Apple blocks status info iPhone battery when replaced by third parties for safety

Apple has confirmed that it will block battery health status information when repaired by a non-certified repairer. The company says it does this to protect customers against damaged batteries or batteries of lesser quality.

The notification in iOS. Source: iFixit

The function has been in place since last year, according to the statement that blogger Rene Ritchie put online. “This information is there to help protect our customers from damaged, used or lower quality batteries that could lead to performance degradation or safety issues. The notice will not prevent customers from using the phone after an unauthorized repair.”

In practice, it concerns the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR, as it turned out last week. They display a message that the authenticity of the battery cannot be verified, even if it is an original iPhone battery from another copy.

The cause is a Texas Instruments bq27456-G1 microcontroller that is on the battery. That is the microcontroller that monitors the battery condition. It checks whether the battery is the same as the one installed at the factory. If not, iOS displays that notification. A certified Apple repair technician can presumably reprogram the microcontroller. According to iFixit, the notification can be prevented by removing the original microcontroller from the original battery and putting it on the new one, although that is a difficult procedure.

The phone will work properly after the repair, emphasizes iFixit. Also, iOS does not limit performance, as it does with batteries that no longer have the maximum capacity. As a result, there is no functional problem with battery replacement. Apple has made repairs more difficult for uncertified people in recent years. For example, recent Macs have a chip that makes repairs more difficult, and Touch ID only works with the original motherboard on older iPhones.