhone batteries replaced through Apple Inc.’s battery replacement program that launched after the company admitted that it slows down phones with older batteries to preserve the phones’ performance,” Hayley Tsukayama reports for The Los Angeles Times.
“From Silicon Valley to Washington, from Detroit to Atlanta, people are sharing stories of long waits, dropped customer service calls and hard-to-get appointments,” Tsukayama reports. “One man told the Chicago Tribune in February that he was told to come in after a two-week wait for his battery appointment, only to be told there were no batteries. Washington Post columnist Geoffrey Fowler said last month that one store in the Bay Area told him stock levels won’t be back to normal until the summer.”
“When asked to comment about the long wait times, Apple pointed to its support site. The company warned customers that supplies would be limited. Different models can have different wait times. Some of the phones covered by Apple’s replacement program — the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus — no longer are being manufactured, which means battery supply is limited,” Tsukayama reports. “Calls to 10 Apple stores in different regions of the country last week revealed that wait times for a new iPhone 6 battery ranged from three to five days to two to three weeks, with no discernible pattern about why certain stores had shorter wait times than others.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s understandable that Apple would lack supply of older iPhone batteries after the company was caught flat-footed by batterygate and forced to respond by lowering battery replacement prices from $79 to $29 in an attempt to assuage customers.
Batterygate is Apple’s self-inflicted wound that continues to fester. The company has only themselves to blame.
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