obviously, but stuff like this is still neat 
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.
Eat shit and drink piss, Apple. I have a desk drawer full of old phones with removable batteries, we had this shit figured out 20 years ago
mfw waterproof phones become a gasket nightmare with flaps over ports and shit again. Love to unplug my phone and have it go "uhm. Excuse me, you uhhh... Didn't close the charging port flap all the way. Gonna need you to do that before you can call 911 because you're bleeding out. Oh, lemme hit you with a quick speaker-clearing buzz to get that water out."
The Galaxy S5 was the only one that did it decently back then, it had a charging port flap, but no other ones or weird speaker flaps. And waterproof charging ports have been done without a flap since then.
The CAT phones and other waterproof androids back then were some proper monstrosities with all the flaps and speaker buzzing crap though
And yet, current glued up flagships are now more water resistant than the s5 was, because of it. I don't believe anyone has gotten a design with a removable battery above IP67, but most phones are IP68 now
The Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro managed to get IP68 with a removable battery back in 2020, but it looks like a fucking brick lol. No one is going to buy one of those. It's like one of those old school waterproof android monstrosities, but new.
Fucking the place where I was working around that time had a bunch of xcover pros and they were truly heinous devices. Imagine a lowend device specswise. but coated in all of the little flaps and useless buttons and aggravating ass little bullshit, wrapped up in a mandatory shitty otterbox style case that alerts corporate wirelessly if it's removed. Then bog it down with a shitload of enterprise software that's phoning home so often that apps crash because they're too busy sending IT a bunch of stats (and screenshots???) we don't want, need, or use in the background. Truly Dankpods tier unusable hardware made to chuck straight in the bin, but then bogged down with the most pointless software, all so that field techs could use an app to report what's going on... As though they couldn't just do that from their own phone or something.
Also no idea how those things were ip68, we got so many trashed ones back that were wet because of people dropping them in something, having to remove the case to dry it, and crack it open to get the water out of the back plate (whether or not that was actually necessary) and then it inevitably came back to us, destroyed.
Screenshots lmao. Poor IT department.
But that phone looks hideous, and now sounds like it too from what you said. Truely a pointless device destined for e-waste. I just don't get why these things exist, same with the CAT smartphones. Slapping a thick case on a normal phone probably provides more protection, if users want that.
To be honest, the reason that individual people buy all of these devices is to signal working class status and/or larp at being more blue collar than they really are. Largely the same thing as buying an OtterBox for your iphone. "I'm a big boy in my truck and I need an otterbox because nothing else protects my phone well enough from the rugged activities I do as an architect or insurance salesman."
The reason corporate buys these devices is because they read the specs and they go "wow it's durable? We won't have to replace so many of them! Military specs?
Bazinga! Get operations to order exactly 1 for every frontline employee!" They're much cheaper than something like a zebra device, which is basically the same thing but done correctly, but you absolutely get what you pay for when it comes to enterprise computers. However, corporate doesn't notice or care if their workers have to scan things 10 times with a camera or deal with constant app crashes, so spending 1/4 as much is fine by them.
I bet user-replaceable will just mean technically possible for a user to do, with the right tool kit purchased at €100. I didn’t really look into it though.
Tbh the design drawbacks of easy battery swap are kinda not worth it. I would rather just force manufacturers to replace batteries at cost or host a recycling program which allows a phone to be traded in for purchase price minus fair market battery price.
Phone repair is ludicrously expensive, especially with cheaper phones. When your phone cost <150€, paying 80 to repair it just doesn't feel like it's worth it. You'd rather just get a new one at that point
If manufacturers are given the option between user-serviceable batteries vs at-cost replacement, that still amounts to a win for the users without limiting phone design possibilities. Forcing battery swap design will most likely reduce battery life by a little bit as space has to be sacrificed for serviceability.
phones have been getting thinner because of a marketing circlejerk we could had easy replaceable batteries that lasted a month in 2cm thick phones but steve jobs didn't die in time.
also if your battery is replaceable that means you might be able to get a thicc aftermarket battery or carry spare actual batteries rather than fucking around with a powerbank.
nothing about any of the trends in capitalist hardware design has actually been good for end-users.
I mean it’s hard to separate my own “true” desires versus manufactured consumerist desires, but I think it’s logical for people to want smaller thinner phones. This fact aligning with planned obsolescence doesn’t mean that there is no legitimate reason to design phones in a way that makes it difficult to replace batteries. All that said, I am sure that Apple with their $1T can figure out a good solution for a swappable battery.
no! they were already pointlessly and anti-userly thin before 2015 and that was long before the shit asses started removing headphone jacks.
Well I don’t believe the market is good for much, but the smartphone market is saturated enough that we have a pretty good idea of the form most people want in a phone when balancing aesthetics, weight, ease of handling, durability, waterproofing, screen size, etc. The concerns that you have are easily solved with a phone case, even one with a battery. I don’t miss headphone jacks either, as Bluetooth is really convenient and not that expensive anymore.
The focus should not be “the mainstream phone design shouldn’t exist” but rather on the fact that market forces incentivize standardization to cut costs, whereas a hypothetical economy driven by use-value instead of profit would be able to support production of niche/specialized commodities without concern for profit.
no we have a good idea of what apple marketing and apple-chasing companies will push.
bluetooth sounds worse than a wire and nobody wanted to buy new shitty earbuds for no reason or deal with charging issues on another device. Doubly so for anyone who replaced their mp3 player or walkman with a phone at any point and cares literally at all about audio quality. I already had these $80 earbuds that sound pretty dang good why the fuck should i buy a worse product that's easier to lose and needs to be charged?
Bluetooth headphones definitely do have their uses, but I am still firmly pro headphone jack
Having wired earbuds ripped out of my ear is annoying and it is not infrequent. Wireless is way more convenient for a bunch of reasons but especially when moving. Bluetooth also doesn’t inherently sound worse, there are codecs which are very good and will not make a difference unless you’re an audiophile with excellent equipment sitting in a quiet environment in which you could just plug into a computer jack anyway. For most situations with a phone, wireless makes more sense.
Anyway, I didn’t really want to have a battle of preferences as my original point is that there are reasons other than mustache-twirling capitalism that one would design a device with a difficult-to-replace battery. And although this EU decision is for consumers, there are actual downsides which may be outweighed by the benefits, but which exist nonetheless.
My phone with a headphone jack also supports your wireless headphones. Your bluetooth only phone doesn't support mine.
Maybe it's just me but I'd rather not buy earbuds that have a built in expiration date in the form of batteries. I don't think a marginal convenience benefit is worth that.
Markets have many uses and your example is not one of them. People can only buy what is being sold, and advertising spin warps what they would choose from among those options. It is hard to say what "the form most people want in a phone" is given we only have such wildly skewed information on the topic.
I imagine it's going to be similar to user replaceable displays, you'll need a couple specialized tools to break open the glue holding the case together etc. and a device-spesific guide. So not everyone is going to be able to do it, but there's a reasonable possibilty.
wrist watches have had the technology to be waterproof with moving components and reusable gaskets for decades.
Just use screws instead of glue on the back panel and you're golden.