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Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has announced a new service plan its upcoming iPad tablet devices: The company will replace iPads whose batteries can't hold a full charge for a US$99 service fee plus $6.95 for shipping as well as taxes.
This is not a matter of a technician removing the old battery and installing a new one. The whole device will be replaced with a brand-new iPad.
This offer does not cover damage to the product from accidents, user carelessness, component failure or jailbreaking, which is the act of hacking into the iPad or iPhone to allow it to use non-Apple-approved software.
Users can arrange to have their batteries replaced in one of three ways: Through Apple retail stores, through authorized service providers or by contacting Apple Technical Support.
They must sync their iPads with iTunes to back them up first, as the replacement iPads will not contain any of the users' personal data, and Apple won't be responsible for any data loss.
That will not be a problem for users, Carl Howe, director of anywhere research at the Yankee Group, pointed out. "You just plug your docking cable into a Mac or PC, and that automatically backs up the device," he told MacNewsWorld. "It also automates synching."
For those who contact Apple Technical Support, it will generally take one week for users to get replacement iPads.
Replacement Means Never Having to Say Sorry
Could Apple's publicizing a replacement policy before the iPad has even begun shipping mean it's concerned about bad publicity if the device has battery problems?
Apple seals the batteries inside of many of its mobile products, making it difficult for users to change them without professional help once those batteries age to the point of failing to hold a charge.
In addition, there were reportedly 10 cases of iPhones exploding in France, and here in the United States, Apple has been accused of trying to hush up 15 cases of iPods heating up and bursting into flames.
The French authorities were concerned enough that France's consumer affairs minister met with Apple France's commercial director in November of 2009 to discuss the issue. Earlier that month, Apple had to defend the safety of the iPhone before the European Union.
However, this new Apple offer doesn't mean the company's expecting any battery problems with the iPad. "This more or less free replacement for the iPad may be simply a logistics issue and a way of defusing any possible battery problems ahead of when they arise," Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told MacNewsWorld.
"But that doesn't address the bigger question of why a company that's focused on mobile computing is making it so difficult for customers to replace their batteries," he pointed out. "Apple's the only major vendor that's building mobile products with non-replaceable batteries."
A New Marketing Strategy?
Perhaps Apple's making it difficult for consumers to replace the batteries in its mobile devices as part of a marketing strategy. "It looks like Apple's trying to get a lock on the market," the Yankee Group's Howe.
Or it could be that Apple is now taking a new approach to new product rollouts. "I don't really see the notice about the $99 replacement as a harbinger of death for iPad batteries," Francis Sideco, a principal analyst at iSuppli, told MacNewsWorld. "I think Apple's expanding the policy it has for the iPad and iPhone. It's just another checkbox in the list they have to cross off when they roll out a new mobile device."
What about the question of quality -- is Apple concerned that the iPad's battery may not hold a full charge? Apple has received complaints from iPhone and iPod owners about battery life issues in the past, so is this problem also going to plague the iPad?
Perhaps not, Sideco said. "From my own experience, this is a software issue," he explained. "When the power supply is not stable, meaning it has a lot of spikes, this appears to throw off the software that determines the charge for the iPhone or iPod so the device appears fully charged when it's not. You just have to do a hard reset or reload the software completely to reset the device."
Brave New World
Another explanation for Apple's replacement plan could be that Cupertino's reshaping the game with this approach.
"They're doing something intended to reduce their costs," the Yankee Group's Howe told MacNewsWorld. "By replacing your iPad, possibly with a refurbished one, they're eliminating the need to have service people in-house, and other costs. This will also make customers happy because you walk into your Apple store, turn in the iPad, get a new one and walk out," he said.
"From a business perspective, if you think about what it takes for a company to receive a unit, ship it over to its service group, have a technician pull out and replace the battery, reassemble the device, repackage it and put it back in the mail, it may cost Apple less to ship out a new device with a $99 surcharge," Pund-IT's King pointed out.
Replacing the iPad could also disrupt the competition, which is heating up in the field of tablet computers. "The product essentially becomes a commodity, and it would be interesting to see how Apple's competitors will cope with this problem," King explained. "A lot of competing products based on different microprocessors will hit the market towards the end of the second quarter and in the beginning of the third quarter."
