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
Great law. The only positive about non removable batteries was cheap and easy waterproofing of phones. But Samsung figured out waterproofing with a removable battery in the Galaxy S5 9 years ago, so I'm sure manufacturers will figure out a way.
Phones aren't even changing that much year to year anymore. They aren't getting thinner and battery life is pretty decent no matter what you buy. There's no reason to not do it. I'm sure the corpos will market it as how it was their idea the entire time because they care about the environment so much lol.
Might need the user to occasionally check and replace a rubber gasket on the battery compartment or something, but having a replaceable battery outweighs that by so much. If the battery on my old phone wasn't dying I'd still be using it, all I do is watch youtube and doomscroll anyways.
They eliminated SIM cards? But how do the phones even work then
eSIM annoyingly forces carrier involvement in some way, shape or form.
I personally love just taking my sim out of my phone and throwing it in an old phone when I know I'll be doing activities that could endanger the very device I need for daily life.
True. I just don’t any use case for it especially since internationally mobile networks have converged on technology so if I go abroad I can use my own phone without fussing with a paper clip and nanosim at the airport
I prefer traveling with a dual sim card slot, because you go to the airport and immediately buy a sim and pop it in.
With esim I feel like your carrier back home can be more dickish, do you not have to contact them? I don't know how they work tbh
If I could just add infinitely many esims I want from any country by only contacting new carriers then that would be cool.
My carrier has good international roaming rates (fixed fee per day) which for a short trip is easier than getting a sim
Edit: to clarify, esim or physical sim don’t matter because I just use international roaming which is like $5 per day in most places.
Canadian carriers are the biggest fuckers and roaming rates are ridiculous.
It's cheaper to buy a foreign sim and then roam in Canada. Some people buy American plans and then roam all the time, but I think they started cracking down on this.
There’s a lot of free roaming in Canada and Mexico with american carriers
also they didnt use the empty space for anything cause the non US versions still have sim trays
Literally just has a piece of plastic in there to take up the space
I don't really miss them that much tbh. Even cheapo bluetooth airbuds are pretty good nowadays and there are probably some good wired USB-C options if you're really hell bent on having wires everywhere.
You don't miss the jack until you're suddenly faced with a need for it, away from all your adapters. Nothing beats just a single common plug that can interface with every bit of audio electronics ever.
I love my bt ear buds but 98% of bluetooth audio gear is ewaste from the factory.
USB C options suck because it means you can't charge the phone at the same time
I mean obviously it's better than nothing but it's still annoying and definitely doesn't justify obviously anti-user practises on the part of manufacturers
How about if you're going to make one port do double duty, you have two of them.
Tbf most of us don’t make the one port do double duty, we use Bluetooth headphones
This is great. One of the biggest scams in phones was sealing the gd things to make sure performance would decay over a few years as the battery wore out.
And then throttling the phone so the performance went to shit. "This old phone is so slow - better buy a new one!" Apple made billions with this approach.
This kicks ass. The current regime of forced obsolescence bullshit must be stopped. If the phone's design must be 0.5mm thicker to accommodate a removable battery design then so be it. Little loss for massive gain.
I like how these big tech companies pretend they can make any innovation happen with enough ingenuity and r&d, except for user-friendly, human-friendly, climate-friendly ones. Oh no, now we can't charge people $99 for a battery replacement (which our market research shows that realistically means they just will buy a whole new phone!)
Who even cares about how sleek a phone is when the vast majority of people put it in a protective case anyway?
I have a mophie case with a built-in backup battery for my S8 that can also charge wirelessly, a feature that I only used maybe... twice ever. Also it has a magnet to stick ny phone onto the fridge which won't hold because the phone and case are too heavy, so it'll just slide down the fridge door, lol
My Xiaomi feels kickass during the time I take it out of its protective cover and put it in the phone holder on my electric scooter. Then after the map software guides me to my destination I take it out of its holder and put it right back in the cover.
Because you have to. The cover provides valuable impact resistance for the time when you will inevitably drop the phone. Without it, you'll easily crack the screen.
There are phone covers that are made to work with phone holders, at least for iphones. I guess maybe the holder can't fit on a scooter handle though.
i just want a little switch on the side that physically disconnects the camera and microphone from the mobo and battery. It would be so easy, please EU, force this upon production. Don't you want to get back at the US for blowing up that pipe? Why not fuck with their surveillance state, as treat, as a little joke?
lol spying on people through their cameras probably aint as useful as as looking at everything they're looking at.
The microphone, though . . . probably still not as useful, but at least a very distinct use
apple business model in shambles. pretty soon every new episode of Ted Lasso will be required to have 4 apple products being used in every shot, with a character saying shit like, "I love how my Apple Watch interfaces with my Apple Monitor Stand for premium technological and design synergy. It just works!"
the intro music is going to be redone using only iphone notification sounds.
As someone who uses Apple products: good. I'm finally getting a USB-C phone this year, then next time I get a new phone it will have a removable battery. Hopefully they do headphone jacks next.
Gentlemen, it is with great displeasure to announce that maybe sometimes you do have to hand it to them.
Probably, not sure why they'd have two separate manufacturing processes for the same phone.
I forget if its still this way, but for a while android phones, especially samsung would have two separate processors for the US and EU models. basically two different devices in the same chassis.
Yeah I think they stopped doing it, but for a while it was the snapdragon and the Exynos
I don’t get why everyone here’s shitting on Apple specifically. When’s the last time a major Android phone company made replaceable batteries? A decade?
It used to be commonplace, alongside several other consumer-friendly features that slowly got stripped away as Android phones became more Apple-like to compete. That's why.
I just enjoy shitting on Apple. Regardless of the circumstances. Ofc I own a Iphone (second hand though)
My current phone, the LG v20 was I think the last " one. Looks like it came out in the end of 2016 so not quite a decade, but it's been quuuite a long time.
Apple is probably the most popular phone manufacturer of users' phones here
Got fond memories of buying a little LCD screen for one of those sliding phones back in ye olden days and just slapping the new LCD in with 0 tools and training lol.
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.
Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro
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.
they're too busy sending IT a bunch of stats (and screenshots???)
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.
but I think it’s logical for people to want smaller thinner phones.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t miss headphone jacks either, as Bluetooth is really convenient
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think both thermal design and waterproofing is easier with nonremovable batteries. But that's fine, I'm okay with slightly shittier phones that last longer. Also okay with risking water damage, as I think batteries no longer holding charge is more common than water damage anyway. Hell, I've had more issues with moisture sensors than actual water damage lol.
