The new iPhone 14 smartphones are on display at an Apple Store at The Grove in Los Angeles, Friday, Sept. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
On March 1, Apple will start charging an extra $20 for battery replacements on out-of-warranty iPhones, according to an update on the AppleCare+ webpage.
The new price will be $99 for the iPhone 14, and while these models are currently under warranty, they won't be after the one-year anniversary of their release in September 2023.
At that point, the higher price point could encourage customers with broken batteries to simply buy a new phone rather than shell out nearly $100 for a replacement part.
Apple has adjusted prices multiple times in recent years, as supply chain issues have raised production costs. Just last month, labor unrest at an iPhone supplier in China led to a production shortfall. The company struggled with similar disruptions throughout the pandemic.
There is also a history of consumers pushing back against Apple's practices around batteries. The company in 2020 was forced to pay $113 million in fines to settle consumer fraud lawsuits around a controversy known as "batterygate," in which iPhone users discovered that Apple installed new software that made devices with older batteries operate slower.
In addition, CEO Tim Cook in 2019 wrote in a letter to investors that "some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements" was partly behind a lower-than-expected iPhone sales.
Managing Editor at Tom's Guide, Kate Kozuch, joins Cheddar to explain how Apple's AirPods now work as hearing aids and what she thinks of Apple Intelligence.
A Polish radio station said Monday that it has ended an “experiment” that involved using AI-generated “presenters” instead of real journalists after the mo
Co-founder and CEO of Rad Intel, Jeremy Barnett, joins Cheddar anchor Dave Briggs to discuss the influencer marketing space and how RAD is changing the game.
Founder, Chairman and Principal Analyst of Constellation Research Inc., Ray Wang, reveals how Tesla's Robotaxi is going to disrupt the transportation industry.
