Wow, thats scary. I still have my iPhone 5s that I still use on wifi in the house. I replaced it with an iPhone 12 mini but the old 5s still works on wifi for internet even though it doesnt have a sim card in it.

Paul

Still have my 5. Ill have to find it, see how it is.

I've never had anything produced by Apple, but I still have many old phones, some going all the way back to 1987. The first was a Panasonic as big as an office desk phone. Handset on a curly cord and a shoulder strap 'cause it was so heavy. It had a huge lead acid battery!

I think that's a battery problem rather than an Apple problem.  Back about 6 or 7 years ago at work we were running a number of flip phones (Nokia, I think, but could have been another brand), and one of the guys brought his phone to me because it wasn't charging properly.  When I opened it up the battery was swollen like that.  After checking a few more phones there were others that were on their way.  Never had one explode or anything, though, but we changed out all the phones for new ones at that time.

When I see stuff like this it really makes me hesitant to jump into the world of rechargeable battery 'everything' because it almost seems like we will all become slaves to battery issues, but in reality you don't hear of serious problems with them all that often - though maybe that will change as their use becomes more prolific.

DonSSDD wrote:

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On old rechargeable anything, the companies have made replacing batteries so expensive, its cheaper to get new whatever, like on my cordless drill. Unless you can find one thats a knockoff. 

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 Don, about fifteen years ago I bought a 14.4 volt Craftsman drill set for $10.00 at a garage sale. I thought it was a good deal,only needed the batteries replaced.

How much could they be?  Sears was still around and they were $80. for the two NiCad batteries that came in the set.

Way too much money to spend for a $10. drill. There has to be a better way.

After doing some Google searching, I found the answer .  https://www.instructables.com/Revive-Nicad-Batteries-by-Zapping-with-a-Welder/

You can revive those NiCad batteries  and it works.

I zapped the two NiCad batteries 15 years ago and they are still working today.

My son worked in a place back then that was tossing three drills,chargers,  and 28 dead batteries, he asked to have them and he took them home.

I zapped them all and they all worked for well over 10 years. He gave his two brothers each a drill,charger and 9 batteries.

I was still working then and charged up all kinds of tool batteries for people by zapping them with a welder

This trick of zapping doesn't apply to dead Lithium batteries.

I haven't tried reviving Lithium batteries but there is a method for doing so.

https://sciencing.com/revive-lithium-ion-batteries-5982537.html

So before you go and buy a new expensive battery for your tool try resurrecting the life back into your old one.

-G

the gold wrapper tells me it's a cheap aftermarket battery;
If my memory serves me, the iphone 4/4S used a black wrapper on OE batteries;
I believe that this generation of iphone had good OE batteries - but they would wear out.

That's too bad - I still like the 4S - they were the perfect size, and did everything you could want a phone to do;
The camera had room for improvement though.

My brother had batteries replaced in their iphones years ago, and last summer they noticed the phone their daughter was using (basically as a wifi-only ipod) was swelling;
I removed the bad battery and replaced it with a good one from a parts phone.

This WAS a replacement battery. Ive gone through two phones since I retired this one & Id forgotten I had changed the battery. Good eye unruhjonny!!
Just to be clear, this wasnt posted to complain about Apple. Ive had 3 iPhones and Im a big fan. This phone sat in a drawer for a few years and I was shocked when I discovered the swelling, but yes, it was a $10 cheap replacement..