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https://www.ifixit.com/News/apple-is-locking-batteries-to-iphones-now
By activating a dormant software lock on their newest iPhones, Apple is effectively announcing a drastic new policy: only Apple batteries can go in iPhones, and only they can install them.
If you replace the battery in the newest iPhones, a message indicating you need to service your battery appears in Settings > Battery, next to Battery Health. The "Service" message is normally an indication that the battery is degraded and needs to be replaced. The message still shows up when you put in a brand new battery, however. Here's the bigger problem: our lab tests confirmed that even when you swap in a genuine Apple battery, the phone will still display the "Service" message.
It's not a bug; it's a feature Apple wants. Unless an Apple Genius or an Apple Authorized Service Provider authenticates a battery to the phone, that phone will never show its battery health and always report a vague, ominous problem.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 08 2019, @05:57PM
These things pop up every decade or so with Apple and constantly, but silently with most other hardware.
First around 1994, Powerbooks, series 1xx. In some office I remember seeing a bunch of them with leaking batteries. One was not leaking, because it got replaced two years after purchase. It started to leak two years later.
Second, iPod, again with battery replacement. It was a decade later. There was even some court trial about it, I don't exactly remember what was going on with it. There was also some "axe" with HDD supplier (the name Cornice rings me some bell???), but I don't remember what exactly was with it and I can't find anything complete.
Third, again a decade later, expanding batteries in notebooks and their replacement program tailored the way that it was difficult to use it and if you used it you got a computer with non-functional touchpad. My friend had the Mac with this problem (funny fact: he ran Debian more frequently than Mac OS), and he tried to apply for the replacement program, of course without success. The difficulties they made were bigger than IBM's, who once mailed me that their replacement program for defective display units (overheating coils) is and is not at the same time with the same hardware!
The problem is that more and more hardware will just be sold this way, polluting environment and ending freedom to modify. And we let it be this way by implementing software the way that it can only go in such hardware. Unfortunately especially in open source software, which should work against this trend, optimization is nonexistent and memory management... "doesn't matter, my rich boss will buy me more"-method. This is not Apple-specific. Dell does similar thing with batteries and PSUs since last 15 years. HP once committed a machine which got roasted when someone replaced a power supply with typical ATX, connectors were compatible (I somewhat understand Apple doing it in their G4 Macs as their PSUs had at least printed information about weird voltages which should light a stop sign in any tech's mind).