Another redesign on the cards for iPhone as EU rules call for removable batteries The European Parliament has voted yes to replaceable battery legislation, putting Apple on a path to a second redesign just over a year after USB-C charging ports were mandated in the bloc. Unlike the USB-C redesign, which has a 2024 deadline, the "portable battery" rule will come into play in 2027 at the earliest. That rule, …
Of course they are. Or were the likes of Bozo Boris, Farage, Gove, Priti Vacant, etc lying when they said we'd taken back control?
This latest dictat from Brussels could well be the thing that gets us all to replace our fondleslabs with Amstrad e-mailers and Sinclair ZX-80s.
"I think I'll go for the waterproof one and when the battery needs replacing make the decision to replace the phone or downgrade it by having a new battery put in at the expense of losing the IP rating."
It's not that hard to have both - I have a handheld radio transceiver that has an IP67 rating, an external battery that is designed for rapid replacement in the field, ports for programming/external mic and speaker and a removable antenna - all of these have seals which maintain the watertight rating when fitted correctly. It cost me less than all but the most basic of cellphones, so cost is not a factor either.
I have one of those. Bought when I needed to switch to a smartphone so I had something I could use as a phone and read my Freestyle Libre 2 sensor. I chose it because 1) its fairly robust and 2) it was the smallest I could find that said it had NFC that would talk to my sensor. Waterproofing is "enhanced" with a cheapo cover from the great tat bazaar.
A fine idea, yes (except that your battery would be flat all the time :-)
Even if it's glued on, it can be removable.
Or, the battery pack could put energy into the functional side of the device wirelessly.
Another approach may be to have an option to power the device from an external battery connected by the USB-C port, once the built in battery fails. So you don't remove the original battery, but you replace it by adding on another one.
"Another approach may be to have an option to power the device from an external battery connected by the USB-C port, once the built in battery fails. So you don't remove the original battery, but you replace it by adding on another one."
You mean a "powerbank", but custom designed like a car phone cradle to fit a specific model snugly so the hipster super slim phone suddenly becomes twice as thick? It''ll never catch on :-)
I'm a scuba diver' all of my kit has removable / replaceable batteries. Granted I'm not taking a mobile phone with me under water, but my club has both a hand held gps and marine radio with batteries I can swap (while at sea).errproof
Don't buy the marketing hype that it must be sealed. Sealing it makes it harder to repair, not waterproof
Not quite sure why the thumbs down. I was responding to the assertion that sealing (a phone/device) makes it harder to repair rather than waterproof, which is marketing hype for why it must be sealed.
It's not purely that it makes it harder to repair - with all other things being equal i.e. it has an equivalent IP rating, by sealing the case rather than compartmentalising the device so it has a removable battery pack (each compartment also having an IP rating), it saves on the thickness of the compartment walls, thereby making the device thinner. Though it's been many years since I was out on boats regularly and going snorkelling (never done SCUBA diving), I am fairly certain that whilst there is a whole host of waterproof devices with interchangeable batteries, the only IP68 device that's going to be just 8mm thick is one of those Pro-slate things that doesn't have batteries!
Not that you'd take an iPhone 14 snorkelling let alone SCUBA diving... just saying. That kind of kit achieves swappability of batteries etc at the expense of being a bit bulkier than your market would stand for. Thinness sold at one point. Still does really, with the roll up phone being apparently an industry goal.
not a scuba diver but a snorkeler and I use an aquapac bag for an old note3. this performs very well under water but I imagine the pressure will kill it before the bag gives way. It is certainly harder to use a couple of meters down so scuba diving would definitely render it useless.
"They'll design phones with snap on backs and glue them shut"
Last Christmas I got an underwater camera for my kid. It has a removable battery and SD card, covered by a simple sliding hatch secured by a tiny latch. It's not just 'splash-proof' or 'water-resistant', it's 'can be held and operated completely underwater for long stretches of time'. It was even pretty cheap.
Waterproofing a removable battery phone doesn't require any glue, nor much (if any) additional expense, just a decent design. The reason phone companies don't like removable batteries has nothing to do with waterproofing, it's to gouge customers on repairs, force them to upgrade after 2-3 years instead of 5-6, and making the case half a mm thinner (against any reason since beyond a certain slimness, it just makes the phone less comfortable to hold).
"an EU spec phone because it came with dual sim,".
Given the history of dual sim I find it a bit odd to connect it to the EU like that.
""The first phone to include dual SIM functionality was the Benefon Twin, released by Benefon in 2000.[7] More dual SIM phones were introduced in about 2007, most of them coming from small Chinese firms producing phones using Mediatek systems-on-a-chip. They started to attract mainstream attention.[8][9]
Such phones were initially eschewed by major manufacturers due to potential pressure from telecommunications companies,[10] but from about 2010 Nokia, Samsung, Sony and several others followed suit,"..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_SIM#History
Most manufacturers will build just one model that meets all the requirements, but not all of them. If the EU has this regulation and nobody else does, they might get the model for those regulations and a different one will be produced for the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. The UK could easily get that one. If other large countries had this regulation, that probably wouldn't be as likely; agreement by the EU, US, China, and India would be enough to make manufacturers design in one way.
If they chose to do so, they have a variety of marketing methods they could use:
The iPhone with sealed battery can use a flexible cell, meaning this one is technically higher capacity than that one.
The iPhone with sealed battery is waterproof, because the EU never said the other one had to be, so we didn't try to make it.
The iPhone with sealed battery can have the battery replaced for £79 at the Apple store, and the one with replaceable battery can be replaced for £99 at home.
Or the simplest option: The iPhone with sealed battery is the one we sell in your country, and if you want an iPhone, this is the one you can buy here. You can do whatever you want, but this is the iPhone you'll get unless you specifically find one we sold somewhere else.
That last tactic isn't exactly new. They've had country-specific iPhone models before, for example a model for China which has multiple SIM slots. Android manufacturers go much further. It's common for Samsung devices to have two different versions involving completely different processors, GPUs, and modems depending on the region, and it's not even the same regional split each time. The models look the same and are called the same thing. For example, you can get a Samsung Galaxy S22. If you got it in Europe (I don't know what counts as Europe for this purpose), it has a Samsung Exynos 2200 processor. If you get it outside Europe, it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 gen 1 SoC. Why? I don't know, and Samsung didn't explain it. I bet it has an effect on software updates and supported features though. It indicates that phone manufacturers aren't above making regional variants and they could use this if they object enough to a regulation so they can ignore it where it doesn't apply.
I tried to get the International version of Amazon's Fire TV stick. They advertised it but wouldn't sell it to me. The only one they would sell was the UK version, at the same price. I live in the Channel Islands, which aren't even inside the UK. I assume there's all sorts of licencing issues that control this but maybe there are various restrictions hard-wired in.
I thought of you today - your location - when there was someone chatting on the radio about wanting to harmonise how British Muslims can recognise the new moon and therefore the start of a new month - or whatever the issue is that they were talking about.
When it's cloudy.
Would a UK standard apply where you are? And to how many people?
I also remembered this coverage of what happens when someone invents a new way to do something to improve on different methods by which people are already doing the thing.
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/927:_Standards
"The iPhone with sealed battery can use a flexible cell, meaning this one is technically higher capacity than that one."
I could easily see Apple in particular doing that just to "spite" the EU. "Oh, sorry, you made us fit a user replaceable battery and there's less space now, so sorry it only has half the capacity, not our fault guv, honest!"
And yeah, I could also see official Apple replacement batteries being noticeably more expensive.
The iPhone with sealed battery can have the battery replaced for £79 at the Apple store, and the one with replaceable battery can be replaced for £99 at home.
Except if the phone in question is more than a few years old but still supported OS-wise, in which case we don't carry any models in store to swap it out with so here's the new models we have...
A GB specific model. EU regulations apply in Northern Ireland.
Even if they did, are Currys / Carphone Warehouse, the phone networks and so on, going to want to have separate SKUs for their Northern Ireland, and in some cases Irish outlets? They would just sell the EU compliant model everywhere.
Its called the "Brussels" effect of raising standards everywhere so that they only have to make one model
And as other have said, it's not hard just have the battery in a separate compartment from the rest of the sealed phone. If it gets wet just pop the battery out, let it dry and pop it back in.
As happens with cars, etc.
Really? I've bought cars in the UK and EU, and haven't seen any significant differences in price that aren't explained by tax rates. The pre-EU days when you could order your car to be picked up from the VW factory & save on taxes are long gone.
The exception might be those cars which have to be specially modified for RHD, but even when we were in the EU no-one ever seriously suggested changing to drive on the right :-)
Oh, I don't know. My mum told me about a report that everyone was outraged about a few years ago. Fact is that prices for new cars vary wildly between countries due to things like tax breaks for go-faster (or in Belgium go-slower) stripes. L-2-R conversion isn't expensive but I think fitting the converter to be able drive miles instead of kilometres is expensive! ;-)
I think some kind of cartel (sic) was discovered where something like a Corsa got slapped with a 2 grand surcharge just for crossing the channel. In the current post-pandemic, post-brexit climate lots of companies have found lots of excuses for increasing charges and customers in the UK do have less choice than before.
"L-2-R conversion isn't expensive..."
There are some huge LHD markets, not just the UK but India, Australia, Japan to mention just 3. There isn't any "conversion" involved, just a mirroring of the design (trivially easy in CAD). Most parts don't even need to be changed (AFAIK stalk and dashboard controls are the same whether RHD or LHD), and the few parts that need a mirrored version are anyway produced in such large amounts (because of the above mentioned large LHD markets) that they aren't any more expensive than the 'RHD' parts.
It requires that the car be designed with LHD/RHD equivalence. Some sports cars, especially those built in limited numbers for homologation purposes, can't be converted. At the other end of the scale, the Mk1 Twingo couldn't be provided in RHD form because Renault assumed it would sell in small numbers and it was too expensive to design the engine bay to allow the steering column and pedals to be swappable. They were somewhat taken aback by how successful it was, and made sure that later models could be either-handed. There are some older cars with truly horrible conversions, with long levers between repositioned pedal boxes on one side and the original attachment points on the other, which makes for poor brake and clutch feel.
The original Mini was a doddle to change as the shell already had all the holes. The major part that had to be changed (apart from headlamps) was the steering rack. Speedo in the middle so no change needed. Just a different dial if you wanted kph.
Remember a few years ago there was an issue with the passenger being able to apply the brakes on some French cars?
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-13566999
All the brake hydraulics was left in the original spot and a bar used to allow the pedal to be mounted on the right hand side. The result being there was a sweet spot on the passenger footwell where you could press on the lever that actuated the master cylinder. I had an Alfa that did similar although without the option of passenger activation.
something like a Corsa got slapped with a 2 grand surcharge just for crossing the channel
And quite right too. Who the hell do those Corsans think they are, coming over here claiming asylum, getting heart transplants on the NHS, living for free in 5 star hotels, taking thousands in dole money, etc, etc? Didn't Brexit put a stop to that?
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This covers more than just phones, it is anything with a battery in it. And about darn time too. I'm not too fussed about phone batteries being easy to replace cos as you say they usually last the life of the phone. Less glue in the construction would be good! Your average repair shop can swap out an iphone 6 battery in no time at all.
It is estimated that 100-150 MILLION single use vape things were sold in the UK in 2022. As each one has a 1.5-2Wh battery in it that is some 150-300(ish)MWh of lithium ion batteries used once and binned. Estimates for recycling are under 50%. The rest go in the bin. This needs to be addressed as this is enough lithium to make some major grid storage or a good number of EVs just being thrown away.
In 20 years time we will be mining landfill sites for metals.
I'd hazard a guess that anyone thinking about this is awaiting some govt handouts. As we've seen from the Intel fab in Germany there is 'free' money to be had. No-one wants to be the first any more as instead of being a pioneer and profiting you will be the only one not getting the handouts.
Cynical I know.
Kim Stanley Robison had a company, "Dump Mines", in his Mars trilogy. The company processed old landfill sites for resources that were getting harder and harder to find. Right now there is a lot more sorting of waste before it goes to landfill since it's a very good revenue stream for trash pickup companies. In the US, few people collect up their Al cans, glass bottle and plastic containers to take to a recycling center for money. They often will wind up using their blue wheelie bin for misc waste as well. The problem is that even with an added redemption tax, it's a whole car load of smelly waste for just a few bucks. This means that with a bit of sorting, the waste hauler gets the money. The only things I keep separate and take in myself are cans/bottles with redemption value. The balance of plastic and metal waste I stick in the blue bin and put that on the curb a few times a years when it gets fullish.
Even better than recycling is reuse. I'm jealous of The Post Apocalyptic Inventor's access to a really good metal scrap yard. In the US, insurance restrictions prevent much of that sort of thing. With all of the restoring videos on the web these days, collecting up 2-3 angle grinders and making a nice working one out of them isn't a big mystery. Even easier if the maker or a third party will sell parts. I bought an electric chainsaw that didn't work from a second hand shop and only needed to buy a new set of brushes along with a good cleanup and a few repairs on the internal wiring. $15 and about 3 hours of time. I bought the chainsaw to use the bar and chain, but when that wouldn't fit my pole saw, I repaired it. Chopping up all of the parts of the chainsaw to recycle the material would have been a waste of energy when a repair is the better option.
If Apple does the job then the price is £89, so presumably ~€100.
On the one hand, the XS launched at £999 so that's around 9% of the total to extend the lifetime by hopefully a lot more than 9%.
On the other, an XS is definitely not worth £999 now so 9% probably isn't accurate, and that £89 has to be mostly labour. Third-party replacements seem to be a lot cheaper, so an at-home replacement would presumably be cheaper still and you'd be more confident about the provenance of the battery.
Are you mixing up "easy for a technical person to do" and "easy for everyone to do"? As replacing a battery in an iPhone is not easy for everyone to do. Eg. if my mother wanted a new battery, there's less than zero chance she'd be able to do it.
On a handset with an actual user swappable battery though? She'd be fine with it.
There are always degrees of easiness. Some people would struggle to change any battery. Then there are watches with their various ways of accessing through the back.
Two screws and a sucker pad to pop off the screen, unplug and unstick battery. Replace with new battery push screen back on, put screws back in. Did my mum's phone too.
This is so much easier than the ipad or the old ipod which are glued.
There have been years of bad glass and glue issues interfering with the repairability. Glad to see the manufacturers feet held to the coals on this one, the engineering changes shouldn't break much. Note that the battery need to be replaceable (not necessarily external) to meet the requirements.
But does it need to be?
If the battery only needs replacing after 4+ years then it doesn’t need to be as simple. The back can be glued on using an adhesive that can be weakened by the use of say a hairdryer. The important bit is that the battery can be removed and not be embedded in resin or hidden under other components and thus requiring a full disassembly…
It's not just battery lifetime benefits.
A user-swappable battery without adhesive or any other BS can have its charge extended by the simple method of having one or more spare batteries. Sure, you could theoretically do that today with your ifixit toolkit and a tube of glue, but one is obviously just better than the other.
All of this just comes down to how the phone is designed. If you design a phone in two halves, with the screen, processor, radios, sensors and connectors in one half and the battery in the other half of the case with spring-loaded connectors, then you make battery replacement a lot easier for aftermarket people, and you simplify your own assembly processes as well.
To replace the battery, or even to add a much larger battery, just unscrew the half-dozen screws holding the battery half of the case to the rest of the phone and detach it, and add back the new one and screw it back again. For even easier work, make the screws captive in the battery housing so the user cannot easily lose them. A nice thick O-ring to seal the whole thing and you have a nice, easy solution that the bulk of tinkerers and high street repairers cannot get wrong.
I'm not 100% with the EU on this one as integrated batteries often make for a more compact (and toilet water proof) unit, and contacts are prone to corrosion and other issues, amplified by the amount of power going through them.
Your case is typical in that it's often only the battery that's reaching end of life, not the rest of the phone but I would venture it probably would be safer if we left repairs to repair shops who can get the required skills and who get themselves insured for when things go wrong. So, taking your problem as an example, maybe they ought to mandate maximum charges for battery replacement, with repair shops holding the required technical skills to perform the swap.
As for now, I think for you it might be worth just having the battery replaced. Depends on how much it costs, I guess.
Laptops are another issue with many having soldered on RAM and SSDs. Can't upgrade ANYTHING! And even if it isn't soldered on it can be a nightmare to get to. My OH has one of the last intel 27" macs and it is a lovely bit of kit but to change the M2 SSD you have to remove the screen and its all clipped together.
You can make a device with a removable battery waterproof... it's not all that difficult.s
In fact I'd argue that iPhone batteries are already user replaceable... though I haven't read the legislation, does it require it to be possible without tools?
Need a little bit better of an adhesive removal mechanism - or a couple of screws through some retaining clips
"You can make a device with a removable battery waterproof... it's not all that difficult."
That's right, my fairly cheap Samsung Galaxy Xcover is waterproof and has a replaceable battery. Reasonably robust too. Possibly a few mm thicker than other phones - the horror!
A good example of small electronic kit with a user-replaceable battery is https://tentaclesync.com/sync-e the manufacturer's replacement battery kit (which includes the required tools) costs less than 10% of the price of the unit.
So it's perfectly possible.
Yeah, no. As others have indicated nothing about a replaceable battery implies having to give up waterproofing. Contact corrosion would only be an issue for devices with an external battery well, and going back to an easier case opening wouldn't impact the devices much. There would possibly be a slight reduction in the max batter size you could squeeze into the same size device, as designs with multiple smaller cells packed directly against the logic boards may be less attractive.
As most mention this really just means moving the case design back a little bit, and the main setbacks would be how thin/light the phone is. Considering bendygate problems were already a concern an extra couple mm/mg isn't going to ruin the market.
Well that's in your opinion, personally I'll be replacing the phone either way long before the battery needs replacing, so I'd prefer it be as thin and small as possible with the largest capacity battery possible without any compromise to make it reoveable. So I'm totally against this mandate from the EU altogether.
maybe they ought to mandate maximum charges for battery replacement, with repair shops holding the required technical skills to perform the swap
Hmmm, rather than going for a job creation scheme I'd rather have the ability to swap batteries myself. This has the additional benefits, for those that need it, of off really being off and being able to fast swap and go. My battery expiring long before the useful life of the device is a bullsh1t, manufactured (literally) scenario. Best of luck where I am sourcing a replacement battery for an iPhone 8 (still supported on iOS 16) even though the device still works fine.
Sort of. Encouraging users to hold on to their phone a bit longer could also encourage app developers to target somewhat older devices. That's a good effect overall.
Mostly, I'm concerned about new batteries being technically available, but costing nearly as much as a new phone. I hope the legislation addresses this. Ideally, I would just mandate standard formats, like we had for old-style batteries for decades, but no, we have to chase every last fraction of a millimeter... ah, well, one can dream.
Also, it's not just phones. I have a whole lot of devices that really have no reason at all not to be exactly as good and useful ten years from now. I'm thinking flashlights, portable measurers of various things, toys and gadgets, audio devices, the list could go on and on. As things stand now, all of these are pretty much guaranteed to be useless by that date, solely because of the battery. That's insane, and it has to change.
I fervently hope that, at some point, researchers will come up with a battery design that does not degrade quickly with time. In the mean time, though, legislation will have to suffice.
Apple and Google both mandate that developers target current OS versions (released within the last year).
It is possible to support older OS versions as well but the older the version the more security, policy and API changes have happened between that and the current version requiring more workarounds and in some cases making it impossible to support some OS versions.
> Apple and Google both mandate that developers target current OS versions (released within the last year).
Meanwhile, our favourite poster boy for "Why won't they learn to code!' - aka Microsoft - still allow the running of code built for Win2k (and will until they kill off the Win32 API).
The security fixes to the OS are "under the hood"; the API changes are (almost entirely) around adding new features (which you can ignore if you don't to bother with them) and those that aren't are given a backwards compatible form.
Hmm, pretty sure Linux can manage this sort of amazing feat as well.
Strange that Google & Apple can't manage backwards compatibility - do you think there could be any ulterior motive? Can't just be because they aren't as clever as Microsoft!
PS
Lest anyone then claim that any Win2k-compatible exe must be so old that it is itself insecure and dangerous, pretty much all the Windows exes I build are still Win2k compatible[1] whilst using decently up to date OSS libs[2] (so not just my weird code).
The only real "trick" is that some IDEs/compilers generate exes that insist on checking for newer OS versions, so they get options tweaked - or just don't bother with those unless it is really necessary to.
[1] yes, I still build 32-bit as well as 64: I've got perfectly functional 32 bit hardware chugging away, as well as the Win10 box. The 64-bit builds, curiously enough, usually end up XP compatible. Have to admit to not having fired up the Win98 laptop for a while.
[2] do have to sometimes put in a few #ifdef's or break a C file in two because the author didn't separate out their use of fancy new features I still don't care about from the actually useful bits of their lib, but that is simple enough.
The security fixes to the OS are "under the hood"; the API changes are (almost entirely) around adding new features (which you can ignore if you don't to bother with them) and those that aren't are given a backwards compatible form.
Oh, you'd be surprised just how often breaking changes are made to APIs which is not really in the spirit of an API in the first place.
Perhaps the wording is to stringent? "Batteries must be replaceable" (eg by any service tech with a soldering iron not "an authorised service engineer") rather than "batteries must be easily replaceable by customers" (with a bread knife and a mallet) would be a more sensible option in my view. Even my "waterproof" watch is no longer waterproof unless the battery is replaced by someone with half a grain of common sense ...
Yeah, I'm a big fan of my S10, it's still a decent performer, still getting updates I think (3rd April was the last one), a little larger than I'd like but the only other thing wrong with it is the battery life is starting to get noticeably worse.
If it were possible to be able to easily replace the battery with Samsung original parts then I'd be hanging on to it for the foreseeable future, but I'm having to think about replacing it.
My Galaxy S II (2011) was, until (in a moment of madness) I bricked it a month back whilst doing a factory reset, still a solid performer. Okay at best it supported 3G (EE unlocked it for free, so it could be used with a 3 SIM), but was still good enough to make calls on and the various network tools installed still worked. Its only real limiting factor was the (long unsupported) version of android installed and thus no new apps or updates.
However, my HTC Desire went to the recyclers many years back, because it was too constrained.
We really need a phone hardware platform that really is equivalent to the x86 PC, so we can move away from vendor and phone specific Android.
The EU may well be guilty of fixing something that doesn't actually need fixing here
I'm inclined to agree. My last few phones have become obsolete because they no longer got updates to new software, and/or didn't have the CPU power to run new bloated software, not because they wouldn't hold enough charge. Even before that, when I did change battereis it was likely to get a bigger battery (in the pre-Li-Ion NiMH days), which this legislation won't affect.
Mandating that phone suppliers and manufacturers need to support 5 or 6 years of updates would, in my view, be more useful than mandating user-changeable batteries.
And you can always spot the fandroids when they gripe about the limited update support :-)
That was (and is) the main reason that I ditched my android phones and went to the other side. Don't get me wrong, there is just as much I hate about Apple, but at least I don't have to get a Google/Pixel phone to get prompt security updates. My last android phone got exactly 2 updates, ever, and had unpatched holes every day that I owned it.
My mark one iphone SE just finally fell off the update train. It is 8 years old. And yeah, about my only hardware complaint over those years was the battery wearing out. So the answer is to hold them to both. Remember also that if they can't make your phone self destruct every 2-3 years, they will have to build a phone that is good enough you will want to upgrade before your old one dies.
This will be good for the consumer in the long run. Android phones will have to get competitive again, and that will force Apple to chase their design wins.
I couldn't face being stuck in the Apple walled garden myself, but didnt want to have another Android with only a couple of years of updates before it was EOL by the manufacturer. So having the technical skills like many of those on here to flash a ROM to a phone I specifically looked to see which phones are best supported with LineageOS when i last replaced by phone.
In the end I bought a Oneplus as they seem to get good support with Lineage after the updates stop coming from oneplus. But Google Pixel, and Fairphone are also well supported with devices that came out in 2015 still getting updates on Lineage.
There is also the option of paying for a mid to top tier Samsung phones get 5 years of support direct from Samsung, if you dont want to take the risk flashing ROMs.
The year-on-year incremental upgrades on smartphones has now slowed significantly.
There are less reasons every year to upgrade.
So, after a few years when my phone's battery life is shot, then what? What if it's not worth upgrading feature-wise?
Replace the battery? How, if it is not user replaceable?
Same thing goes doubly-so for laptops with non-replaceable batteries.
But, but, but, but, (butt), BUT! Being able to bring extra batteries for when you're long away from a charger (festivals etc), instead of being tied to a powerbank will be _wonderful_!
Not sure it will change much for the environment, though. I don't think the environment cares if extra batteries are in the phone or in powerbanks.
I think the idea is that, if batteries can be easily removed, then they can be easily separated at disposal (by the user, or by someone at the recycling center), and sent for recycling*. Currently, I guess that batteries for small electronics just get into landfills along with said electronics.
*I don't know if and how much small batteries get recycled, but separating them can only help. At the very least, they can get separately stored, which will make any future recycling effort a whole lot easier.
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The EU may well be guilty of fixing something that doesn't actually need fixing here
Given that you only replace a battery every few years, having it be snap in is very unnecessary. If they're that agitated about replacement force OEMs to support having the battery replaced for a given price, or a "battery warranty" of x years where replacements are free if it falls below a certain threshold.
Of course OEMs would charge more if they were forced to offer free battery replacement, but Apple would surely raise the prices of the special iPhone model sold in the EU if they're forced to offer a snap in battery. There's no way they will make that change in the rest of the world, so the cost associated with that special design will be paid for solely by the people living in the EU. And it will be hilarious to see all the EU residents who buy iPhones overseas because they don't want that dorky design or to pay extra for it.
Show yours.
The only way we'll know is if the EU makes this directive, because I am willing to bet any amount of money that Apple will not make that kind of change worldwide just because of the 15% or whatever of their customer base that lives in EU countries.
and found that replacing batteries and screens is quite feasible, if you have the weird screwdrivers, a guitar pick, and some patience. I guess that newly acquired skill will become quite useless in the near future.
Concerning the limited lifetime of phones, I guess it's time to figure out how to prolong that lifetime. For most of us, it's not a hardware issue anymore -- the email app, messenger and browser worked just fine on my old phone. But the software obsolescence made me get a new phone this year.
-- For most of us, it's not a hardware issue anymore -- the email app, messenger and browser worked just fine on my old phone. But the software obsolescence made me get a new phone this year. --
Colour me baffled - if they worked fine on your old phone what was obsolete about them? I have some software that was written for Windows 15 years ago and it still runs happily - doesn't look modern but its still doing what it was written for.
A good thing. Apple has had this insane obsession with making iPhones as thin as possible, and that has always led to rubbish daily battery life. Given the thickness of an iPhone battery, adding 2mm to the thickness of an iPhone would allow double battery life. If this new EU rule provides the push for Apple to completely rethink the battery approach, I am all for it.
At worst it would cause them to design a special iPhone model for the EU, and add the cost of doing so to the price. There's no way the EU is going to get them to make a worldwide change like they will with USB-C (which they may have been considering already, though it was probably between that and going portless)
Apple will not compromise the design they want for phones sold elsewhere just because the EU is run by a bunch of morons who think the current battery replacement method in an iPhone is too difficult - it takes less than 10 minutes and is already "easy" as far as I'm concerned since you only would do it every few years (and even then only if you kept your phone that long or bought one used)
The irony... India and other countries have seen what the EU can achieve (and usually look at the reasons as to *why* the EU mandates what it does), and have (and will in future) demand similar things. The USB-C plug standard is something that India has cottoned on to rapidly, so yes, if the EU mandates that batteries be replaceable, and another sizeable market like India jumps into the same boat, you will suddenly find that other countries and states (like California) might also start demanding the same, and Apple knows it's a fait accompli.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind being able to swap the battery out once it's worn out to a degree that it struggles to keep the power on. I don't necessarily want to have to change to a battery case just because that case exists, but rather have the battery itself replaced. If battery exchange (not the Apple-style 'oh, we'll give you a new phone that is the same model but it's not *your* phone' exchange) had been an option, I would've still been on my iPhone 6s. I intend to continue to use the ol' economy Apple phone (i.e. the iPhone 8) until such time that it dies (or breaks in a terminal fashion). I don't need all the fancy new stuff.
Legislation in the EU parliament is proposed by the EU commission which is drawn from people put forward by the Council of the European Union and the European Council.
The latter two are made up of ministers and heads of government of the member nations of the EU.
IE the member states have a hand in developing the legislation before it reaches the parliament.
"Although it is up to the Commission to propose new EU laws, Parliament can take the initiative by requesting that the Commission submit a legislative proposal. When making use of "legislative initiative", MEPs may set a deadline for the submission of a proposal. If the Commission refuses to, it must explain why." (EU Parliament website)
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/16/what-are-the-european-parliament-s-powers-and-legislative-procedures
"EU laws in areas for which the EU is responsible override any conflicting laws of member countries.
Two important ideas make this system work. These are ‘supremacy’, meaning the higher status of EU laws compared to national laws, and ‘direct effect’, meaning that EU laws can be relied on in court"
"Regulations become part of national law as soon as they’re passed. EU countries must pass their own laws to put directives into practice." (Fullfact, 11 March 2016)
Am I really arsed about dust and water? I don't shower or swim with my phone and I rarely take it to the desert. On the other hand a removable battery in my S3 was changed twice which expanded it's life by years and I put a custom OS on there to cover the software. Sure I can probably do it now but it's a ball ache. This is a good thing. One thing I would question is are they going to ensure the battery prices are realistic?
"Critics also claim that the water and dust resistance consumers have come to assume will be present in their mobiles will be hit hard – a sealed unit isn't just a deterrent for techies after all."
I can see the theory, but that's not always the reality. I've recently replaced a number of ordinary Samsung handsets (which have some water resistance and sealed-in batteries) because of water damage, New ones are the semi-ruggedised Samsung XCover models, which despite being certified against water ingress within certain limits do have removable batteries. Just need to make sure the back panel is clipped on properly so that the seal is made.
Time will tell, but not had any issues with them so far (and they will have had a soaking already in some cases).
Hermetic sealing is easy enough to on things with removable covers. Essentially, you just need to create a pressure differential as you do with a tupperware lid. Orifices such as headphone and charging sockets are a bit more of a challenge but these can be allowed to flood without affecting the integrity. And a real doddle if they're connected to an inductive charging system.
Wouldn't it make more sense for them to produce one model which has easily replaceable batteries and screens, and another which is sealed. The sealed one might be more waterproof. Then let people decide which one they prefer. And you'd have to continue to get security patches, etc (I'm looking at you Android) so that you can still use modern apps.
But the manufacturers will fight this every step of the way, because built-in obsolescence.
Actually, replaceable batteries are probably no more environmentally friendly than sealed ones. But it's definitely an example of enforced obsolescence because it is known that battery capacity declines over time. Environmental concerns are best addressed by forcing companies to pay for recycling.
..... if you want to go looking for it.
Phone = Fairphone 4 - Good mid-range phone with removable battery, fully user serviceable and zero glue
Lappy = Framework - Good small laptop, again removable battery, fully user serviceable and zero glue
Can recommend both cos I have both!
With regards to the Fairphone 4, it's IP54 rated (dust and water splashes)
I dropped mine in the bath, (and fished it out *very* quickly) and nothing has gone wrong with it.
As for dust, using it in a very dusty environment for a few weeks led to the usb C socket getting clogged up with crud that I had to scrape out to be able to charge it, but no other problems...
Like there are AAA and AA batteries, a classification for removable batteries would be a great follow up.
It is technically challenging, but would have a global positive impact where countless tons of polluting chemicals can be recycled easier and consumers do not have to put up with unnecessary expensive proprietary designs.
And this does not only concern the batteries, suppose someone bought 10 years ago a budget battery operated drill.
It is very probable the battery doesn't work anymore, since it was a no-name brand, replacement is nowhere to be found.
With standard batteries it just would take a visit to Ebay to get it working again instead of throwing it away and buy a new drill.
It's not just a matter of the ancient no-name drill not being made any more. I have several battery-operated gadgets, vacuum cleaner and garden tools from 3 different EU makes, all currently available, all with very similar form factors but not quite interchangeable so not only do I have multiple batteries, I also have 3 chargers cluttering the place up. This is an area where standardisation should have been imposed years ago.
I've always said, why can't we use something like an 18650 for most of our rechargeable stuff like we did with AA, AAA, C and D batteries. It would be great to have things like laptops with a bunch of sockets for 18650s in the bottom. How about drills and other tools that can take just a few 18650s.
I already have flashlights, and even some imported test gear that uses 18650s instead of AA or AAA batteries.
The main issue is that 18650 batteries by definition are 18mm in diameter and many laptops are significantly thinner than that. If you want to lug a chunky beast of a laptop around though I don't see why not, up to you if you use cheapo cells and destroy an expensive bit of equipment though, the manufacturer will likely only warranty cover when specific cells are used.
The power tool packs do have 18650 size cells in them, they just tend to be the welded tab type connections, if you want to buy equivalent high power/quality cells they are not cheap. If you use cheap replacement cells the manufacturer fast charger may have an issue leading to a fire so part of it is safety and reliability in a less than kind working environment.
Yes, I get your point, however there will be a mass of technical and legislative reasons why it might not be a great idea.
I'm in favour of repairability and all that but I find the focus on apple a bit weird.
Apple have been way ahead on device longevity for years. They provided OS updates as long as practically possible while android phones were insecure after 2 years (or often even less time if you bought the phone at retail some time after it was released, Android options have improved recently but still lag Apple)
This reduces the need to buy a new phone regularly
Apple hardware is excellent and consistently priced, the hardware lasts a long time and depreciation is low - so the second hand market is very active.
This increases reuse of their products, extending a given products useful lifetime.
These are the two most important steps to reduce waste.
Finally, Apple seem to be ahead of the game using recycled metal materials in their new products, and I wouldn't be surprised if Apple are also ahead of the game with recycling products direct from customers.
And it's certainly possible to replace an iDevice battery as well, I've done several.
Things like airpods are really bad though, it would have been approximately trivial to have the "stalk" screw into the ear bud, allowing the battery and mic to be replaced as a single unit - but leaving the expensive silicon and the speaker alone)
Apple are the ones who have popularised most of the pratices which make things difficult to repair over the last decade ot so - sealed-in batteries in phones, then laptops. Soldered RAM. Soldered flash as well (fortunately most manufacturers haven't copied that one - yet).
I used to do the same, but that Android 9 phone was running with a bunch of known unpatched security flaws after about 18 months no?
If the software isn't secure what's the point of replacing the battery?
If the Android software isn't secure what's the value of the phone on the second hand market?
Not too bothered about phones as they get replaced anyway. More annoying are things like my Garmin watch, which is a sealed blob of plastic, so there's no way to replace the rechargeable battery unless you melt it. I also had a mains powered heat alarm with a sealed in rechargeable backup battery. The battery expired so I had to replace the whole unit. Deliberately designing these with no way to change the batteries, even at a service centre, seems short sighted.
I'm generally averse to specifying technology rather than specifications.
What if we discover a battery tomorrow which is 1% of the price and has a million charge cycle lifespan...
If you want to specify that the battery should have at least 70% of it's advertised capacity after ten years then that's reasonable (and given that they control the BMS it's possible).
One example of this is that despite, being better in every way than a filiament bulb, LEDs weren't allowed in the UK as bike lights until 2005...
They were, of course, absolutely ubiquitous well before then.
The first Samsung S23 I looked at is $1000 for a phone with 256GB storage and $1134 for $512GB storage. A Samsung 512GB microSD is around $40. Retail price for a 1TB microSD from a reputable manufacturer is around $100. iPhone 14 pro price difference between 256GB and 512GB is $100 on the same site. So how about mandating a microSD slot while they are mandating the replaceable battery? It can be internal, it's not like I'd change it often. But it would free us from rip-off memory pricing.
Good example of how to completely miss the point! (Apple fanboy?)
Insisting on an SD card slot as suggested above is indeed a good idea - it's a universal standard, available to any manufacturer, and allows storage to be expanded without paying rip-off pricing for addiitonal internal storage.
And you've just changed the spec in your post... no doubt accidentally, but an SD card is substantially larger than a microSD card.
An SD slot, as a secondary storage location - to which you can redirect the output files from the camera, or other specific apps, wouldn't be a bad thing per se... but are you specifying SD (max 2GB), SDHC (32GB), SDXC(2TB), SDUC(128TB), whatever format they come up with next?
I've replaced iPhone batteries a couple times, I would call it easy. No, it isn't a 5-10 second process like the phones of 20 years ago but that was when it was necessary to do in the middle of the day since phones didn't have anywhere near the battery life they do now.
Is 10 minutes once every few years not "easy" enough for them?
Good stuff. Goes nicely along with the in-progress directive to require security updates for retail+5yrs which everyone is starting to gear up for. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/eu-regulators-want-5-years-of-smartphone-parts-much-better-batteries/
We can look forward to software updates being legally required for at least 6 years from launch, and this one will ensure we can switch out the batteries relatively easily so the device isn't landfill while it still has some use.
And of course, this is not just for phones but also laptops, streaming devices, some IoT stuff, and many many other things. If it works, EU-spec devices will likely be a bit more expensive but way less likely to need throwing away prematurely and should be the most attractive replacement choice when you get burned with the cheaper one after a year or so.
When searching for a new phone or laptop include easily replaceable battery in your search terms. Given the average selling site it won't make too much difference to the hits so step two is to weed out the rest and choose one that really does have an easily replaceable battery. I'm pretty sure the search terms will get analysed and, if everyone does it, some marketing departments might catch on and the sales figures would speak for themselves. Every laptop and every phone I've bough has had replaceable batteries. If you want the shiniest examples you might not agree with my choice but then I might not agree with yours.
"Oxford commas belong in merry, old England, for instance."
Almost every international scientific journal uses the Oxford comma (n.b., aka the Harvard comma, which should tell you something). This is because it avoids ambiguity and almost never creates it. I frankly find it odd that anyone thinks it's odd.
I believe that this is a Good Thing (TM), but should like to see it go further and just as a standard for connectivity has been determined, so too should battery form factors and outputs.
I know that it would cramp design further, but even one supplier having the same battery form factor for more than one type of phone would make repair and maintenance that much easier, cut costs for phones and allow a healthy market in after-market spares. Which of course is what the Apples and Samsungs of this world may not want.
And it would provide a fairly sure-fire way to know that your phone is indeed turned off!
I am writing from a position of bias though. My standard day-use phone is a Blackberry Z10 (don't laugh - I get 4 days' standby and only use it as a phone anyway), with a snap-on back plate that provides access to a removable battery. And the looks I get when I say to someone "hang on, my battery is flat", followed by me removing the flat battery and installing a fully charged second one that I keep on standby are priceless!
The USB-C rule was great, forcing Apple's hand, but this is even better, as it forces the whole industry away from horrendous device construction.
It feels so sketchy heating up devices with lithium-ion batteries in them just to be able to get them apart. And then the battery feels like it's epoxyed in place. Let's get away from that.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab Active8, an 8" rugged tablet. Admittedly it isn't the prettiest tablet in the country. But it still manages to be dust and waterproof even with a removable battery, external SIM and sdcard tray, and a headphone jack.
I'm sure Apple will work out a way.
Cos they think they are getting one over the 'big evil American company'.
They think they had a win with the USB-C but Apple were already in transition (all new ipads where USB-C) and it appears that apple are planning to require 'made for iphone' USB-C cables to get the highest performance which sorta negates the whole 'universal socket/cable' argument.
"I buy iPhones because they work. No fuss, no hassle. I don’t want a replaceable battery..."
If your iPhone had a non-replaceable worn-out battery I think you'd find it was not working adequately and giving you a lot of fuss and hassle. Unless, of course, you replace it at sufficiently frequent intervals in which case maybe it should be classed as a fashion accessory instead of a phone and allowed to escape the legislation altogether.
"I don’t want a replaceable battery or other software stores."
Having a replaceable battery and other software stores doesn't mean you have to take advantage of them. Your choice but don't deny others theirs.
I'm not convinced this legislation goes far enough, but user-swappable batteries in smartphones, similar to the ones we had in the 2G era, might actually result in smaller phone dimensions if you could have a fully charged battery in your glove box or your laptop bag which you could swap in seconds.
You'll have to explain that one to me. Maybe I'm too young to have seen people doing it. What was the purpose? If it was to prevent you from secretly recording something, nothing would have prevented you from having a second battery so you could put the first one on the table or from using something else to record. If it was to prevent your phone from ringing, then that's something the interface can do just fine.
I have no problem as such with batteries that is can only be replaced in a workshop. What I have a problem with is manufacturers who try to prevent third party workshops replacing batteries, and of course manufacturers who charge ridiculous amounts to replace batteries.
Not so long ago I was told the useful life of a lithium ion battery should be ten years. In that basis I don't think it unreasonable to say that a failed battery within 10 years is actually a fault and while I don't mind paying for the battery I do mind paying a fortune for the labour to replace it.
The excuse from one manufacturer is that if they had to fit replaceable batteries their phones wouldn't be quite so ridiculously slim and worked cost ever so slightly more. In no other product would this be considered a reasonable excuse. Can you imagine a car manufacturer saying "if we made your tyres replacable it would make the car slightly bigger and ever so slightly more expensive. As such you'll need to buy a new car every year or two"?
"Critics also claim that the water and dust resistance consumers have come to assume will be present in their mobiles will be hit hard – a sealed unit isn't just a deterrent for techies after all."
Dust resistance was a myth, at least on the Galaxy S21 5G. It couldn't be charged via cable and when taken to Samsung, the techie was less than suprised and cleaned out all the gunk that was statically attracted, saying it was hard to do at home without the proper kit, advising using a rubber plug in the charging port in future. Never needed that on predecessor models though.
> and a look at how they're going to engineer connections and mounts internally when the unit is meant to detach.
This doesn't require a look, because this was the default for phones before they turned into "Form-Over-Function" driven garbage fueled by a "thinner, more rounded, more pittoresque" logic of product "design" that forgot that the first rule of product design is to build products with good functionality. All design criteria that are purely about form, come afterwards.
Phones don't need to be ever thinner. I will buy a thick, heavy device every time if in exchange I get something that holds a charge for 4 days straight and features a headphone jack next to its USB-C port. I will gladly accept something even thicker than that if it means I can press a button and clicksnap a fresh battery in there in a few seconds.
Like a hammer, my phone is a tool. I want my tools to be sturdy, powerful, obvious in their use and reliable. I don't give a flying fart about what color the handle is.
Funnily enough, this is why I have a XR21 over an iwotsit.
MS may be the parent company but rather bizarrely their Nokia subsidiary does a pretty good job of phone hardware (and keeping the software build relatively free of crapware).
Nokia as a business is an independent company. MS's ownership of the phone business didn't last long. so that Nokia as a phone brand is now owned by a Finnish/Chinese company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMD_Global so it's not really bizarre at all
Allegedly, it's something to do with re-sealing the watch under pressure, so it maintains a positive pressure inside. You'd be surprised what the water pressure is at only 50m, and how quickly the glass on a watch face might implode if it's designed to be pressurised. Then again, this might all be bollocks, and an excuse to get more money from the mark on a Veblen Good. I need* a watch that tells the time, and nothing more. Spending a four or five figure sum on what is essentially a piece of jewellery is pure peacocking, and as anyone who has dealt with peacocks can attest, their brains are very small.
*Actually, I stopped wearing an actual watch years ago, I have a fitbit that also tells the time, and a phone in my pocket I also spend all day in front of a machine that has a clock in the corner of the screen, so the necessity of owning a watch is null.
It's true, up to a point, which is the point that I don't actually go scuba diving (or touring the Titanic). You can safely swap a watch battery (or do other work) yourself if you make sure the seals are intact or have a watch known for its' tolerance of abuse. There are some funny videos of people depth testing Vostok Amphibia or Casio G-Shock past the point of sanity. A basic Casio filled wth mineral oil will take immense abuse.
"We'll have to put a gasket round the battery compartment, or around the contacts."
If it's beyond their wit to engineer a gasket that doesn't leak, then I would suggest that they should spend more on engineering and less on marketing. The same goes for Samsung, and every other manufacturer of cheap and not-so-cheap gadgets with sealed in batteries. If nothing else, it would make recycling a lot easier.
Of course, the ability to replace a battery doesn't necessarily necessitate the availability of replacement batteries. The EU needs to mandate the availability of replacement batteries as well, along with allowing third-party manufacture, and limiting cost to a reasonable profit only, so a spare battery doesn't cost you as much as a new phone.
One interesting side effect if this ends up getting spread wide is going to be on the state of foldables. Essentially, at the moment, in order to make the whole thing work size-wise, they all more or less use two smaller batteries, one in each half in order to pack the same battery capacity into a frame that is essentially split down the middle. Moving to one battery to allow it to be removable probably means a ground-up redesign of the whole concept, since, for example, you can't really have a removable battery on the half that has a screen on each side.
We shall watch these moves with great interest.
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