So Apple finally decides to own up to it's battery problems and acknowledge something that everyone on this thread has known for eons ... Namely: there's serious issues with the batteries despite all kinds of APPL employees weighing into this thread and blaming these problems on every issue they could dream of. While I applaud APPL for finally seeing fit to do the right thing ... it's sad that it took so long for them to actually listen to loyal APPL customers like myself. But, the misery is far from over ... http://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2014/08/25/apple-is-offering-free-repla cements-for-some-iphone-5-batteries/
Yesterday I went to the APPL website and discovered that my handset was eligible for a battery replacement (nice vindication of what I have complained about here!!). The site instructed me to go to an APPL store or an authorized serve center to get this swap done. I then logged onto the APPL site and booked a genius bar appointment at my local APPL store (Aspen Grove here in the Denver area). I then drove 45 miles from my home in Evergreen and showed up 5 minutes before my appointment. After waiting about 5 minutes to check in because there was only one person doing that at the front door, I waited patiently for my "Genius" to help me get this addressed. Upon greeting me, this employee warned me that he would need to check and see whether I was eligible. Upon doing that, he told me what I already knew and validated that my handset was eligible for replacement. He then disappeared for about 5 minutes. When he came back he said "Sir I have some bad news ... we have no inventory of batteries to replace yours with. In fact, there's no inventory anywhere in the Metro Denver area (and he shows me an iPad screen to verify that all our local stores are back ordered.) ... When I began to complain about this and tell him that APPL should have instructed customers to not simply book the appointment but call to check on inventory levels ... I'm then told that there's been an ENORMOUS number of people that have been into the store in the past two days (that's how old this recall is!) and that they simply swallowed up whatever batteries the stores already had. Upon hearing this news, several people who are sitting around waiting for their Genius appointment, all of a sudden begin asking if my Genius is talking about iPhone 5 batteries. Lone behold, this problem is far more widespread than APPL wants anyone to know!!!
Besides warning everyone about this, I am also writing because I am totally disappointed in how APPL has handled this mess. Beyond denying forever that there was a problem and forcing many loyal customers to purchase new handsets (see other postings above) they finally decide to do the right thing but rather than warn customers that batteries are back ordered ... they simply tell folks to book and appointment and show up. In my case, I wasted 3 hours of my work day and countless money on gas to drive all the way down to simply discover that they don't have a battery and that I will now need to come all the way back when they do. I have already written the manager of the Apsen Grove store a note and suggested that APPL needs to make amends for those of us who have waiting so long and now get to waste even more time and money once the **** battery shows up.
This thread should be all the proof that APPL needed in the first place that there was a serious issue. By the time that loyal customers are taking to your Support Community begging for a solution ... then there's a problem. Waiting forever to admit it and then bungling the recall so badly are the kinds of things that will force very loyal AP{PL customers like myself (3 MacBook pros, 3 iPads, iPhone, APPL TV, etc.) to consider a different hardware solution next time.
