Posted by ramonga 10 hours ago
I can have two (or more) batteries, if it runs out I just change it. I don’t need walk around with a USB battery pack and cable hanging off the device preventing me from using it properly.
I can put the battery on charge somewhere and leave it, even if not completely secure, because just the battery not the device. This way my expensive device and my data is not at risk.
I can use 40+ year old cameras, because I can just put a new battery in. This is not something you can do with newer device, e.g. and iPod and you can’t even find anyone who will fit them for the older models.
Battery tech moves on. There are now some batteries with charging ports on them. Other batteries offer more capacity than the original ones. Apple even did this once for me, when MacBook Air batteries were fairly easy to replace, I had mine replaced (it wore out) at the shop and they put a slightly bigger one in, which was the standard on the newer models.
If it's such a superior product that people want despite the tradeoffs, why don't they just fund a company to create such a phone? Why doesn't anyone?
Apple winces.
I, for one, don't welcome that change. I'd be ok with paying someone a bit extra to replace the battery. I mean, I'd be ok if I had a battery die in my phone in the last 10 years, which I don't remember it did.
Manufacturers only have to make it possible for users to open and close the phone to replace the battery without damage, using common tools.
When was the last time you kept a phone longer than 2-3 years? That’d explain why you haven’t had one die.
Assuming you do get a new phone regularly, easy battery replacement will probably help the resale value of your own a fair bit - the labour cost of a battery replacement is priced into most older phones on the second hand market.
When I bought my first smartpone, a Moto G (1st gen) it was as flat as any phone most people carried around at the time (2014, I think). And the battery was replaceable.
I think also Samsung phones had replaceable batteries then. And this was the case for a few years after. Until it wasn't.
Devices didn't suddenly get thin when batteries were glued in. Why would they?
Batteries also don't really die, but you get shorter and shorter life. When a device that barely could make it through 2 days of use now survives for less than one, an "upgrade" seems nicer than it really would've been if you could just swap the battery.
As someone who spends a lot of time outdoors in the rain, giving up superior IP68 water resistance for a replaceable battery that I'll never replace will be a downgrade for me.
Cameras also need to withstand drops for similar reasons to phones, it’s in you hand and you could drop it, also tripods can fall over, car mounts fall off etc.
I had multiple android phones with replaceable batteries and many were no thicker than modern phones, especially once you've added the protective case.
For example, good luck finding good apple batteries in regions where there is no official apple service.
Most Chinese parts are inferior: for example rates for max 500 cycles instead of 1000
Low cost phones will be most affected.
You seem to referencing from a older exemption for self serviceability if your smartphone can do 1,000 cycles and retain 80% battery. Specifically - B 1.1 (1) (c) (ii) (b) . Here is the link - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
Article 11 of the new regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...) covers exemptions but nothing to do with 1,000 cycles or Apple as far as i can see.
(a) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for replacement of the display assembly and of parts referred to in point 1(a), with the exception of the battery or batteries, meets the following criteria: [...]
[...]
(c) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for battery replacement:
(i) meets the following criteria:
— fasteners shall be resupplied or reusable;
- the process for replacement shall be feasible with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools;
— the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out in a use environment;
— the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out by a layman.
(ii) or, as an alternative to point (i), ensure that:
— the process for battery replacement meets the criteria set out in (a);
— after 500 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 83 % of the rated capacity;
— the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles, and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;
— the device is at least dust tight and protected against immersion in water up to one meter depth for a minimum of 30 minutes.
---
So manufacturers must make the battery replaceable, or meet all the conditions from (a) for replacing non-battery components, and meet the 1000 cycle / 80% capacity requirement.
It was not said that Apple was exempted. What was said is that Apple complied with the exemption rules.
It really, really wasn't. All it said is that Apple became compliant with their current offerings.
Now you're contorting to dig your heels in, so I think this conversation is over. Have a good day.
It appears what you're looking for is in B(5)(c)(ii).
> (c) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for battery replacement:
> (i) meets the following criteria:
> — fasteners shall be resupplied or reusable;
> — the process for replacement shall be feasible with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools;
> — the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out in a use environment;
> — the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out by a layman.
> (ii) or, as an alternative to point (i), ensure that
> — the process for battery replacement meets the criteria set out in (a);
> — after 500 full charge cycles the battery must have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 83 % of the rated capacity;
> — the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles, and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;
> — the device is at least dust tight and protected against immersion in water up to one meter depth for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Surprisingly the phone was fine and works fine after a brief rinse under the tap. It must be hard to combine that sort of water resistance with easy user changing.
Modern phone water resistance is incredible. I've even seen people literally swim with their phones and not even question if it was a bad idea.
The battery compartment had a rubber gasket and some very tight screws.
I suppose the glue-everything approach is partly due to the desire of making a device very thin. There's no room for strong, load-bearing outer case, the internals are load-bearing.
There is a good reason waterproofing claims are specific about the kind of liquid (usually just fresh or salt water, usually without significant movement (i.e. jets, like you get in a shower)).
These devices are mostly sold in enterprise environments (eg field use, factories) and as such get a lot of wear and tear. But they hold up well. They're not ultra rugged but a good compromise. We use tons of them in our factories, we replaced DECT handheld phones with the Xcovers loaded with ms teams. Not an ideal setup (teams for mobile kinda sucks) but at least this way they can easily communicate with people in the offices.
Which is funny to me, because even with an IP68 phone, I get worried if I even splash a little water on it.
It also officially support submersion in seawater as well as cleaning with soapy water. Most glued phones support neither.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if IP68 could be achieved in a phone without glue. There's no clamping mechanism for the backs, they're just press-fit with small clips.
A phone needs to handle some rain droplets falling on its screen, anything more than that is a gimmick that's not worth the downsides it comes with.
I submerge my phone as a matter of normal use because I can. I take it into pools and hot tubs, and I clean it in the sink -- I personally wouldn't trade that for a battery door.
a lot of normal people who daily-use their phones near water and even jump into pools with them. I would bet you $100 that if you asked people "replaceable battery of water proofing to the same level you have it now", ~ nobody will puck the former.
Most the suburban kids in Houston had wristband attachments to their phones in the pool or would be in a floaty taking stupid pics of each other as kids do. Trying to keep a modern phone dry takes away a lot of utility.
Some like to read in the bathtub. Statistics say women prefer the bathtub more than the shower. Therefore your position is sexist.
(Yes, I'm being an asshat)
> A phone needs to handle some rain droplets falling on its screen, anything more than that is a gimmick that's not worth the downsides it comes with
It’s actually the opposite - a user replacement battery is a gimmick not worth the downsides.
Apple know this, and they know their customers a lot better than you do.
Your position is niche at best, anachronistic really.
It's not really the old kind of replace-ability, though. The only requirement is that you should be able to change it with commercially available tools.
I suspect it's a moot point. Makers have every incentive to drive replacement cycles.
While manufacturers do have an incentive to get people to buy new phones, many of them with first party insurance do have an incentive not to pay out as many claims.
The thing is - if the battery had been destroyed, that could have been replaced...
I've also had iPhone dying from gasket leaks, the circumferential double sided tape seal dries out after a while.
So manufactures might just responds to this by making your phone heavier with a bigger battery that is being under utilized.
In that experiment, it’s also unclear if the 30% lower limit or the 80% upper limit is more important. I suspect the former.
Psychologically, people understand charging a battery to "125%" (or whatever) a lot better: Do it when you really need to but if you do it all the time it wears down the battery a lot faster.
I recently investigated large portable power banks (Jackery, etc.) and like that there are options to charge faster with a battery life tradeoff. Let people make their own informed choices.
This same thing happened to Pixels 6a after 500 cycles.
Just looking in maps, there are three Apple Stores within a 45 minute drive from where I live in central Florida.
The situation is worse in my hometown in South GA admittedly, you have to drive 70 miles for same day service for an authorized repair place - mostly Best Buy.
That is not an argument.
It’s like complaining about items from TEMU aren’t high quality and expecting the government to do more.
Typically that's subject to some sort of recall or remediation through a service centre?
Not really. Take a 4000 mAh rated cell, advertise it as "rated for 3500 mAh" and that's it.
I’d rather get the additional structural rigidity, compactness, and weatherproofing that comes from the tight construction and then pay $99 to have Apple professionally install a new battery for me in 3-4 years. Forcing everyone’s iPhone to take all of the tradeoffs of replaceable batteries so some people can save $50 to replace their own battery isn’t a good deal.
I wouldn’t be surprised if forcing all phones to have easily replaceable batteries would result in a net increase in e-waste due to the additional failure modes introduced. Even if batteries were easily replaceable I think most iPhone users would have Apple do it for them anyway.
I’ve also replaced some iPhone batteries myself and it’s really not that bad if you are familiar with taking modern electronics apart. Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.
This sounds like the exact opposite of real life. Every battery ages to the point of uselessness, not every phone gets to take a dive. It's not a stretch to say most phones never see more than some rain or a spilled drink. But the worst part of every discussion on this topic is this false (uninformed) dichotomy that water resistance and easily replaceable battery are mutually exclusive.
In 3-4 years yes, but how about in 10-15 years? Apple will refuse to take your money then.
> Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.
Which is malicious compliance. They should allow the friendly neighborhood repair shop to purchase a toolkit so you can choose who does the repairs for you.
They still offer battery service for iPhone 6.
> They should allow the friendly neighborhood repair shop to purchase a toolkit
They do. My friendly neighborhood repair shop a couple miles away has the same tools and parts Apple uses themselves at their Store.
But then I haven't broken a phone in a while so I haven't really talked to my friendly neighborhood repair shop. That only because my daughter finally grew up, they remembered me at the shop back when she was young :)
> That only because my daughter finally grew up, they remembered me at the shop back when she was young
Ha! This is so relatable right now. My daughter is 15 and recently has been learning to drive, and last week she taught herself what happens if you set your iPhone on top of the car and then drive off. That is the only reason I've got familiarity with my local friendly neighborhood repair shop, I've never broken one of my own phones in all these years. Fortunately this life lesson only cost her the $39 deductible. Glad I decided that a 15 year old getting her first phone needed an insurance plan.
LTE has been up for 15 year in the US as of now. Chances are it may not be up after another 15 years.
So it does not seem a big deal
It isn't quite that linear in practice but realistically it will still be at least 5+ years.
I’m pretty sure that’s more or less already the case, so…
This isn't even what drives obsolesce of phones, it's software updates.
If you really want to be able to self-swap your own battery, you can just buy an Android that has a replaceable battery.
Do we need to regulate something that isn't a problem? All regulation has downsides, is it worth paying this price here?
(Thought Apple's $99 to do the repair themselves isn't terribly bad all things considered; and likely part of their attempt to forestall complaints and litigations).
Agreed, and software-locking parts, like batteries, to only first-party or authorized third-party repair shops is one of those drivers.
I can see the argument for software locking some components (to cut down on theft) even if I don't appreciate or agree with them - it is at least a valid reason from some perspectives.
Batteries are a wear item though, and will have to be replaced periodically until the device is discarded. Software-locking them to only "Apple and people Apple likes" is unconscionable
I'd be happier if this was something the market took care of, but after 10 years of glued-in batteries that you most likely can't even buy, I think it's time for a regulatory nudge.
There is a lot you can do with advanced materials science but as you get close to the high end of capability the cost goes up very rapidly and the ability to scale production is reduced.
Can we have this discussion once? In this thread alone, there's like 50 instances of people making this claim and each time it takes about 20 minutes before at least one person replies that it's not the case, after which no refutals are posted. I'm happy to learn it is false if it is (I never had a phone that I trusted to be waterproof to any degree so I don't have first-hand knowledge), but it gets really tiring to read the same information level over and over as a reason for why we can't have nice things
Taking this comment as an example of someone who actually used a battery-swappable phone in rain on a motorcycle: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835184 (I'm not only taking the person's word for it: the device is also IP certified as waterproof 30 mins at 1m depth)
Anecdotally on this front, I have had to replace the screens of my iphones at least three times in the past (different models). Incidentally, I have never needed to replace the screen of a phone that had a replaceable battery. YMMV, but this seems needlessly defeatist.
>maximum battery life
One could also claim that bespoke charging cables allow for faster charging or longer battery life, but I don't know any iPhone users that are a crying a river for their deprecated non-standard chargers. But again, YMMV I guess.
He's right - the market wants embedded batteries, although perhaps not directly. Embedded batteries have improved price, battery capacity, water proofing, size, and strength. If the consumer really wanted a removable battery and all that that entails then there would be more phones that offered that. The reality is people misjudge what all that entails. By all means, I would love to just make the iPhone battery directly replaceable without any compromises but that's not reality.
Using that hypothesis, the market also loves cookie banners and prefers subscriptions over one-time payments.
What is your hypothesis for why more phones arent designed with non-embedded, directly replacable batteries? If it's such a highly valued trait in a phone, why doesnt some company just gobble up that market share? Why havent existing solutions sold well? Mine is that consumers dont actually value non-embedded batteries when accounting for all the tradeoffs. What's your hypothesis?
If the feature isn't expected and it decrease sales, why would manufacturer put it in ?
Unfortunately I do expect other tricks towards planned obsolescence. Long-term support is now a thing but what they can still do is make phones slower over time. Even Apple did this with the iPhone 6.
Also, a new battery is how much - €100 for an iPhone battery? It's not that expensive.
We have thousands of Xcovers (also replaceable) in the factories at work and they break no more often than the regular phones in the office environment. In fact people treat them pretty roughly because they're handling heavy requirement and you know how well people look after equipment they didn't pay for :) They're not perfect but they walk the walk.
Another point: I know several people that have Fairphones where almost every component can be user-replaced and I've held them but I don't see them being any more fragile than any other phone, really. And these are not rugged models.
And a Fairphone battery is 40€. An Xcover battery costs similar. The screen 90€. All a lot cheaper than Apple, probably because there is no labor cost. You can just do it yourself or ask a friend who's handy.
I just don't see why we can't have nice things until proven otherwise (especially considering there is already evidence that this works), rather than have glued-shut devices until proven otherwise (by whom then? Apparently IP and practical experiences aren't enough for you)
We're talking about IP68, where you can take a new phone with you on a long swim.
I don't know how most people will dispose of user replacement batteries, but I suspect the recycle rates will be lower. If you want to ensure higher rates you also need to do something they do in the USA for car lead acid batteries. Charge a deposit fee on the new battery that is returned only when the battery is turned into a valid recycling entity.
You've bought into and are now parroting Apple & Samsung marketing BS.
P.S. it had a headphone jack too. Gaskets over the ports. The headphone jack was the first victim of "but muh waterproof" despite all the other holes and cutouts.
For a simplest example - somehow my watch is waterproof to 200M down and replacing the battery just takes a tiny screwdriver. Gaskets are not particualarly hard to work with.
What about wearable devices like a smartwatch, headphones, smart glasses?
Should all these be consumer-replaceable without tools, regardless of the effect on the other things people value in these devices (waterproofing, size and weight, battery life, etc.)?
FYI I do not work for anything close to the consumer tech industry.
With commercially available tools, yes. The argument is that, given the skill, you could pull it off.
Then again, maybe cars are a different category. I really don't have enough skilll to add to this discussion
Obviously true for any iPhone battery.
The EU, just now.
Those don't really exist anymore.
> Do we need to regulate something that isn't a problem?
It is a problem and needs to be regulated.
> All regulation has downsides, is it worth paying this price here?
Of course the upsides of regulations are worth it. The downsides might cause slight inconvenience to the manufacturer, so that doesn't really matter.
Your next phone will be heavier, bulkier, more expensive, and less reliable as a result of these regulations. It will also probably not run as long between charges.
If bureaucrats in Brussels were better at designing phones than Apple, wouldn't they be doing just that?
It’s ridiculous that regulators are forcing Apple’s hand with design and engineering (I was one of the few against the USB-C switch), but it also true that Apple is often incapable of making certain kinda of design decisions that have become impossible due to organizational inertia or shareholder-pleasing. Look no further than macOS 26, or the history bad design decisions on the hardware side.
So if you want phones to be usable for longer period, you need to standardize batteries.
> Replacement batteries for any model will have to remain available to users for at least five years after the last unit of the product is placed on the market, the regulation also states.
Now we can scale up volume, swap them out, be free to purchase from a different manufacturer, and have scaled up recycling services.
Phones are definitely a more difficult use case.
As an example, in Jan 2026, Apple published iOS 12.5.8 which provides updates for iPhone 5s which released in Sept 2013. That's 12.5 years ago. The equivalent would be to connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086, 512 kb of RAM and expecting an update for your DOS operating system.
The updates for ios 12 are all security updates, not feature updates, so your comparison to "connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086" doesn't really make sense. The phones stuck on ios 15 are basically unusable because many apps don't support it anymore. At best you can download an older version from a few years ago, but that depends on whether the backend servers were updated. Apps that insist you use the latest version (eg. banking/finance apps) basically unusable.
Nowadays they are doubling in performance every... 5 years?
I'll admit it's a little annoying that I have to pay a hundred bucks to get the battery replaced, but the phone is otherwise fine and still gets updates, so I don't know that I buy that it's "planned obsolescence".
They already are. 5 years of updates is now the legal minimum in the EU. https://www.osnews.com/story/142500/new-eu-rules-mandate-fiv...
Note that early phones had replaceable batteries and it was later phones that dropped that feature. The idea wasn't that making the phone impossible to open would compel people to replace their phone faster; it was that given that people didn't keep their phones long enough to wear out the battery, there was no need to make the battery accessible.
1) battery dying / not lasting enough
2) shattered glasses whose replacement costs 35-40% of the cost of the phone new (for budget/mid-range phones, not everybody has iPhones)
distant 3rd) not enough free internal storage
Are non-premium new cars a scam too?
sure on highest end phones you have very good cameras since a long time by now, but even there they find improvements here and there (e.g. zoom, low light pictures, even better image stabilization)
but middle to lower end phones are still have major improvements in every generation of a certain brand/line/price category. And you might be satisfied with a "acceptable" quality camera, until everyone around you has way nicer photos, or you now have a reason to make photes you didn't had in the past, or you get older and your hands a bit unsteady etc.
This is also reflected in the increasing support durations from major manufacturers.
Secondly, what you said may have been true in the past, when smartphones were rapidly evolving and upgrade cycles were short, but people are holding on to their devices for longer now, so its possible its becoming a problem again.
Not sure how comparable that is when considering that the devices are also commonly required as ticket on public transport with no offline fallback (going so far as to include animations on the screen so you can't send a screenshot to a friend or print it out -- no, I have no idea why they think you can't send a video to a friend). Having 10 minutes of use time is simply not on the table, and GP was probably not talking about that class of phones (pre-"smart" phone) in the first place
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/external-battery-packs/usb-c-po...
Now that this doesn't happen, the driver of obsolescence is the battery, which is much less defensible because you can swap it much more easily than "the whole internals of the phone".
But then I think someone will figure out to make these batteries so expensive, that it won't change a thing.
Removing it is one of the most annoying things ever in a phone. Yes, Bluetooth is getting better, but the jack always works perfectly. Why can't we have both?
- The cheapest phones available in the EU (and purchasable online) all have glued-in batteries, not swappable ones. Forcing consumers to use phones with swappable batteries may just mean that the bottom of the market disappears, and consumers will be left paying more for their phones. And would they rather pay less or have swappable batteries?
- This will cause some cascade of engineering changes, which will make phones thicker or less waterproof. Again, it's not clear to me that the tradeoff is being fairly reflected here.
This doesn't restrict the design space that much at all.
like unified charging cable, free EU roaming or intercountry bank payments that are instant and almost free, air travel protections?
Some regulations are good, some are bad, all have second and third order effects that need to be weighed against benefits.
There are plenty of old Dell and HP laptops with replaceable batteries which can only be found on eBay or some random seller that does who knows what under the refurbishing process.
Having thought about this long term, I think the only solution to this would be mandating standardized battery cells. Rather than every phone model having a bespoke cell that is manufactured once and then obsoleted, they need to have standardized shape and electrical characteristics so that batteries being produced for new phones would also be useful to rehabilitate old phones.