Phone Medics

In previous posts we’ve told you about how lithium ion batteries work  and discussed some of the benefits of replacing the battery in your phone. Today we’re going to talk about why some lithium ion batteries expand, and what you should do when that happens. The battery on this iPhone 8 has swollen and popped the phone open. This is a topic that’s been in the news a lot the last couple years. As you may recall, in late 2016 Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phones experienced severe battery problems, to the point that some phones actually burst into flames. Then in late 2017, as Apple began shipping their new iPhone 8, there were reports that some customers were experiencing battery swelling - sometimes after charging their phone, and sometimes right out of the box. In some cases, the swelling was so bad that it actually caused the screen of the phone to separate from the casing. So the big question is, why does this happen? Why lithium ion batteries expand? Well, as it turns out...

At Phone Medics Plus, people come to us for help with lots of different problems with their phones. There are a few problems, though, that we see pretty regularly. One of them is the so-called “Touch Disease” that afflicts the iPhone 6 Plus. The touch IC chips are outlined in red. In August of 2015, reports of an increasingly common problem with the iPhone 6 Plus began to hit the internet. Users were seeing a flickering gray bar at the top of their iPhone 6 Plus screens, and their screens were not responding to touch input. For some users, that meant that multi-touch features - like pinch-to-zoom - were not working. For others, their touchscreen stopped responding completely. The problem was nicknamed the “touch disease” on the internet, and as with the infamous “Bendgate” controversy, where the iPhone 6 Plus frame was bending in users’ pockets, the touch disease appeared to be a flaw in the design of the device. The two touch IC chips - the chips that control the to...

Here at Phone Medics Plus, we are committed to helping you extend the lifespan of your device for as long as possible. That’s why we have offered battery replacement services to the people of Brevard County for more than four years. In early 2017, users of certain older iPhone models began to notice that their phones were running slower after updating to iOS 10.2.1, and that replacing the battery fixed the problem. Rumor ran wild around the internet that Apple was deliberately using iOS software updates to slow down older phones in an attempt to entice users to upgrade to newer devices. Apple quickly responded to the controversy, apologizing for the situation and explaining why they had chosen to slow the older iPhones down. While most of the components inside an iPhone don’t really break down with age, the battery is an exception. The lithium ion batteries inside most consumer electronics are perishable: they have a limited number of charge cycles, and as they age, the chemicals ...