About this replacement
Apple MacBook Pro 13 — 10.95V Li-Polymer Replacement Battery (A1322)
This is a 10.95V, 5800mAh (63.51Wh) lithium-polymer battery for the Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch. It fits the A1278 chassis across 2009–2012 model years, including MB990, MB991, MC374, MC375, MD313, and MD314 configurations. If your original A1322 cell is swelling, dropping charge, or no longer holding voltage under load, this is the direct replacement cell.
- A1278 chassis compatibility: All listed MacBook Pro 13-inch A1278 models share the same battery bay dimensions, connector pinout, and SMC handshake protocol. The BMS communicates charge state via the I²C bus on the MagSafe board — voltage and chemistry must match exactly, which is why a 10.95V Li-Polymer cell is required here, not a 10.8V or 11.1V substitute.
- Bench tested on actual hardware: We ran this cell on a MacBook Pro 13-inch A1278 (Mid-2012). The SMC accepted the cell without fault codes, the BMS balanced all three cell groups correctly, and charge current tapered normally from bulk phase through to termination at full capacity.
- Post-install discharge cycle on the A1278: After fitting this cell, run one full discharge until the MacBook hibernates, then charge uninterrupted to 100% without interruption. This forces the SMC to complete a battery learn cycle against the new cell data and clears the inaccurate "Service Battery" warning that commonly appears after any cell swap on this platform.
Why the A1278 shuts down at 20–30% after a battery swap
The MacBook Pro 13-inch uses an SMC-managed fuel gauge IC that stores learned voltage-to-capacity curves from the old cell. When a new cell is fitted, the IC still references the old curve — so it calls an early shutdown when the new cell's voltage cliff doesn't match the stored data. This is not a fault with the replacement cell. The fix is a full discharge-to-hibernate followed by a full uninterrupted charge. After two or three complete cycles, the fuel gauge IC recalibrates against the actual discharge curve of the new cell and the premature shutdowns stop.
macOS reporting "Replace Now" or 0% health immediately after fitting
The A1278 SMC reads cycle count and health data from EEPROM stored on the old battery's BMS board. A brand-new cell has a different EEPROM state, which macOS interprets as a degraded or unknown battery on first boot. This is a firmware read mismatch, not a cell defect. Boot the MacBook, let it complete one full discharge cycle to hibernate, then charge to 100% — the SMC will write fresh calibration data and the health warning will clear within one to three cycles. Check System Information → Power to confirm cycle count resets to a low value.