Swollen Battery

Last week I noticed the left side of my iPhone coming apart. After doing some surfing on the internet and reading about iPhone battery swelling I decided to have mines checked at the local Apple store. Battery swelling was indeed the case and I was told by an Apple tech that using the Anker 6 ft cable may caused it. The tech also said that Anker was not an certified 3rd party brand. I thought Anker was Apple certified

Where did you purchase your Anker cable?

I purchased 2 of the PowerLine+II with Lightning connector Cables from Walmart. I recently had 1 replaced

Anker is an Apple MFI certified brand. That technician was wrong.

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Speaking as someone with years of working IT experience, a lot of companies jump on the “it’s the third party accessories fault” train when dealing with an issue. Especially if you’re within warranty coverage. From the company’s end it is a cost savings effort. Employees can get caught up in it, especially if they “believe” in the brand. Apple can do no wrong, therefore must be this Anker cable.

Apple’s genius bar employees are not always the best of the best. They are relatively young IT workers, trained heavily on dealing with Apple products. Some have little experience with non-Apple products and tech. For those wanting an IT career it is almost an entry level position, and certainly a stepping stone to something with better pay.

Chances are the battery swelled because of its own, internal chemical issues. If you’ve had the phone for several years that increases the likelihood. A bad cable would more likely refuse to charge. Or cause issues closer to the iPhone’s port than the battery.

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If this was a real ANKER cable I think it is not the reason of the battery damage.

It is quite usual to say “This is not our problem, this is caused by others.”
APPLE is not better than other companies. :rage:

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Apple “Geniuses” respond to customers with a fixed template. Both in person and in email. They even told me over the phone that they are not allowed to type anything in the email and must use templates for every single sentence. :pleading_face:

But yeah I agree, it’s never Apples fault. The defective butterfly keyboard design, nope you’re typing it wrong. The bent display cable inside MacBooks: nope you’re opening your MacBook wrong, and it’s not worth fixing this 5$ flex cable, just buy a new one…

No point in having Apple investigate the problem anyway, they will just tell you to buy a new one without determining a root cause. Because they can.

Lithium Batteries are not perfect, and there is always a small percentage of them which defects… with the exception of Samsung Note of course…

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Swollen battery is something that can never happen due to charging wire.
On every iPhone battery there is a control circuit (built-in) that will control the charging profile as well as discharge profile. This circuit (unless faulty) will not let any more current or voltage pass through than what is needed to charge a battery.
Battery swelling happens when there is excessive gas generation inside of it. This can happen due to variety of reasons including faulty parts (separator, electrolyte etc) or if the electrodes were not properly dried prior to battery assembly or if the electrolyte was contaminated with moisture of something else.
Another reason for battery swelling is faulty control circuit (as I mentioned earlier) which can lead to overvoltage (thus gas generation). Also the internal resistance of the batteries increases with time and usage. If it increases too much then battery swelling can happen (thus swelling mostly happens with older batteries).
My suggestion is to go back to apple store and just get the battery replacement (I guess it is $49 for out of warranty phones). If you are nice to them they may even replace the whole phone for $49 (if some other components are damaged due to battery swelling).
Good luck :+1:

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Or just make them replace it for free, or else we all start a rebellion against Apple

if its in 1 year warranty they will change for free. They may change it for free if you are nice and find a generous employee :slight_smile:

Ja, be always friendly to such fellows.
Friendliness is free and costs nothing! :wink:

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Probably not the cable, wires do not cause battery bulge. Overcharhing, faulty circuitry and bad chargers or age are all more typical reasons as to why a battery would exhibit this defect. If I can ask, what model iphone, what model charger and was the battery ever replaced?

I’ve had my iPhone 6s since it came out. And I use Anker Lightning cables with no issues. I think it’s the iPhone’s battery itself and not the cable. Recently, my husband had to get his Apple Watch battery replaced due to swelling. The Genius, when asked if it could be the cable, said NO. It’s just the battery.

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That’s a BS answer as the others mentioned. Anker cables are certified and if there was an issue with the cable it would not charge and not destroy the battery.

The last time I went to Apple Store (take advantage of the $30 battery repair) the tech was barely old enough to drive. He only new how to replace the glass/batteries and basic tech questions you can find online for the answers. He then had to refer to a senior lead for help. It took nearly 6 hours of wasting our time to get the battery replaced. Most of that was waiting for help even when we had scheduled an appointment and showed up early for it.

I’ve been trying to get my wife to leave Apple for several years and she won’t leave. About the only products I like from Apple are their pro tablets.

I have a love/hate relationship with Apple. I really love there cameras (a lot) but they have garbage customer service. There processors run really fast with the software, but they refuse to incorporate some basic phone standards (USB-C, OLED screens, Dual Audio, etc.) I also like some things about iOS, and hate others (think this is obvious).

I really can’t decide if I should switch or not. I guess I’ll have to decide by the time I pay off my phone lol.

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Kinda have the same feelings as of late (as to the hardware, no CS issues had), think my next phone is going to be a Samsung variant…the S10e or perhaps the A50…

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@ndalby I have the S10e and love it…I mean I do miss having a larger screen having come from the S9+, but its fast and works great. The fingerprint scanner is built in the power button so its wiked fast log in.

@TechMan I would stay away from oled screens if it’s from LG as they are known to fail and have massive burn in issues. If it’s from Samsung, then your better long term as it has less issues

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If I switch from Apple, I would probably get Samsung…

Sorry to hear about your battery. I’ve been using Anker chargers and cables for the last few months and haven’t had no issues yet. I think the tech was lying since you told him you used a non-apple cable

I have used 3 lg phones with leds, running all manner of burn-in friendly apps and have not really seen any issues with screen burn in. (I cant speak for any samsung device newer than an s4 so I wont). Their tvs are kinda iffy for this issue, but phones like my v35 run things like a screen saver if I stop watching something to reduce burn-in so maybe that helps out.