Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
A genuine iPhone 4 battery does not cost $90. That's the price Apple charges you. you can buy a genuine one for $15. An after-market one for $10. It only costs Apple about $5 to manufacture a battery. The willingness to pay Apple whatever they put on their pricetag (and this applies to every other manufacturer as well, I am not choosing favorites) is something I find questionable.
The point many people are putting across is about consumer friendliness and freedom of choice here. An iPhone does eat power quite quickly if you use it at maxmium brightness and use the WiFi often during the day. Why not allow the consumer to just have a backup power supply that is portable? I know some people who carry 2 phones because of this.
And yes, if a consumer does want to pay $90 because he uses his iPhone for business and is out travelling all the time away from a power source and wants a convenient way to instantly refresh the power of his device, why not let him? You don't have to make rationalizations for it. It is just what it is and may be important to some people if not yourself.
I can understand where Apple is coming from. They want to maintain their control over the servicing of phones and prevent consumers from using aftermarket batteries (which is inevitable given Apple's pricing). They may see this as a quality control issue to maintain the quality of their brand. This makes sense to me but likewise, there is no need to go to their defense either. Ultimately I am a consumer who wants control over that choice. Not the other way around. This is just for me.
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When I originally asked TSVT the question about what the iPhone4 was missing, the replaceable battery never crossed my mind. It's a valid question I'm sure for some but it really hasn't been an issue for us. For those of you with multiple batteries, how do you charge your spare? I used to have an old Motorola phone with an extra battery and I either had to buy a separate charging dock or I had to charge my spare battery in my phone and then replace with the other. I would then either forget to carry the extra battery around or I would misplace it. For me, it actually became a bit of a nuisance.
This is why the iPhone works for me. The battery is under warranty and even Applecare covers it. There were the odd times where I would run out of power, so I just got one of those cases that also acts as a spare battery. It's not 2 inches longer but rather it only makes the phone about a half inch longer and less than 3 ounces heavier, plus it's a case to boot. I never forget to bring it since it's always on the phone and my battery life has doubled which is the equivalent of carry an extra battery.
I can see both points of views though so I can totally understand why some would rather have the option of carry an extra battery while others aren't that concerned about it.
For us (especially my wife) when we got our phone, one of the most critical things we required was native international language support. At the time, I think only Apple had this for the language we required. Sure some phones ha apps for different languages but there were issues when texting or sending emails in a foreign language. I'm sure this has probably been resolved by now but at the time that was the kicker for us.