Apple is growing the price of changing your iPhone 16 Professional battery

The price of residing by no means appears to cease rising. Even when costs do not go up, the evil behavior of shrinkflation ensures that we’re getting much less for our cash than we had been previously.

Nowhere are worth rises extra apparent than within the smartphone market. The unique iPhone value $499 at launch. Even adjusted for inflation, that is lower than the bottom mannequin of iPhone 16 which is priced at $799. The costliest fashions at the moment are by the roof, with the most affordable mannequin of the iPhone 16 Pro costing $999, and the iPhone 16 Professional Max beginning at an eye-watering $1,199.

It isn’t simply the costs of the telephones themselves that proceed to rise, nevertheless. As first spotted by MacRumors, the worth of changing the battery within the new iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Professional Max fashions has gone up. For the primary time, the price of changing the battery within the smartphone you’ve got already paid a small fortune for has risen to a few figures, with the worth now set at $119. Sadly, costs look set to proceed to maneuver in a single course solely.

Changing the iPhone 16 Professional battery out of guarantee is now $119

The value has elevated by 20% however customary fashions stay $99

Apple’s iPhone Repair and Service web page permits you to get an estimate for the worth of a restore or service primarily based on the mannequin of iPhone that you simply personal. If you choose the Battery service sort on the web site and enter your iPhone mannequin because the iPhone 16 Professional or iTelephone 16 Professional Max, the estimated worth now reveals as $119.

Compared, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus each give an estimate of $99, as do all older fashions, together with the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Professional Max. The iPhone 16 Professional and Professional Max pack bigger batteries than the opposite fashions, which can be why the substitute value is larger for these fashions.

Substitute is free with AppleCare+ however there’s a catch

You may nonetheless have to pay in case your battery has 80% well being or higher

Even when your iPhone is lower than a 12 months outdated, you will in all probability nonetheless need to pay to exchange the battery. Apple’s web site states that your iPhone guarantee would not cowl batteries that put on down from regular use. In case your battery is flawed, nevertheless, then you might be eligible for a free substitute throughout the first 12 months.

When you pay for AppleCare+, you then’re eligible for a free battery substitute in case your battery is degraded. There is a important catch, nevertheless; you’ll be able to solely get a free battery substitute in case your iPhone battery holds lower than 80% of its most capability. You’ll be able to see the present share within the Battery Health part of your iPhone’s settings; my iPhone 15 Professional is at the moment at 92% after a 12 months of use.

Nevertheless, some customers on on-line boards aren’t too pleased about this seemingly arbitrary cut-off level, complaining that their battery well being is caught at simply over 80% regardless of giving considerably worse efficiency. Till that quantity drops beneath the magic 80%, their solely choice is to pay for the battery substitute as a substitute.

Apple must promote telephones to generate income, however it’s not good for the patron

Poor battery life can pressure us to improve even after we’d somewhat not

Apple / Pocket-lint

This worth rise is not the primary time that Apple has bumped the costs for battery substitute lately. With the discharge of the iPhone 14 fashions, the worth jumped to $99 from the earlier $69. That implies that in two years, the worth of a battery substitute for an iPhone Professional or Professional Max mannequin has jumped by greater than 70%. If the identical pattern continues, we could possibly be paying over $200 to exchange the battery within the iPhone 18 Professional in 2026.

The difficulty is, it is not in Apple’s curiosity to make changing your battery an economical choice. Apple makes cash by promoting iPhones; though the share is slipping, greater than half of Apple’s income nonetheless comes from gross sales of its smartphones. Within the early days of the iPhone, new fashions got here with important upgrades that gave iPhone homeowners an enormous incentive to purchase a brand new system. Nowadays there merely aren’t the identical “wow issue” options to encourage folks to improve their iPhones.

Because the variations between fashions get much less compelling, persons are tending to carry on to their iPhones for longer. Nevertheless, degrading battery life has a big impression on usability, and might typically persuade folks to improve a cellphone that they are in any other case completely pleased with. Making it low-cost and simple for folks to exchange their batteries is not one thing that will be good for Apple’s income.

The issue is simply more likely to worsen

Telephones proceed to get greater and extra highly effective

With the genuinely new options in new fashions of smartphones having dried up significantly lately, there are two key areas the place smartphone producers are focusing their consideration to attempt to preserve the improve cycle alive.

The primary space is AI. Apple Intelligence is not a part of the preliminary launch of iOS 18, however the AI options will probably be rolling out over the next months. Apple Intelligence requires a big quantity of RAM, which implies that the one units that help it are the present iPhone 16 fashions, and the iPhone 15 Professional and iPhone 15 Professional Max. That is the primary time in a very long time that there was a big iPhone characteristic that is not out there on older fashions and that might encourage folks to improve who weren’t initially planning on doing so. Nevertheless, the push for AI options implies that telephones are going to wish to get increasingly more highly effective.

The second space is the dimensions of units. Apple hasn’t bitten the bullet but, however a number of different main smartphone firms have launched folding phones. These telephones not solely have bigger screens when unfolded, however some even have extra screens which are seen when the cellphone is folded shut. All of that extra display space requires extra energy.

With telephones getting greater and extra highly effective, bigger and longer-lasting batteries are required to energy these new options. Which means the price of changing them is simply going to rise, and smartphone makers are banking on the truth that if you are going to need to pay a whole bunch of {dollars} for a brand new battery, chances are you’ll as effectively simply improve to an entire new cellphone.