The lower end of the spectrum is for phones, going through daily charge/discharge cycles.
While they do a lot of things very well, desiging batteries, storage, and keyboards to be practically non-replaceable and denying any upgradeability (to upsell ludicrously overpriced storage at the initial purchase) is setting an upper limit on how long the device will remain useful for.
> The lower end of the spectrum is for phones, going through daily charge/discharge cycles.
With iPhones you can replace the battery for a small fraction of the cost of a new phone. Plenty of people are using 5+ year old phones without doing so, it really depends on how much time you spend on the device per day and if you’re recharging mid day. Deep discharges drastically shorten lifespan, but again just get a new battery.
The true cost of replacing an iPhone battery isn't the quoted dollar amount.
It's the cost of being without your phone for an indeterminate period of time if you have to ship it to Apple for the battery replacement due to not living near an Apple Store.
I have an iPhone X. When the battery degraded, I sent it in, the battery and the speaker is replaced, the latter free of charge. I even didn't know that my speaker was damaged to begin with.
The service rep said that newer batteries last longer because they're newer tech (I laughed internally), but it's going strong for 4 (5?) years now, and it's at 83%, so I had to eat my hat about not believing her.
Do you trust the quoted capacity figures, though? Or are they there to convince customers that everything's fine, the battery hasn't degraded, it's just software updates and usage patterns that have affected battery life?
Got an almost 4yr old 12 Pro that claims 85%, but doesn't feel like it's holding that much charge, feels like it's due a replacement. Would have done it myself if it was an easy screwdriver-only job rather than requiring heat and special tools.
I'm guessing that internally the capacity starts at somewhat above 100%, to ensure for example that older stock still reports 100% when sold, and the actual drop in capacity could be a fair bit more than the reported figure?
> Do you trust the quoted capacity figures, though?
Actually yes. Because even at 83%, my iPhone can last longer than its original battery's brand-new capacity. Also, I'm using Macs for ~15 years now and Coconut Battery's battery reports (which just interfaces with macOS battery information features) were always spot-on.
> but doesn't feel like it's holding that much charge, feels like it's due a replacement.
Actually, an iPhone's daily endurance depends on two things: Network connectivity & quality, and the apps you use. WiFi uses way less battery than cellular to begin with, and some applications "performance improvements and bug fixes" means "we have improved the performance of tracking you while using the app, and fixed the bugs about misreporting usage data". Applications like Instagram are so optimized at tracking its users, it drains my battery faster and heats my phone better than some games.
> to ensure for example that older stock still reports 100% when sold...
Low self discharge batteries are borderline magic. A low-discharge Li-Ion battery sitting at ~40% can sit there for years, if the cell is good. A low discharge Ni-MH battery can sit at ~90% for a decade. I recently opened a new blister of Eneloop AA batteries which were sitting there for a couple of years. All of them were at ~95% charge.
While they do a lot of things very well, desiging batteries, storage, and keyboards to be practically non-replaceable and denying any upgradeability (to upsell ludicrously overpriced storage at the initial purchase) is setting an upper limit on how long the device will remain useful for.