Just a quick update regarding my iPad Pro replacement. So far all running smoothly. I’m a fairly heavy user and often run the iPad while charging. I wouldn’t say battery capacity is great, but neither is it disappointing. My perception is that performance is overall noticeably slicker than what I was used to, and that’s what counts for me. For £129 I feel like I’ve got a nice new(ish) machine. Anyway, here’s the last 24 hours battery screenshot…
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All iPads Any successful $99 battery replacement service?
- Thread starter mlody
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This is a bit long, sorry!
Seems like a similar iteration of the iPhone standard: if the device is updated, replacing the battery has significantly better results than updated, degraded devices, but it’s far from the original version.
Don’t let that assessment take away the main point: I expected worse. You seem to be getting around 7-8 hours or so, with light-moderate use. Degraded iPads are very poor, with varying results, from 1.5-2 hours, to about 4-5. The latter seems to be the norm for updated, degraded 1st and 2nd-gen iPad Pros, so let’s omit the catastrophically poor, severely degraded 1, 2-hour results, and let’s take 4-5 as the benchmark: yours is very usable.
Even though I reckon that iPad on iOS 10 was capable of 12-13 hours, 7-8 isn’t bad. It’s a loss of about 33-40% of the screen-on time with new batteries, just like the 1st-gen SE.
It’s very sad that when the battery is degraded, updated iPads - and iPhones! - don’t compare. Like I said, an iPhone or iPad on an original iOS version is usable practically forever, with no SOT loss regardless of health. That is lost through iOS updates, presumably because newer iOS versions have increased power requirements. Regardless, to see one of the worst “victims” of iOS updates resurface like that after replacing the battery is very nice.
It’s three hours below my original battery, 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12. Which, glass half-full here, is definitely usable.
I guess the takeaway is that updated iPads with new batteries lose 40% of SOT, but the conclusions would be, as far as iPads go:
-A 40% SOT loss with new batteries, comparing the original and the (presumably) final version, at least for 10.5-inch iPad Pros on iPadOS 17.
-A catastrophically unusable loss when comparing degraded batteries.
-Most importantly, updated iPads are forced to get battery replacements eventually, unlike non-updated ones.
-The most important point for you: the battery replacement has restored usability. It isn’t perfect, but it could be worse. I thought it would be worse. You can use it with 7-8 hours for many years to come. I don’t think that would be unpleasant, right?
lots of assumptions here... to draw you conclusions, you are assuming that screen on time is the same for everyone, while a lot of factors play, including brightness, app used etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the difference between iOS 11 and iPadOS 17 SOT for the 10.5 is... negligeble, in the single digit percentage, far from the 40% assumed based on your usage and experience of the 9.7 pro
I’m talking about the same usage, of course. My 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12 is consistently 20-23% below iOS 9 with the same usage. I’ve been using it for four years on iOS 12, I’ve never been close to iOS 9 numbers.
If that were the case for everything, why can’t anybody produce a decent screenshot for an updated device? Original iOS version numbers vary by usage, like you said, but once the device is updated, nobody can produce good numbers anymore, nobody even reports good numbers. I’ve tried several updated devices myself, nothing is close.
All that discounting the fact that you need a battery replacement to have half-usable results, unlike original versions. That’s the saddest part. The user I replied to mentioned that his iPad wasn’t very good when it was degraded. That wouldn’t happen on an original version.
While 7-8 hours is decent, that number drops with battery degradation. The 12-13 number of iOS 10 would be stable (and I’m being generous, it could be more. I got 14 on iOS 9, which would bring the loss to almost 43%). So, the 40% loss is debatable, even. If you unquestionably need 100% health to reach iOS 10 minus 40% (the latter with any battery health)... is it 40%? Or is it more?
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Just a quick query. I received a like-for-like replacement iPad. Here in the UK at least Apple don’t swap out the battery. My understanding is that all the internal components are new, not just the battery. At least that’s what I was told at the Genius Bar. Presumably this would also account for the relatively smooth operation I’m experiencing on this “new” machine. It certainly feels much slicker overall and presumably this isn’t down to just the new battery.
Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I reckon it’s a refurbished iPad, with a new outer shell, battery, and screen.
Battery life is not indicative of battery health. Restore your iPad to factory using a computer and don't set it up at all with iCloud or any apps.
How long does it last?
yes, they'll use the old iPad to make another battery service by giving it a new battery and outer shell and screen, so no, it's not a new device and we don't know how much the drive has been used for instance
Again, even assuming what you say is true for the 9.7 pro it does not necessary apply to the 10.5, which was never on a 32bit version of IOS and probably even less to a newer device. My main point is not to extrapolate experiences with older devices and especially OS versions to newer ones. While again nobody cares to collect hard data, my subjective experience is that the difference in battery life, especially screen on time (that is not counting stand-by time), is so minor among updates with iPadOS that the idea of not updating for battery life makes little to no sense.
The 10.5-inch iPad Pro’s original version is iOS 10.
I haven’t extrapolated to newer devices. I don’t know whether M1 iPads will suffer like older devices do.
I know newer iPhones still suffer. I know the iPhone Xʀ is nowhere near to iOS 12 when updated, but iPads, I’m not sure. But I’m not sure not because I’ve seen good results, but because I haven’t seen results at all. Unlike the iPhone case, people don’t really share iPad battery life screenshots. You can readily find iPhone 14 and 15 screenshots, and every iPhone has had its own thread here on MacRumors. iPads? Not so much. But the fact that nobody shares the impact doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Reading people’s opinions on this, many incorrectly attribute it to aging. It’s not that clear-cut.
Battery replacements seem to have a similar effect, though.
It is absolutely not minor. You lose hours. I’ve seen it myself on every single updated device I’ve tried. You have the 9.7-inch iPad Pro. I’d be surprised if you could share a screenshot that’s anywhere near iOS 9 (or 12!). That’s easy enough to disprove: share a screenshot. I’d love to see one.
I also know the 10.5-inch iPad Pro suffers, especially with not-100%-health batteries, but even with new ones. Like I said, it’s sad that older iOS devices, when updated, need battery replacements to be usable.
You seem to contradict yourself or I misunderstood you. You say you have no info for newer iPads but then you say "you lose hours". Also you say "incorrectly attribute it to aging", assuming degradation has nothing to do with "aging". That aging can be extremely different base on many factor and is far from being just a matter of cycles is one thing, but assuming that battery will not degrade, even significantly over time, especially if cycled poorly, is something that is indeed incorrect. And I have many example of degraded battery due to heat or the device being left dead for months.
Screenshots mean very little when you don't know brightness. Changing brightness in a battery test can cut screen on time in half easily.
My 10.5 is heavily degraded at this point and I'll be replacing the battery before it's too late (Apple should stop servicing it next Spring) by the way.
Regardless I stand by experience based on the 10 iPads I still own that updating newer devices makes very little difference in terms of screen on time, and sometimes standby time can even improve, improving overall battery life.
Simple answer.
iOS 10 came with less features, newer iOS releases come with newer features and more powerful hardware so they are heavier on older hardware.
Computers have been like this forever so it’s nothing new.
My experience is that this is true and:
1. has impacted performance in devices with low amounts of RAM and less cores (but makes no difference with more capable hardware)
2. has mainly impacted stand-by time, rather than screen on time, although stand-by time varies all the time, even without updates. I often keep track of it and some nights is like 10% while other is zero (with no backgroud app).
I meant that you definitely lose hours for older devices if sufficiently updated (especially with degraded batteries), whereas newer iPads like the M1… is a bit unclear if iPadOS 17 is updated enough. Perhaps they’re the ones to break this cycle, but I doubt it.
Battery health degrades, I’ve never disputed that. Its impact on efficient iOS versions is negligible. Well, I take care of my devices. No heat, no leaving them dead for years. Perhaps that would be a factor, I don’t know. Assuming a modicum of care, it won’t happen.
Brightness is the #1 factor affecting screen-on time, I’d never minimise it.
This is the reason why this happens. Agreed. Completely. Sadly, as downgrading is disallowed, battery degradation is a significant factor as far as battery life goes… when it shouldn’t be all too important.
It would be nice if it was possible to revert to the last release of each iOS release if need be.
Why would you say that? It is like saying a car's range is not indicative of how much gas you have in a tank? Imaging if someone was to replace your gas tank with a smaller one by 1 gallon every 6 months. Yes, after the first swap, lets say going from 20 gallons to 19 gallons, someone would not be able to tell a difference in overall range as other factors would also play a role, but what if few years passed and your original 20 gallon tank is now 14 gallons tank. No matter how someone drives, the range difference will be noticable. Same thing happens with Tesla's and common electronics batteries like iPhones or iPads etc.
Battery life is indeed correlated to battery health. Saying otherwise is not knowing how lithium batteries work. However, the correlation is not linear, so 75% battery health does not mean 75% battery life. That's something most people ignore.
Surely, it would align with capacity from new.
Battery capacity is the maximum capacity of they battery to hold energy.
Battery percentage is a function of remaining capacity from a full charge.
So, as the battery ages a battery at 70% health will have a battery life equal to what it would have had at 70% when both are charged to 100%.
No, that's theory. When a battery reports 70% health your are lucky if you get half of the battery life you had when it was new (you'll probably get less). Also degradation is far from linear, a device can stay in the 90s and 80s for years then once it starts dipping below that, degradation accelerates at a much faster pace. Again something that doesn't seem logical and that a lot of people ignore...
Degradation being non-linear makes sense. But what is battery health measuring if it isn’t measuring current capacity against designed (new) capacity?
It is a percentage of what?
the question is not what it a percentage of what, the question is that what the BMS is reporting does not match reality after a certain level of degradation. On the why one can speculate, one theory can be that some degraded cells can no longer sustain certain peaks of energy request or are simply dead, but the battery as a whole still works. And this is not detected by the BMS. By the way, if you test degraded batteries for health you'll find wildly diffent results, sometimes 77%, another time 54%, then up again... So the BMS is not reliable anymore, that's the reality I was talking about...
Yeah, for devices that are updated enough battery life plummets with enough degradation, sadly. iPads are more resilient, but it’s a catastrophe for older iPhones, with the iPhone 6s requiring a million battery replacements to maintain minimal usability on iOS 15.
As far as iPads go, batteries are larger so they take years to degrade if updated, and never degrade if they aren’t.
Conversely, I was told by few sources that this method is not practiced as it would be simply unsustainable. It’s all NOS. Apple produces devices in such enormous quantity, where it’s not difficult to see their immediate disappearance the very minute a new model is introduced, that their warehouses have ample inventories for this method of „battery replacement” in example. It seems that it is all carefully pre calculated by Apple and flipping guts with new screens and shells is logistically not what Apple is in business for. In a very big business. This also allows for a quick understanding of their production costs and profit margins. The $99.- is still profitable to A. One item no one is going to get here is the original box/packaging.
It's probably a mix of both, inventories and exchange iPads feeding those inventories... How much is each there is no official info. Anyway it's no longer $99, price has gone up...