iPhone battery a ticking time bomb?

here's the link in case you want to check it out for yourself:

http://www.ipodjuice.com/iphone-battery-replacement-products.htm

third party companies are ALREADY offering solutions and new iphone batteries like ipodjuice.com and i am sure there will be others.

What's more, ipodjuice looks like they will be cheaper and faster than apple to boot!

Thank you Victor. That was a gracious post, and took guts on your part. It's just difficult on the readers' part to see a site like TUAW rehash what should by now be a dead issue that has already been debunked, so we get frustrated.

These new lithium ion polymer batteries are quite different from the old lithium batteries people were used to. The new batteries have no memory, meaning they do not require being fully drained before taking a full charge, and your charging habits do not impact the life cycle of the battery, long-term. A full charge cycle requires no special action on the user's part. Apple has a very good (though simplified) page on this subject here:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/

The point being that Johnny Consumer doesn't have to know anything about battery cycles, or do anything to extend the life of his battery, as was the case with the older technology. Aside from a physical defect, there is no possible way to run an iPhone battery down within a year, or probably even two, even to the 80% capacity period.

Also, even when the battery only holds 80% of its original charge, that does not mean that the battery icon on the iPhone will not show a full charge. That would indeed be very confusing to people and would drive them to replace the battery. It will indeed show a full charge on the battery icon... it's just that full won't mean what it used to. Most people will be hard pressed to even notice a 20% drop in battery capacity at that point in the phone's life.

Thanks again for the dialogue.

Agree this post is poorly worded (at best). The juxtaposition of "thousands upon thousands of iPhone batteries" and "Apple is going to be dealing with a lot of unhappy campers" implies a mass return of iPhones for battery replacement in 12-18 mos. when in reality most probably won't even notice a 20% degradation in battery life, much less take the time, effort and money to send in for replacement.

Well, Dave, you got me there. NOTHING is a forgone conclusion. Quantum mechanics will tell you that.

However, I wasn't implying the batteries would be 100% dead either. Let's say you're Johnny Consumer and you have no clue about cycling your battery. There's a chance (a chance!) that you MIGHT not have a full battery within a year. Maybe. Possibly. And so, when you "think" it won't hold a full charge, you go storming down to the Genius Bar. So that's one scenario.

You're also right about the 400 cycles. Full cycles, I mean. That's what Jason Snell was trying to debunk. I'm not saying they WILL need a replacement, I'm saying people might THINK they do. Probably because of posts like Sheldon's, and mine, since no one can contextualize the information.

We don't retract posts-- we never have. I'll admit what I say sounds FUDdy, OK, fine. But it's shocking to me, who stood by Apple since the 70's, to hear people say I'm spreading FUD. If I did, I'm sorry, it certainly wasn't my intent.

Victor, here's what you said, verbatim: "I'm talking about 12-18 months from now, when thousands upon thousands of iPhone batteries, completely sealed from consumers, will begin to lose their juice."

You are presenting this scenario as fact, as a foregone conclusion. That is FUD. Almost nobody is going to achieve 400 full-charge cycles in 12-18 months. That would mean a full-charge cycle from 0-100% almost every single day. I don't think you understand how charge cycles with Lithium Ion Polymer batteries work. Also, by claiming that iPhones "will begin to lose their juice" in this ridiculously short period of time, you imply that the phones will require battery replacement at that point. They will, in fact, still hold 80% of their original charge, which--even then--will still significantly outperform all other smart phones on the market today.

You can defend your post to your heart's content, but it's poorly researched, based on supposition, and it represents this site poorly. You would do well to retract it, as other have suggested. It's okay to admit you made some erroneous assumptions based on your sister site's nonsensical babbling, and just move on.

Batteries in most devices like this exhibit the same behavior. While I too wish I could replace my own iPhone's battery, most people rarely seem to notice. There is always that contingency of power users who do care, possibly because they need more than one battery between charges or merely on principle, but the greater majority aren't going to notice much of change.

You might just want to consider removing this post as it's showing TUAW in an extremely bad light!

FAIL! This has been debunked now repeatedly.

This is what happens when you are desperate to come up with a story.

We all know the facts. We know the battery will last much longer than 12-18 months. It's sad that people feel they have to keep repeating false information just so they can have another post on a website.

Great researching skills!

I also wonder if this was just to hype up a story on their "sister site."