On March 1, Apple will start charging an extra $20 for battery replacements on out-of-warranty iPhones, according to an update on the AppleCare+ webpage.
The new price will be $99 for the iPhone 14, and while these models are currently under warranty, they won't be after the one-year anniversary of their release in September 2023.
At that point, the higher price point could encourage customers with broken batteries to simply buy a new phone rather than shell out nearly $100 for a replacement part.
Apple has adjusted prices multiple times in recent years, as supply chain issues have raised production costs. Just last month, labor unrest at an iPhone supplier in China led to a production shortfall. The company struggled with similar disruptions throughout the pandemic.
There is also a history of consumers pushing back against Apple's practices around batteries. The company in 2020 was forced to pay $113 million in fines to settle consumer fraud lawsuits around a controversy known as "batterygate," in which iPhone users discovered that Apple installed new software that made devices with older batteries operate slower.
In addition, CEO Tim Cook in 2019 wrote in a letter to investors that "some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements" was partly behind a lower-than-expected iPhone sales.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Sergeant First Class Christopher Jones talked to Cheddar about how the U.S. Army eSports division, launched out of Fort Knox, Tennessee as a recruitment effort, is thriving amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The tech giant is shifting focus from creating envious workspaces to allowing many of its employees to work from the comforts of their own homes.
The business-to-business platform saw a 100 percent year-over-year increase in the number of transactions involving U.S. buyers or sellers, according to John Caplan, president of Alibaba.com in North America and Europe.
Notorious short-seller Carson Block and his equity research firm Muddy Waters has accused Chinese education company GSX TechEDU ($GSX) of fabricating student numbers through the use of bots.
Apple and Google on Wednesday released long-awaited smartphone technology to automatically notify people if they might have been exposed to the coronavirus.
Chris Soukup, CEO of Communication Service for the Deaf discussed with Cheddar the challenges facing the community with a lack of resources and much of the new normal stemming from stay-at-home orders.
Zipcar President Tracey Zhen talks about new features that fit into the current social-distancing world.
Director of the Rhode Island Labor Department, Scott Jensen discussed how Amazon's tech aided the state amid the widespread unemployment during the pandemic.
Chicago-based restaurant platform Tock has raised $10 million to help high-end restaurants offer services like “elevated carryout.”
