A “Right to Repair” quiz: why is this “OEM” Macbook Air battery (for 2011 model), sold by Replacebase, covered in black stickers?
Guess for the first two stickers is that they cover mentions of ‘Apple’ and ReplaceBase is not authorised to resell Apple batteries. I’m curious about the reason for the third one.
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What is strange about the situation is that on Replacebase’s website, the battery is specifically referred to as OEM.
Checking the original battery to see what the stickers are concealing, first two mentions “Apple”
The third is this
At this point, Replacebase is very upfront on its website and its invoices that it is selling OEM parts.
I imagine that it’s the vendors in China who put these stickers on the merchandise, before sending to companies like Replacebase. This after the recent raids by US Customs Agents against “counterfeit” (read: refurbished or factory second) parts.
In case my original post wasn’t clear, I wasn’t criticising ReplaceBase, just making the factual point that as far as I know they’re not an Apple authorised reseller and hence not authorised to resell Apple batteries.
It also raises the question as to whether the battery the sticker is on matches what the sticker states - with or without the blacked out part. I.e., the sticker is the same as an Apple one, or is a genuine one, however the battery may not be.
My rationale for choosing replacement batteries for the old plastic MacBooks was that I didn’t trust a battery pretending to be from Apple as it was either old or not genuine. I preferred a third party which printed its own brand on the battery and hopefully stood by it. Last time I looked, several years ago, there were a few battery manufacturers in Germany and I tried to source a German battery. I don’t recollect more details.
At a poplar forum. I have encouraged an iPhone user abandoned by Apple, because he has already replaced with a 3rd party battery
It seems I have already answered before Janet asking the question.
Sorry, but full quotation! (Emphasis added) **** Start from here ****
As you have already opened your iPhone, you can ignore safely Apple’s policy. You take your responsibility on your Smartphone, Why not? Yes, it is your phone. (Rights to repair movement in the US)
Don’t buy any cheap batteries from eBay, Aliexpress etc, Check out the weight, fake batteries are 10-15% lighter. (Fake capacity with doggy quality)
The below is the high quality batteries.
https://www.replacebase.co.uk/iphone-6-parts/batteries/
Apple OEMs 1810mAh
https://www.replacebase.co.uk/apple-iphone-6-replacement-internal-battery-kit-with-tools-and-adhesive-oem/
https://www.replacebase.co.uk/replacebase-apple-iphone-6-plus-replacement-internal-battery-pack-7010/
High quality 3rd party (Replacebase) higher capacity battery:
Probably I myself would buy this higher capacity, as you will do this by yourself, why don’t you take the advantage of 20 % bigger capacity?
How to replace your iPhone 6 Battery
I have replaced some Apple devices (iPhone 5, iPad mini, iPhone SE) with all high quality 3rd party batteries, including Replacebase one. __Purely technical point of view, you just need a high quality battery cells (Samsung, LG, Sony, Sanyo/Panasonic, Lishen etc) as you know,_ Apple does not produce the battery by themselves._
I am not against Apple Genuine parts at all, but Apple attempt to monopolise Apple genuine parts supply in the name of copyright protection with FUD marketing. They really want to scare you, only authorised technician /dealers can do that. I really feel that something is wrong with this.
Still Apple offers a decent iOS support, you can enjoy “your own iPhone” once you have mastered the replacement of your battery.
Happy repairing!
Thanks @RestarToshi for the tip to look for non-Apple, non-OEM batteries from reliable shops like Replacebase. In the case of my Macbook Air, this was the only one they had. But for phones this seems like a good option!
Why is this battery covered in stickers?
More straight answer 
Because Apple would confiscate Apple logo repair parts outside Apple Authorised distribution in the name of copyright infringement .
Why?
Because Apple wants to monopolise their hardware department as they have done successfully their software department
Why?
Because Apple can do what they want, the Best Business Practice (^_^)/
iPhone — Environment — Apple
No repair, sell refurbish at inflated price? No more independent repairers are able to point out the iPhone 6/7 Design Flaw : Flexion based damage.
Consequence ?
The consumers are so scared to use non- authorised repairers (including restart volunteers) and parts through this business practices with heavy FUD marketing.
Please don’t play brand sectarian war please. Don’t belong to Team Apple, Google etc, you just simply failed to see the bigger picture. We have already seen this business practice.
I bought a “genuine” Toshiba Laptop note battery from China last year, the brand name on the battery was hidden as Janet found. I have confirmed that this was genuine with a battery check utility, as the 18650 Lithium Batteries were made by LG.
Toshiba was so innovative that they have blocked to supply user manuals in the name of copyright protection long time ago? (I posted Google mailing list before ) Apple just pushes this idea further.
https://ifixit.org/blog/3743/operation-fix-toshiba-help-us-write-repair-manuals/
Happy repairing ! (is under atack…)