Repair specialist site IfixIt has discovered that Apple is blocking DIY battery repairs with a specially designed software system
Apple doesn’t want you to replace your iPhone battery yourself, or have it replaced by an unauthorized center. Not even if you replace it with an Apple-issued battery from another iPhone. If you do, in fact, you have to give up the features of battery health monitoring and an error message is shown in the settings.
IfixIt discovered it: if the battery replacement is not done in an Apple-authorized center, at the costs decided by Apple, you can no longer monitor the health of the battery just installed even if it is new and original. This is not a bug, but a precise choice of Apple that has installed a kind of software lock in the new iPhone XR, XS and XS Max. This lock, of course, can only be opened by technicians authorized by the Cupertino company. All this, for the user, translates into additional repair costs since they can no longer turn to independent repair centers.
How Apple’s battery lock works
Basically, it has been discovered that if you change the battery in one of the new iPhones, a message appears in the battery settings section that tells you, “Cannot verify if this iPhone mounts a genuine Apple battery. Battery health information is not available.” This happens both if you mount a third-party battery (and in this case it’s also understandable that Apple tries to discourage its installation), and if you mount an Apple original one. The message appears on both iOS 12 and iOS 13 beta.
Why the iPhone doesn’t recognize the original battery
YouTuber Justin of The Art of Repair channel explains that there’s a Texas Instruments chip inside the battery that provides information to the iPhone, such as battery capacity, temperature, and the time it takes to fully discharge. Virtually all smartphone batteries have some version of this chip, and Apple uses a proprietary version.
The chip built into the new iPhone batteries includes an authentication feature that stores information for associating the battery with the iPhone’s motherboard. Simply put, if the battery does not have the unique authentication key present from the iPhone’s motherboard, then the message “Service” will be displayed.
This means that if you take the battery out of one iPhone X and put it on another iPhone X the message will still appear because each battery is factory “bound” to a specific iPhone. To solve the problem you should reprogram the Texas Instruments chip by inserting in the battery the key corresponding to your iPhone. But this operation can be done only by an Apple Authorized Service Center.