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.
Instagram is ramping up its anti-bullying efforts with two new features that it hopes will protect users from hurtful and abusive content, the company announced this week.
The modern-day space race just took a major step toward maturity, with Sir Richard Branson's announcement that Virgin Galactic will go public. When it lists later this year, Virgin will become the first publicly traded space-tourism company.
The market for hemp-derived CBD is expected to hit $5.1 billion in 2019 and $23.7 billion by 2023, according to new research from CBD and cannabis-focused market research firm, Brightfield Group. Despite bullish projections from researchers, enthusiasm from the industry, and curiosity from consumers, however, legislation at the federal and local levels isn’t keeping pace.
Researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Temple University reported using gene therapy to eradicate HIV in mice. Now the team is considering how to turn that into a life-saving cure for humans.
The South Korean company reports that profits are likely down more than half of what they were at the same time last year.
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.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, July 5, 2019.
Companies like Nordsense, Ecube, and Bigbelly wager that public bins can serve as highly-efficient, environmentally-friendly, networked devices for our future smart cities, producing data on trash that has never before been available.
Tesla delivered 95,200 vehicles in the second quarter ー nearly double what it delivered in the second quarter of 2018. The production beat was a sliver of good news in an otherwise bad first half of the year for the company.
'Stranger Things' is everywhere as more brands are jumping on the supernatural trend. Coca-Cola, Tide, and Baskin-Robbins are just a few to team up with Netflix. The streaming service has avoided advertising for years, but are they ready to cash in on the opportunity? Cheddar senior reporter Michelle Castillo breaks it all down.
