You really can't though. I had a phone with an awful battery-- it would shut off around 25% randomly. I brought it into Apple 3 times, it even had apple care-- and because the f*ing diagnostic suite identified the battery as good, they wouldn't replace it.

They wouldn't even LET ME PAY FOR THE REPAIR.

Agreed. I've been in 3 times. Every time I want to just pay for the replacement; they won't even offer the battery replacement if the diagnostic utility says the phone is good.

My phone randomly shuts down or rapidly loses battery once it is below 40%. It's even worse when it's cold.

That's exactly what's happening to me as well. I think it shows a battery percentage based on (old) current voltage which dramatically decreases with low temperature, i.e. when you pull your phone from warm pocket in cold weather.

> LET ME PAY FOR THE REPAIR.

Then you would know that it is totally their fault and the liability would be on Apple to fix other people's devices.

Same here. I went to a 3rd party place and they replaced it cheaper anyway, with no problems.

> You can replace the batteries at both Apple stores

Or you know, Apple could make it easy for the user to replace the battery by themselves. But they chose not to.

Know how I can tell you haven't designed any consumer products with a battery, replaceable or otherwise?

This is the engineering equivalent of saying, "Why doesn't someone just go to the Middle East, sit down at a round table with with the Israelis and Palestinians and Sunnis and Shiites and rebels and Baathists and Saudis and ISIS members and refugees and all those other guys, and help them work out their differences peacefully?"

Let's not pretend that Apple's hand was forced here. This is the company that dreamed up a proprietary screw to keep people out of their phones and computers.

It sounds like you’re describing the pentalobe screw, but security screws have existed for decades. Torx created variants with rejection pins in the 1970s. One-way screws have probably been around much longer than that.

And every single one of those had drivers you could buy in a pack with 50 other at Amazon for $10. They could have used any of them.

And yet, they didn't. The world didn't need yet another security screw.

Wow, Nintendo in the 1980s must have had Godlike powers, then: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=donkey+kong+battery+cover&...

Yeah, I'm sure you can build a half-trillion dollar company by selling phones in the same form factor as a Donkey Kong game.

If the market wanted such a thing, then guess what... the market would get it.

Please don't link to google searches. Everyone sees different results.

Thats besides the point. Is it possible to design phones that can be serviced in some ways by your users? the answer is clearly yes. Does Apple care about that? The answer is clearly no. They have been making designs that can't be easily opened for a long time now.

But it's not as cheap or easy as just popping the back of your phone and slipping in a new battery. Mind you, most flagship phones these days can't be refurbished in that way.

Have you tried the nearby "We repair iPhones" store? They can replace your battery for a lot less than a new phone.