> If you buy 3-year AppleCare, you're effectively pre-paying for at least one battery top-up.)

Unless I'm missing something, AppleCare on new iPhones is limited to two years ... which, in my experience, is just shortly before iPhone batteries degrade noticeably.

The AppleCare itself lasts two years, but that’s in addition to the year you get by default. The two don’t run concurrently.

Edit: no, they do run concurrently. See child post.

GP’s edited the reference to 3 years anyway.

Curious if you have a source on that? I see otherwise here: https://www.apple.com/support/products/iphone.html

I bought a new iPhone about 48 hours ago and was told the same thing as shown above.

In fact, both are true. It just depends on where you live.

What he said is the case within the European Union due to some EU law regarding warranties. I believe in the EU an extended warranty like AppleCare only goes into effect after the original warranty has expired. There are also statutory warranty periods of a year (I think) for devices like the iPhone.

In the United States, on the other hand, AppleCare replaces the original warranty rather than adds onto it.

Here's a page describing AppleCare within the UK: https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/, which lasts for three years instead of the two within the United States.

As you say there could be some legal jiggerypokery but Apple claim it's still only two years for an iPhone:

> Up to 2 years from date of purchase for Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple Watch or Apple Watch Sport

With the price of iDevices rising there's probably a "reasonability" court case brewing where someone argues that a £1200 iPhone X should last longer than 1/2 years.

Edit: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua... says the default statutory warranty should be 2 years. What a mess.

You are correct. derefr and tolien are incorrect.

iPhone comes with 1 year warranty. AppleCare+ extends that an additional year for a total of 2 years from purchase date.

From the site you linked above: "Every iPhone comes with one year of hardware repair coverage through its limited warranty and up to 90 days of complimentary support. AppleCare+ for iPhone extends your coverage to two years from the original purchase date of your iPhone and adds up to two incidents of accidental damage coverage, each subject to a service fee of $29 for screen damage, or $99 for any other damage, plus applicable tax. In addition, you’ll get 24/7 priority access to Apple experts via chat or phone."

@tolien: Yeah I remember when AppleCare for Mac did that too. Not sure at what point it changed to "within 60 days of purchase."

Early this past summer when AppleCare for Mac became AppleCare+ for Mac.

Hmm, you’re right.

I think my confusion was that Mac AppleCare used to be advertised as an additional 2 years (you could buy it as your standard warranty expired) but it’s now advertised as 3 years from device purchase too. Wonder when that changed…

What people usually mean (and it used to mean only this) by a "removable"/"replaceable" battery is that you can change the battery entirely by hand in less than a minute, without needing any tools. Until recently, this was possible with just about every other smartphone except Apple's.

Wasn’t the first Samsung flagship to remove the replacement battery the Galaxy S6? It’s no coincidence that it was also the first in a line of Android flagships starting to even attempt to compete with Apple on build quality, which they now do.

You can DIY. It's really not that bad. I replaced the battery twice on my iPhone 6. The first time took me maybe 40 minutes, the second time went faster since I knew how to do it.

https://www.ifixit.com/Store/iPhone/iPhone-6-Replacement-Bat...

Haven't replaced the battery (yet) but did have to replace the screen on my iPhone 5, it really wasn't that bad all things considered...and by "all things" I mostly mean having to pay something like $120 to Apple.

Battery should be a cake walk.

> Apple encourages people to take their phones into Apple stores/authorized dealers to get the battery replaced.

Not in my experience. Bring your iphone to an apple shop and ask for the battery to be replaced. Apple will most likely refuse unless the battery is shown as severely damaged in the settings.

The <80% is such a junky metric though, as it's by whatever they calculate. Mine was determined to be 83% but the thing lasted till like Noon at the latest with minimal use.

Exactly. I don't trust their testing method at all. My new battery wasn't covered by Applecare because the phone also tested at 82% or 83%. I decided to look around the store at some new Macbooks for about 20 minutes and the phone completely died while still plugged in for testing.

They admitted that was unusual and just gave me a new battery.

Apple says that battery replacements are $79.

https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-power