I bought a new M1 MacBook Pro in April 2022. A little over two years later, I'm seeing a service recommended message, and the maximum capacity of the battery is now down to 78%. Admittedly, my MacBook Pro experiences heavy usage: basically all day, every day. The batteries in my previous 2014 Intel MacBook Pro, which experienced the exact same usage level, lasted over three years—I had to replace its battery twice!—but I don't recall what the maximum capacity was when I did the replacements, so it's difficult to compare.
Yesterday I took the M1 MacBook Pro to my local Apple-authorized service provider that I've been going to for many years, who performed all of the work on my Intel MacBook Pro, including the battery replacements and a Staingate screen replacement. This is a third-party shop, not an Apple Store. To my utter shock, they told me that they couldn't replace the battery in-house, because starting with the Apple silicon transition, Apple now requires that the MacBook Pro be mailed in to Apple for battery replacement! What. The. Hell.
I can't be without my MacBook Pro for the indefinite period of time ensuing from mail-in repair. I'm the sole proprietor of my software business, and my MacBook Pro is my main machine. Everything is on there. As a Mac owner for over twenty years, I've always been able to arrange for same-day repair, dropping off the Mac in the morning and picking it up later in the day. The last time, due to Apple's increasing restrictions on Apple service providers, I had to pay an "emergency service fee" for the same-day repair, but I'm perfectly willing to do that. My time at the computer was worth more than the fee. This new nonsense about requiring mail-in repairs, however, is a step way over the line. It's outrageous, absurd! Apple's replacement "policy" harms Apple customers, harms third-party repair shops, and lacks any reasonable justification. I'm reminded of when Tim Cook admitted to Apple investors that easy iPhone battery replacement reduced iPhone sales:
While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements. [emphasis mine]
My MacBook Pro is currently covered by AppleCare+, so Apple would perform the battery replacement at no additional cost to me, if I mailed in the Mac. I asked my local shop if they could perform the battery replacement themselves out of warranty, without AppleCare. They said yes, but the part would cost about $600. Ugh. So I decided that for now I can live with the 78% maximum capacity. The battery life is noticeably shorter than when the Mac was new, but it's still pretty good.
Why $600? After all, the new batteries for my 2014 MacBook Pro cost only $200 each (not including labor). I didn't ask specifically why when I was in the shop yesterday, but I think I've discovered the reason now. I came upon an article by iFixit, Apple’s Self-Repair Program Manages to Make MacBooks Seem Less Repairable:
At the time of writing, Apple will not sell you a replacement MacBook Pro battery. They sell you a “Top Case with Battery and Keyboard.” And so their guide has you remove literally every component from the top case. The laptop is built on the top case, so to get to it, you’ve got to demanufacture the whole thing.
The procedure stretches to the very last page of a 162-page document, making it essentially a 162-page guide with multiple steps per page.
I checked Apple's Self Service Repair Store, and sure enough the top case with battery and keyboard for my MacBook Pro cost $615.12, although there is an $88 credit if you return the replaced part to Apple.
I assume that the labor costs for installing the part would also be much higher than for my 2014 MacBook Pro battery replacement.
Incidentally, iFixit sells a $150 battery replacement kit for my MacBook Pro, which is simply a battery along with the tools needed to replace it, and their replacement guide is 58 steps, compared to Apple's 162-page guide, so apparently it is possible to replace the battery without replacing the entire top case. I don't know whether this replacement battery is an Apple part or a third-party part. And who knows which method Apple technicians are using to replace your battery when you mail in your Mac to them.
I long for the days when the MacBook Pro had a user-replaceable battery that could be swapped in a few seconds (not to mention a matte display). I continue to insist that the 2006 MacBook Pro was peak Apple hardware design. Apple silicon CPUs are nice, of course, but unfortunately for us, Apple has exploited the processor transition as an excuse to lock down the Mac in a number of abusive ways.
To quote iFixit again:
Battery replacement is pretty much the only guaranteed MacBook repair. Even if you never use the laptop, you’ll still need to replace the battery due to natural degradation.
Batteries are consumable, and just like your tires, they’re rated for a certain lifespan—heck, there’s a battery health menu item that says this outright. It’s a fact of our lithium-powered life.
It makes me extremely angry that Apple makes battery replacement so difficult and expensive.
By the way, in case you're wondering, this blog post is not an advertisement for iFixit. I'm not sponsored by iFixit, and in fact I've never bought anything from them either. I'm personally uncomfortable with performing my own hardware repairs and prefer that they be done by a professional technician. I just happened to find the relevant iFixit blog post while searching the web for my problem.