Waiting for a new battery

[Bloomberg] [Fully Charged]( From [Bloomberg](   [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]]([Twitter Share]( [SUBSCRIBE [Subscribe]](  Hi, this is  [Dina](mailto:dbass2@bloomberg.net) in Seattle. A few weeks ago, I decided to finally take my iPhone in for a new battery. It was going from fully charged to dead in under an hour while sitting unused in my purse. I thought I was being smart by waiting for the initial frenzy around Apple's discounted battery replacement deal to die down. Boy was I wrong. I went to Apple's web site to make an appointment for a [battery replacement](. Sounds easy, right? Not really. Within a few minutes, I received an email noting that I first needed to call Apple to secure a coveted battery for my iPhone 6, which can take several weeks. What followed was a series of frustrating phone calls, waiting, and an epic, weeklong game of phone tag with my local Apple store before I had a battery in the store and an appointment. It might have been faster for me to call Apple and ask to talk Tim Cook himself. After dropping my phone off at the University Village Apple Store I was told it would take 90 minutes. I returned at my alleged pickup time and was directed to a table already full of users waiting to be reunited with their devices, because the repair work was running 30 minutes late. We stared off into space, unsure how to pass the time because Apple still had our phones (one enterprising woman remembered to bring a book). Mostly we stared at a door in the wall from whence staff occasionally emerged with news on the delivery of our devices. It was a bit like what I imagine used to happen with dads in maternity ward waiting rooms in the 1950s. I'm not the only one who finds the Apple repair experience to be the circle of hell that Dante forgot; customers on Twitter have described the stores as akin to a [trip to the DMV](. Apple has reportedly brought in [outside contractors]( to keep up with demand. And there are few reasons to think things will get better. Apple is facing more battery-related issues than dealing with impatient customers and trying to keep new iPhone sales up. Tesla's batteries apparently [hold up very well](. And rapid growth in demand for electric vehicle batteries from companies like Tesla is threatening to create a shortage of the cobalt that's also needed for iPhone and iPad batteries. That's why Apple is reportedly in talks to [buy supply directly from miners]( for the first time. Still there are a lot of questions, like: - Why, months after announcing a battery replacement program, do people have to wait so long to fix something that shouldn't be broken to begin with? - Why don't batteries last longer? Why not aim to build one that only needs charging once a month? Or a week, even? - Why does a company that runs massive cloud services rely on humans to manually schedule appointments, creating a logjam? More than four months after Apple announced the offer, the process remains a frustrating mess with repairs proceeding at a glacial pace. For a company that prides itself on high quality products and a CEO known for supply chain know-how, it's inexcusable. But even beyond that, what we need is a battery (or energy storage) revolution. Make them last longer and more durable. The first company to get it right, I'm sure, will stand to make a lot of money.  And here’s what you need to know in global technology news Apps for the rich. Take a look inside the world of dating apps for the [1 percent](.  Apple is betting that you'll pay for news. From them. The iPhone maker is planning to integrate recently acquired magazine app Texture into Apple News and debut its own premium [subscription offering](.  Half dead. That's how some are [describing]( ZTE after the Chinese telecoms gear maker found itself on the wrong side of a U.S. ban.  Infosys is sacrificing margins for growth. So says Salil Parekh, who [took over]( as CEO in January following a tumultuous period at the Indian tech services provider.  Facebook's latest headache: a class action. Millions of the social network’s users can proceed as a group with [claims]( that its photo-scanning technology violated an Illinois law by gathering and storing biometric data without their consent   Sponsor Content by EY Does someone else own your company’s reputation? The 2018 EY Global Information Security Survey features perspectives for technology, media and entertainment, and telco companies. [Access the article]( and protect your brand from cyber attacks now.   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Technology newsletter Fully Charged. You can tell your friends to [sign up here](.  [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022