Say what you want about the EU, but at least they keep greedy companies in check as much as they can.
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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They could certainly do better, but they do quite a bit yeah.
For sure, but it's better than nothing. Imagine the world without the EU... shudders
Yeah, agreed
Well… for iPhones (and other smartphones) I’m not sure if anything changes. There is a exception in the regulation: if the device is waterproof, it is enough if the manufacturer or repair shops can change the battery for you. They do not need to be user replaceable.
But probably for MacBooks, there will be replaceable batteries in the future. I don’t see, how Apple will find a way around this regulation.
Apple Watch: they are waterproof —> nothing changes.
AirPods: well… are they waterproof? I don’t see user changeable batteries ever. Perhaps they will become waterproof in the future too? :) AirPods, now also for swimming and diving!
iPads: well: probably there will be changeable batteries in the future. Or we will have underwater Tablets soon. We just need another input method. Probably gestures like the VisionPro?
How is “water proof” defined in the legislation? Apple carefully says their devices are water resistant. There is a possibility that it will not qualify.
The industry standard is the IP rating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_code
The first digit is dust protection grade.
The second digit is water protection grade.
IP67 is a common consumer electronics requirement.
It's not just Apple. Almost all manufacturers offer water resistant flagship phones (and mid-rangers). ASUS, Xiaomi, Oppo, Huawei, Sony, Samsung, Vivo, Honor...
However, the phones are NOT water-proof. From none of these (neither Apple). They are water-resistant, which is a big difference and they are just required to not be damaged if submerged underwater for 30 minutes, 1.5m, if they want IP68.
Phones and smartwatches are not resistant to condensation or water getting in – water can still get in, as they're NOT impervious (smartwatches if they have speakers), which is actually required for calling your device truly "water proof". Water resistant is literally two steps below that.
There has been some marketing claiming water proof devices. This was just wrong.
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Being able to have a spare battery in case of emergency (or simply app train/bus tickets) is going to be nice. It's going go be exciting to see how apple will try to circumvent this.
i believe the law is more about easily being able to replace a battery for repair than being able to swap it on the go
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We can relive having your phone explode into three separate pieces when you drop it! Seriously though, this is good news in my opinion.
I doubt they'll circumvent this. They don't seem to circumvent the mandated USB-C port if the rumors are to be trusted.
They already tried, given that the reason that they've held out for so long is because of one of those circumventions.
It's just that the EU is clamping down, and Apple is running out of time on that restriction, hence them moving over to USB-C coincidentally just before the EU would force their hand.
Yeah. And battery issues are one of the biggest sources of new phone purchases. This is going to help reduce e-waste for sure.
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I love what the EU does to technology. Thank you EU!
For real, as an American I'm super grateful.
Now it seems Apple will need to figure out how to allow access to the battery inside future iPhones, as will every other smartphone manufacturer.
There's nothing to figure out. All manufacturers have already used removable batteries in the past. Just blow the dust off the old designs and adapt them!
There will be a lot to figure out. The new designs provide features that the old ones couldn't- and there are very few people who would prioritize a replaceable battery over other features.
I don't know if you ever see the ifixit tear downs, there is no new tricks. The battery is still replaceable, it's just that the manufacturing process adds more stuff to "anti-tempering". Let me list a few:
- special kind of screw, some screw can't be unscrewed without special screw driver
- we all know about glue battery so they are fixed in place AND harder to remove safely.
- they add more of those tiny ribbon around so if you don't know the internal layout there is a chance you break the ribbon.
- plastic wedge that might be broken when you try to pry it open(so when you put the cover back it's a bit loose, and lose water resist), even with proper tool. They designed it so it was not suppose to open again. ( I have a old casio slim camera that can still be water resistant with removable battery, there is no reason why a phone can't do the same with modern materials. )
there are very few people who would prioritize a replaceable battery over other features.
I gotta gently push back against this. You may not know them personally, but there are a LOT of people who have gone back to dumbphones over this. IMO, this is a large part of why dumbphone sales are catching up on smartphone sales for the first time in years. I even know some elderly folks who stopped using cell phones entirely when smartphones stopped having replaceable batteries (easier to going back to having a landline when one is retired/not raising kids, of course).
There are very few people who buy the currently existing smartphones who would prioritize this feature, yes -- because anyone who does prioritize this feature has been excluded from the entire smartphone market for several years now.
It'd also go well with modern battery packs, because you can just have a spare battery sitting and charging away in your bag, and can swap it on the fly, without having to have a cable dangling about that might get caught on things, or bent the wrong way.
The only downside with a replaceable battery is that you have to switch the phone off to do it, but that's small potatoes for effectively charging the phone to full in an instant.
I think it's extremely hard to tell what people would prioritize. If you aks them hypothetically, everyone probably is some green warrior for mother earth. But then when push comes to shove, the industry will give them the choice between a flagship phone, glued all around, and a phone with a removable battery with all the greatest specs from five years ago. Of course many will chose the glued one, and then some people will be like "welp, the free market has decided". 🤷
edit: typo
greatest specs from five years ago. Of course many will chose the glued ond, and then some people will be like "welp, the free market has decided". 🤷
This whole practice infuriates me to no end. The market has never truly been given a choice in any of these changes since every phone worth buying has copied the others (removing headphone jack, replaceable batteries, SD card slot, no charger, etc) all around the same time. Never stops sycophants from telling the rest of us that nobody wants these features 'becuz da market sayz so.'
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They sure will fight it. The main counter-argument I see is water proofing, but I believe I've seen a phone with good proofing but still accessible. Don't remember the brand and model though.
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I think we reached a point where flagship phones are good enough to be used for more than 5 years. But the battery won't live that long, for. most people. I've replaced my previous phone, after four years of using it, for the most part because of the battery. I'm looking forward to replaceable batteries returning and helping at least some of us keep our phones for a few more years.
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My Fairphone 3 already has replaceable batteries. What is really missing is an industry-standard form factor, like ATX/ITX exists for desktops.
If there were a standard, we'd be able to upgrade the components as needed. We wouldn't be forced to waste perfectly good displays just because we would like to upgrade the CPU. Companies wouldn't be pushing for new upgrades every year. Apple/Samsung wouldn't be able to hold their dominance because it would be easier for smaller players to specialize in specific components. The entire maker community wouldn't have to be fighting over Raspberry PI and we could even have a cottage industry around upcycled consumer electronics.
It’s the first time I hear about Fairphone. How they embrace repairability is amazing. I hope they’ll expand to North America at one point.
That would be quite utopian, however I feel such a thing would be incredible hard to achieve. Different form factors require different layouts, space is much tighter and should not be wasted. In desktop PC land, you have plenty of room to fit things as you want.
It may not be showstopper, but it's certainly a challenge. And of course, companies won't like it :P
I feel like the opposite: the constraints are so well-known and so well defined that most phones end up looking the same anyway, we might as well just take one of them (any of them!) and make it a standard.
companies won’t like it
Apple/Samsung surely won't. But I'd bet that the smaller ones would like to have some type of level-playing field. Also, imagine the amount of startups that could come up in the space.
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So there's going to be a catch here and I'm curious how it will work out. Integrating the battery directly into the phone without it being easily removable is going to mean less capacity since the battery will need a heavier-duty shell since you can't rely on the phone itself for protection. I get the e-waste angle but generally I wouldn't keep a phone past the end of updates anyways, and usually battery life is still acceptable at 4 years with good practices (not charging to 100% and holding it there overnight, etc).
My last two phones both got slow as their batteries got bad, and were basically like new after replacing them. My current phone doesn't allow swapping the batteries.
For someone thrifty, being able to replace the battery can extend a phone's life 2x or more. Even if you don't want to keep using it, you could still resell it or give it to someone who doesn't need the newest phones. Non-swappable batteries are a form of planned obsolescence, in addition to just being more compact and probably a little cheaper.
I've had my current phone for around 5 years. I'm on the latest LineageOS. I have no speed issues. The battery is starting to show signs of age. My previous phone had a longer life and got through two batteries. It was up to date with LineageOS until it's last days. It was lack of RAM that did it in. My current phone still has mid level amount of RAM.
EU needs to look at updatablity next. If the vendors no longer provides real updates, they should unlock the bootloader. Really I want phones to like PCs and not require a custom OS each....
I imagine they can still use screws and the connectors like they do. The screws just need to be some place you can get to without having to use a heat gun to remove your entire damn screen.
I've always wondered if there is a physical limitation why the battery couldn't go in like a sim card? Just a slot where it goes in. I'm curious how this all will work out.
That's pretty much how it used to work.
The main reasons why it changed are:
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Space, as a connector is slightly bigger than a soldered connection, and the battery itself has to be slightly bigger and stronger too to be safe to transport and handle without being protected by the phone's case.
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Water resistance; it's far easier to make a phone's case waterproof by just glueing the whole thing shut than having to use seals and gaskets and such to make it possible to open and close it at will.
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Had to replace my previous phone due to bad battery.
Kept it safe, used cover and screen protection, but the battery got so bad it was not mobile anymore.
Now? Now all the complexity that went into making the phone is e-waste, what a shame.
Exactly! It bums me so much that the vast majority of the money you spent buying the device and of the money spent making the device is completely thrown out because you can't replace a little component that was perfectly replaceable 10 years ago.... 🙄
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Will the phones still be waterproof?
Louis Rossmann did a video on this and pointed out that there were phones that had IP67 (Samsung Galaxy S5) or even IP68 (some Sony phone) rating with user replaceable batteries. So yeah, they should be.
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I don't see why they wouldn't be.
It wasn't all that long ago that we had waterproof phones, with similar ratings as current phones, whilst also having a replaceable battery.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 had an IP67 rating, for example, despite having a headphone jack, and a replaceable battery/removable back. (it also featured wireless charging, which was surprisingly forward for the time).
That’s a generous timeline, but I’m sure manufacturers are whining about it anyway.
Naturally. Just a shame it isn't a bit earlier :P
Given the state of technology the battery decaying wasn't the issue in my latest phones. It was performance of the device. Apps keep evolving and at some point your device just can't keep up anymore.
Went from a Moto g6 I think to a Pixel3 and now a pixel 6 pro. Batteries can be charged everywhere, CPU's can't be overclock without limits.
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