What is this?

After smoking my iPhone 7 I went with a used iPhone 8. This one came with 80% battery health so I contacted Apple and am now waiting on them to ship a shipping box to me. This phone looks like a new phone. I honestly don't like the newer phones and plan to use this iPhone 8 until Apple will no longer support it.

 

When I am at home I use Wifi Calling. In this mode, I have to put my address on the phone. When I need privacy I use my VPN and turn off my cellular. With this off and in my VPN I feel more comfortable. As far as Apple devices go. In both my iPad and iPhone I have my cloud along with all location services disabled. This also takes some of the load off the battery!

 

I just want to caution about using 3rd party repair places with iPhones. I don't know when Apple started placing serial numbers in their parts, but if you install a non-apple part some iPhones will not have the full function! The mainboards are mated using those numbers and you can't even take another iPhone's parts and use them. With batteries, they will not show battery health and true tone will also not work. As far as I know, the basic phone will work! I just discovered this 2 weeks ago. OR I would not have attempted that do it myself battery replacement! I guess Apple is not making enough money!

I have been told that Samsung is also doing this with their phones!

 

Well, I guess I should update my iPhone saga! Last week I shipped that iPhone in the above photos to Apple to have a battery replaced. About 30 minutes ago after speaking to a lady from Apple support I was informed when that phone landed on the bench it failed EVERY test! While it seemed to work it would not have worked long. Apple is sending me a new iPhone (NOT) a refurbished phone! These replacement phones are not sold retail and are used to replace broken retail phones. Apple is only charging me for the battery replacement I already paid for. This screengrab is still interesting to me!



I took a chance buying a phone device off eBay! I got hosed! Apple is making it right! At this point, I can't advise buying a phone off eBay any longer!