This really illustrates how ignorant a lot of HN comments are outside of the high wealth / tech bubble.
Swollen batteries, bad batteries that were third party batteries were a pretty major iphone repair issue. Trying to cut down this obvious type of brand damaging behaviour is obviously good business to preserve reputation. I've been in line listening to a store employee try to explain that this wasn't their battery (before the whole crackdown). People literally still think Apple should repair these swollen phones (I bought it from XXX who told me that battery was good - it showed 100%, now its swollen / broken - fix it!).
Apple doesn't know the battery life of a made in china battery. They charge an insane premium (including in used form) because of the flat out trust folks have in these devices. The tech inside does not generate this premium - their margins are mind blowing for what could be a commodity.
The slow down issue was because apple was trying to extend useful life of their devices, at least that is one, not unreasonable view. Note - they support their devices far far LONGER than their "open" competitors - which often ship with old software (adware laden) and then never update.
I keep my phone about 3 years and it's never been able to get latest iOS. My elderly parents kept their phones for 6 years and theirs was getting point releases still of an older iOS (not sure how that works but it did).
for my parents especially - the trust issue is absolutely huge. They just don't trust that HTC or whomever won't ship with impossible to uninstall crap on the phone. same with carriers - again, apple has locked down much harder and so carriers are not "free" to install their stuff - lots of complaints, but for many users (not all) this is a positive not a negative. They don't have time to research which carrier installed app is crap, they don't know how to uninstall them etc.
I'm going to let this one lie because any defense of Apple just get's voted into oblivion.
Overall I agree with you that Apple cares far more about the headaches they get from being blamed for aftermarket parts (which in my experience are really really mixed and low quality, especially batteries) than making a few bucks from apple store repairs and oem parts.
But your posts would go over a lot better without those first sentences evaluating the perceived shortcomings of the people you're conversing with.
Swollen batteries, bad batteries that were third party batteries were a pretty major iphone repair issue. Trying to cut down this obvious type of brand damaging behaviour is obviously good business to preserve reputation. I've been in line listening to a store employee try to explain that this wasn't their battery (before the whole crackdown). People literally still think Apple should repair these swollen phones (I bought it from XXX who told me that battery was good - it showed 100%, now its swollen / broken - fix it!).
Apple doesn't know the battery life of a made in china battery. They charge an insane premium (including in used form) because of the flat out trust folks have in these devices. The tech inside does not generate this premium - their margins are mind blowing for what could be a commodity.
The slow down issue was because apple was trying to extend useful life of their devices, at least that is one, not unreasonable view. Note - they support their devices far far LONGER than their "open" competitors - which often ship with old software (adware laden) and then never update.
I keep my phone about 3 years and it's never been able to get latest iOS. My elderly parents kept their phones for 6 years and theirs was getting point releases still of an older iOS (not sure how that works but it did).
for my parents especially - the trust issue is absolutely huge. They just don't trust that HTC or whomever won't ship with impossible to uninstall crap on the phone. same with carriers - again, apple has locked down much harder and so carriers are not "free" to install their stuff - lots of complaints, but for many users (not all) this is a positive not a negative. They don't have time to research which carrier installed app is crap, they don't know how to uninstall them etc.
I'm going to let this one lie because any defense of Apple just get's voted into oblivion.