The 6/6S were plagued with defective batteries, so phones under their 1 year warranty were affected. Only some phones manufactured during specific dates were covered by a free replacement; my phone was one of those.
Furthermore, the root issue could have been addressed not just by offering free replacements (They weren't), instead of slowing down phones and having customers believe their devices were obsolete much earlier than anticipated, they could have been transparent about the issue like they are now.
Instead, I ended up with 1 free battery replacement, and 1 heavily subsidized replacement, which certainly factored into my delayed upgrade cycle. Apple experienced this enough to warn their investors about it in this letter.
The point I am making is that NO manufacturer replaces naturally degraded batteries for free. Defective sure. And not just phone manufacturers but I haven't heard of any manufacturer doing that. Batteries are a consumable item.
I do agree however that Apple should have been upfront about their measures they were taking to mitigate battery degradation.
Correct and perhaps I could have been more clear, but as far as a consumer is concerned Apple did conflate the two issues.
Apple initially refused to replace my battery because they're consumable, even though they later admitted that some batteries were defective. They replaced some batteries for free [1], everyone else got an iOS 10.2.1 update with silent throttling [2]. Note that Apple did not admit to defective batteries until late 2016, and then announced an update with silent throttling in early 2017.
I am not implying that Apple should replace everyone's batteries for free, I am however under the impression that they attempted to keep warranty costs low by denying for as long as they could, and quickly following up with an update that hides the symptoms.
Furthermore, the root issue could have been addressed not just by offering free replacements (They weren't), instead of slowing down phones and having customers believe their devices were obsolete much earlier than anticipated, they could have been transparent about the issue like they are now.
Instead, I ended up with 1 free battery replacement, and 1 heavily subsidized replacement, which certainly factored into my delayed upgrade cycle. Apple experienced this enough to warn their investors about it in this letter.