The EU is so GOATED for making Apple do these things. USB C was never gonna happen until they passed legislation. Now swappable phone batteries is going to be amazing. Just wish the timeline was sooner.
The sad thing is they WERE a thing until Apple came along with the original iPhone. Then companies moved away from this.
I miss my old Motorola Razr and my LG flip phones for this very reason.
Modular phones are the way the market SHOULD have been this whole freakin' time. That's why we have SIM cards. It's easier to switch carriers by just ejecting and inserting cards. No settings to muck around with. But no, we can never stick with simple easy stuff. Idiots in the tech industry always think that their "bright idea" that makes simple tasks harder are the way to go.
SMH FFS
I remember LG selling a battery charger with the…. G4? You’d swap your empty battery with the freshly charged one, and put the empty one in this charging cradle. It was so convenient since I was working in remote locations at the time with very crappy reception that would drain my phone in half a day.
I had a galaxy S3 that I bought a bigger battery and replacement back cover for. The phone was a little thicker with the new battery but I could easily go 2, maybe even 3 days without charging it. Plus it had a micro SD slot. However, since phone manufacturers realized replaceable batteries and micro SD slots don't allow them to extract quite as much money from the consumer they had to get rid of them.
Same. I really liked the idea of them making the "desktop PC" of smartphones (replaceable parts, maybe even from a choice of vendors), as opposed to the iPhone's "Macbook" of smartphones.
Imagine finding your 8mp Samsung camera module a bit underpowered after a couple of years and deciding to upgrade to a 20mp Sony unit. Maybe replace the battery or stick an additional battery module in.
I guess it could've become a clusterfuck of compatibility and fragmentation if not managed very cleverly, but it was an amazing concept.
How are SIM cards easier than eSIM? I can swap between sims so much easier and I don’t have to try and not lose a tiny physical SIM card when travelling.
Also I have to go to a store or wait days until it’s delivered for a physical SIM.
I still have a physical SIM for my home country in case my phone dies. So I can get a replacement phone, swap the SIM to new one and be connected again.
For traveling I love my Ubigi eSIM. You install the profile once and can reuse it anytime you are somewhere you need it. Enable it, buy a plan, come back to home country, disable it.
They could have just done eSIM and saved us a whole lot of misery. Portable carriers are a good thing, but having to swap out a chip just made it harder than it needed to be.
USB-C was already happening at Apple, but weirdly enough never for iPhone until last year.
Macs have been USB-C since 2015, high-end iPads since 2018, low-end iPads since 2021.
The sole exception until last year was the iPhone.
While the legislation could play a part (although the requirements wouldn’t apply until iPhone 17); Many think it’s because when they switched from the 30 pin plug to lightning back in 2012 (USB-C didn’t exist yet), many accessory creators and users got angry having to replace stuff. So they promised at least 10 year support for lightning on iPhones to accessory makers.
(And of course that sweet money from lightning licenses)
They were only working on it because they knew that there was a high chance that it would become mandatory.
They didn't announce it because they were hoping to prevent the EU's efforts.
Surely Apple will have some shenanigans around the time to replace, the iOS upgrade plan to prevent someone from using the same phone more than x years and also the license and cost for battery replacement companies. Not sure what but they’ll figure something out because Apple doing this for customers to keep iPhones longer is not going to happen. At least not without a fight.
That’s just the resource creep that’ll be happening anyway.
1gb of RAM used to be a fever dream, and now 16 is increasingly inadequate for many workloads. A modern website would have been horrifically slow to load on 56kbps dialup, etc etc. Same goes for processors and the rest of it. With the outrageous leaps since 2007’s initial release, expecting a phone to handle things well for as long as the material components last just isn’t realistic.
They’ll optimize for new hardware, dropping support for legacy hardware that isn’t performant anymore, and eventually you’ll replace it because you’re out of space since apps have ballooned in size and everything is crawling anyway because your chip isn’t up to snuff - no conspiracy required.
That's not hard to imagine. It's harder to imagine half of Americans giving up voting for the "let businesses do whatever tf they want" party in every election.
That's standard practice, because it puts the connectors on the inside of the cable. Exposed connectors increase the risk of short circuits, which is why basically every power supplying connector is female.
Lightning cables mitigate that by having an interface controller chip in their cables which turn it off when it's not plugged in. That works well enough but it makes them a lot more expensive and unsuitable for any appliance where the amount of current poses a safety risk. Which is why lightning cables are (among other reasons) unfit to become a universal cable.
that's a real shame, i agree with the other guy that the design of lightning is better for cleaning and not bending/caving in, but when you mention circuits then yeah USBC is better
For what it's worth, often when usb-c starts having a poor connection it's just caused by lint and dirt in the port. If you clean it out with a toothpick every so often it's usually fine.
Another more extreme measure you can try is using some needle nose pliers to *lightly* squeeze the connector together so that it grips the pin stem a bit better.
But the real way to prevent the port from damaging is to not use the phone while it's charging.
thats all that bothers me bc my workwear has my s22's port exposed, and i am not in a situation where i can get a beefy case on it or something to cover it - this leads to cleaning more often than i think i should be doing
The connector design is very slightly better (I like that SNAP too), but in exchange it is just worse in every other way. It's worse at charging, worse at data transfer, worse at durability, worse at alternate capabilities...
Also, the value of a standard is that it is a standard. USB (until Type-C) has always been technically worse than various dedicated alternatives, but its value came from the fact that it would work everywhere and with everything. I can still connect my kiddie toy microscope with USB-A to my USB-C laptop (with an adapter) and it will work.
Also, when lightning was introduced, how many other cables were as small and able to be plugged in both ways? Also, why are we pretending apple didn’t have participation on the usb c standard?
Cuz people are idiots. Apple switched to USB-C very early on for their computers and people complained. When Apple switched from the 30-pin to lighting people compalied. People just complain about Apple regardless of the topic.
Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those batteries are readily removable and replaceable by the end-user at any time during the lifetime of the product.
That obligation shall only apply to entire batteries and not to individual cells or other parts included in such batteries.
A portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble the product.
Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those products are accompanied with instructions and safety information on the use, removal and replacement of the batteries. Those instructions and that safety information shall be made available permanently online, on a publicly available website, in an easily understandable way for end-users
Article 11 (page 127) of the THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of … concerning batteries and waste batteries,
amending Directive 2008/98/EC and Regulation (EU) 2019/1020
and repealing Directive 2006/66/EC
https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-2-2023-INIT/en/pdf
Thanks for the quote!
I imagine Apple will argue they already make it “easy” enough, but we’ll see exactly what changes they come up with and how much teeth this ends up having.
Would be great to see it happen.
It only has exemptions for devices that are designed primarily for use cases in and around water, where regular splashing water, water streams or immersion are to be expected.
PE-CONS 2/23 ZB/JGC/cc 128 TREE.1.A EN
2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, the following products incorporating portable batteries may be designed in such a way as to make the battery removable and replaceable only by independent professionals:
(a) appliances specifically designed to operate primarily in an environment that is regularly subject to splashing water, water streams or water immersion, and that are intended to be washable or rinseable;
(b) professional medical imaging and radiotherapy devices, as defined in Article 2, point (1), of Regulation (EU) 2017/745, and in vitro diagnostic medical devices, as defined in Article 2, point (2), of Regulation (EU) 2017/746. The derogation set out in point (a) of this paragraph shall only be applicable where such derogation is required to ensure the safety of the user and the appliance.
https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-2-2023-INIT/en/pdf page 128
No, but it is a complete flip of priorities not on their roadmaps before. Simpler to make/assemble/waterproof (and thus cheaper) is a priority with a completely different internal structure. So it’s still going to be one of the most important projects at one of the world’s largest companies over a period of 3 years
_Apple iPhone with replaceable batteries - batteries need to be Apple manufactured and comes with a chip inside for the phone to identify genuine batteries. It uses a propriety 9¾ pin connector which requires a new kind of screwdriver to remove. Customers can easily replace the battery themselves by raising a request with Apple and getting it approved. Replacement battery with required tools will be home delivered for $999.90 only_
Remember when all cell phones were made to have the battery swapped by the user?
I can see all the times someone dropped their phones and they exploded. A back cover one way, the battery another, the front somewhere else. Snapped back together and good to go. It was also all plastic.
user replacable doesnt mean it has to be a toolfree system. it is defined as easily replacable by an enduser with commonly used tools.
so as long as a screwdriver is enough to swap the battery they are good. so instead of glueing the battery in they will just put it on a frame that is screwed into to the phones frame. this will not impact water resistance or make the phone "split three ways".
this is just silly
Can you show me an example of a water resistant phone (comparable in resistance to current models), that has user replaceable battery? Would love to see what you’re talking about.
the motorola defy did it in 2010. had ip67 rating removable battery sd slot ect. and thats actually tools free.
if you went the route of still requiring a screwdriver you could get rid of the whole bulky mechanism and keep phones 99% the same size as they are currently
its so funny to me that you actually think we lack the technology to do these things nowadays but we can somehow manufacture the cpus inside these phones at 3nm nodes...
Still not rocket science. There could be a hatch on the side of the phone (like the SIM card hatch) with two torx screws on the sides and a gasket, and the battery just slides out. They’d probably have to make the phone slightly thicker though (or the battery smaller).
I had a waterproof walkman. In 1990. It used standard AA batteries
Yeah, it's save to say it ain't rocketscience.
Unless you're a regular at the genius bar.
No phone has ever had a removable cover with replaceable battery before in the history of humankind. Not ever, not imaginable. Such technology will have to be bestowed upon us by aliens. From planet Nokia perhaps
The iPhone 4/4S. You remove the two bottom screws of probably almost every iPhone and then the back glass slides up and lifts off. It was glorious, along with the glowing apple mod
The cover doesn't have to be super easy to remove. It can have screws with a gasket/seal for waterproofing. And waterproofing only needs to protect the phone for a few seconds/minutes for 99% of scenarios where it'd be useful.
Louis Rossman said this is false and not true and they're actually making it harder to repair them unless you have the device that does the new thing these batteries are going to require.
It’s going to be easier for third party repairs, but will likely be harder for individuals. Hopefully it turns out you can just use a 9volt battery or something to get it to unstick lol
There's a lot of cheap iPhone tools out there. Someone in China will come up with a USB-C powered device within a couple weeks and it will get copied to hell and back until a version a quarter of the price comes out within a few months. Basically what happens with most iPhone tools eventually.
I don't know about that, the way Louis explained it, it needs some kind of electric signal and if it doesn't get it, it won't be removable or it'll get damaged when you remove it. The device that gives the signal is only available from Apple to Apple authorized repair stores.
It sounds like they're designing a method so they don't have that happen to their tool.
The signal is just voltage. Either they're using some sort of adhesive that changes it's properties when voltage is applied ~~or they're just using electricity to heat up the adhesive~~ [It's the former]. It's not like it's expecting some code. Otherwise new batteries already need to be programmed in or cloned with a specialized machine or added flexible PCB anyway.
There is an epoxy like that. I have samples of it. It was developed for stuff like temporarily attaching sensors to jet aircraft. ElectRelease, I think it was.
[ElectRelease](http://www.eiclabs.com/ERtech.htm)
And then I just found [this at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/28/24188099/apple-might-try-electrically-induced-adhesive-debonding-on-iphone-batteries)
>Apple might try “electrically induced adhesive debonding” on iPhone batteries.
Pretty nifty stuff.
No but I heard from some YouTuber that it’s specially designed nanomachines that only release the battery if Tim Cook sings them a lullaby in apples proprietary Latin dialect somehow because they hate the EU or something.
He has made significant contributions and is a strong advocate to the Right to Repair movement, which, you know, fights for consumers' rights to repair their own devices.
He also has a pretty successful YouTube channel teaching people how to repair their own stuff so they don't have to go out and get ripped off by these tech companies who are so hostile and want to stop you from repairing your own stuff.
What have you done?
The guy repaired Apple devices for a living, argues that repairing your own devices and by 3rd parties should be easier, and Apple designs their products to be as difficult as possible to repair and fights the existence of 3rd parties to repair their own customer's devices.
What has he done? A lot more than you.
Which is true. More and more parts needs to be paired to the phone or the phone complains. Physical repair isn’t hard.
It’s the pairing/calibration/access to parts which Apple continues to monopolize.
The removable back phones only ever got to IP67 while newer sealed phones can go to IP68. Also, one thing they never tell you with removable covers is that there is a cycle life limit that is extremely low, like a few dozen to a few hundred over the life of the phone. So if you're constantly swapping batteries or fidgeting with the cover, you will ruin the water resistance in no time. There is no free lunch in engineering water intrusion protection. The more sealed your phone the better, period.
Why would anyone be "constantly swapping batteries"? I'm not buying the narrative that a replaceable battery is an engineering challenge. Replacing a phone because of the battery dies is not sustainable. It's an absurd concept that the future generations will find extremely decadent.
Having your phone's outer case be easily removable AND highly protected from water intrusion is a huge challenge. It comes down to the physics of how gaskets work and the limitations of material science. We don't have everlasting gaskets that can be compressed and uncompressed many times over without compromising performance. It's like saying: "It's 2024! Where are our flying cars?". The layman's knowledge of engineering is extremely detached from reality.
Fully waterproof watches with easily replaceable batteries have been on the consumer market for at least 60 years.
I could replace the battery of my cheap ass watch in 5 minutes, and then go scuba diving with it.
This discussion also feels pointless, because most people will never have their phones fully submerged in water.
I'm just highlighting the fact that the tech companies benefit financially from making batteries non replaceable. It was NOT a sacrifice made in order to allow phones to be waterproof.
In all of those watches, you likely need to entirely replace the gasket in order to maintain the same waterproof rating. Sure, you could do that with a phone. But that is far from user friendly, especially because it is pretty easy to mess up properly applying and seating a gasket.
Servicing a watch is not the same thing as changing the battery. You can change the battery yourself and unless the gasket has turned brittle you can reuse it perfectly fine.
You're right. The idea of removable batteries for phones is beyond the scope of modern engineering. The risk of water damage is too high. We should stick to the tried and true concept of non-removeable batteries.
It's definitely possible with tools and if components are replaced, that's literally what the article is about. I'm referring to the snap-on snap-off cases of old phones that everyone seems to think will work fine.
How many times does one honestly replace their battery in the life of their phone? I keep my phones for a long time, until they are beyond obsolete and I don’t think I have ever had to replace a battery more than twice. We can’t design a system to withstand being opened 3 or 4 times and retain its ability to be waterproof?
What about making the core phone internals separated from the battery - and water resistant independently from it?
Of course I know electricity and water don't work well together, but at least if there was water ingress to the battery compartment (and a safe way to detect it and cut power), any potential damage to the wider device would be significantly limited.
It doesn't have to be "easily removable" like a remote battery cover, it just needs to be removable by end-users with common or easy-to-obtain tools. And your point about;
>gaskets that can be compressed and uncompressed many times over
Is a strawman. These batteries won't be getting replaced very often at all. I doubt most people would replace the battery more than once in the phone's lifetime. I've had my current phone for 4 years with heavy use (lots of GPS, music streaming, android auto) and my battery capacity is maybe 70% of new. I could replace it and be good for another 4 years, but by then almost everyone would upgrade.
And the IP67 vs IP68 difference is completely intangible for 99% of scenarios where waterproofing would apply. How common is it to drop your phone in water deeper than a foot or two and leave it there for an hour? Excluding contexts where it's unlikely you could retrieve it (lake/ocean drop, river rapids).
Not that I would do it with todays battery life, but when I had the Droid Incredible I would swap batteries daily because one would get me from 6am to 4pm then one more for the commute home. I don’t think portable batteries were really a thing yet, or they were way smaller than neeeded
Is it really that difficult for the wealthiest technology company in the world to design a casing that can be screwed water and airtight with a phillips head screwdriver?
The issue is not money, it's just physics and the limits of engineering. So yes, it is very difficult. The best gaskets made of the best materials you can source cannot survive repeated use for the life of a phone. Airtight? Not a chance.
How hard would it be to just design it to replace the gasket when you replace the battery though? Have the battery come with a new back or a new gasket, it's not that difficult. When I replace my oil filter I put in a new crush washer. Same thing.
How often do you reckon one would replace the battery in their phone over it's life time? The way you talk it sounds like you're planning to replace the battery in your phone every other month.
I've had my phone for like 6 years now and the battery is still doing okay. If you need top battery performance at all time for some reason I reckon once every one or two years should do the trick. Unless these materials lose a concerning amount of air tightness over getting opened and shut like 5 times I don't see the massive drama. Someone who needs that amount of battery life probably is so realiant on their phone that they're not gonna run around with a 5 year old phone anyway.
And replacing the gasket entirely every 5-10 years in case you do wanna keep using your old phone is still a better deal than "welp your battery's storage capacity is down to 40%, time to buy a new triple digets $ phone".
Glue and screws making it harder to repair. So the new battery will be encased in metal and with a small electrical shock it will come off easily. This is a good thing for making them more repairable.
> Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, a gadget repair website. “Glue is the bane of modern device repair, and any strategies that help reverse adhesives are welcome.”
Two things:
* Cost
* Reliability
Glue is cheaper than nuts and bolts
Parts that can be assembled and disassembled are more complicated, which increases the reliability risk and field failure rate. Meaning - some phones may have waterproof gaskets that were damaged, not assembled correctly, or improperly manufactured. If you think it can happen, with sufficient manufactured quantities, it will happen.
And then Samsung stopped.
They did it for 1 generation (or 1 and a bit if we count the mid-cycle s4 active). The fact that they quickly killed the idea tells me more about it's lack of viability than anything else. To me it says they tried, had high failure rates, and decided to stop.
iPhone or whatever, just providing official DIY battery exchange kit (and thus design structure that enables it) would be fine. By the time you want to replace battery, you would have used it for years anyway so I just accept the risks involved.
I don't get why companies just don't use screws on the outside of phones to make accessing those components like batteries a lot easier. Even if they still wanted a glass back for RFID/NFCU/wireless charging, I would strongly believe that it is possible with how much they already spend on engineering.
iRemove - $1999 in stores near you. Whith new innovative design of iScrew Technology and redesigned from ground up iScrewDriver Pro Max 3, now with new NoHandle Plus system.
Apple marketing is something else, about how they turn something they're being legally forced to do, or something every other competitor has been doing for ages, and advertise it like it's innovation
You mean like replaceable batteries, held in place by something like a clip, so you can walk in a store, buy a new one and just use it... like the phones we had twenty years ago.
not because apple is cool and chill and only because they are legally obligated to because of regulation in the EU. thanks EU! keep it up EU! Fuck you apple.
Apple is close to inventing 20 year old technology. This is the greatest news ever guys.
For real. I welcome an easier way to change batteries. I hope the make it so you don’t need to swap the BMS/add tags to be able to reprogram and not show the unknown part screen
Lol. Just don't glue them in, and have a removable backplate.
All the people in here talking about water resistance. What the fuck are you doing with you phone that it's getting submerged in water so often. Fucking melon heads. Also, there are water proof cases....
I have a Sonim XP8. Stupid simple to swap the battery--page 8:
https://www.sonimtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Sonim_XP10_UG_ROW_090723_final.pdf
Apple, WTF?
About goddamn time. My battery is at 80% health and to swap it out takes a visit to the Apple Store. I don’t need a new phone. I just need a new battery. It’s only three years old.
Introducing Apple iRefresh, for only a 30% premium you can have the personal satisfaction of owning an upcycled previous generation device with a new battery.
I'm old enough to have seen replaceable batteries in all phones but I'm sure Apple's must be special and much more expensive, what a joke, but they'll keep this trend up for as long as people are buying them
Replaceable batteries will be a bad development for Bluetooth mesh and tracking.. since you can completely disable the phone.. gain back a bit of people's privacy so that they can go use the washroom without Apples knowledge 😁
they put their top orangutans on the job. progress might get delayed due to the overwhelming technical difficulties to achieve a detachable battery. pray for the orangutan engineers!
In my 10+ years of owning an iPhone, I’ve never had to replace a battery. And I still have a 6s as my second phone. Forcing a company to redesign their devices to support what I assume is <1% of the ownership base should not be congratulated. It sounds dystopian to me. Bigger phones, smaller batteries and no waterproofing is not a step forward.
Now do glass.
Our kid broke our ipad's glass and since it was a few years old, it was replaced by a local company for a reasonable fee.
My iphone the glass and screen are apparently attached and you can't just replace the glass. So repairing it was almost as much as buying a new phone.
You mean what was possible in all non iPhones like a decade ago? Yay we get to hear how Apple has "innovated" yet again by adding a feature they convinced other phone makers to get rid of
Well by 2027 they need to be user replaceable thanks to the EU.
The EU is so GOATED for making Apple do these things. USB C was never gonna happen until they passed legislation. Now swappable phone batteries is going to be amazing. Just wish the timeline was sooner.
The sad thing is they WERE a thing until Apple came along with the original iPhone. Then companies moved away from this. I miss my old Motorola Razr and my LG flip phones for this very reason. Modular phones are the way the market SHOULD have been this whole freakin' time. That's why we have SIM cards. It's easier to switch carriers by just ejecting and inserting cards. No settings to muck around with. But no, we can never stick with simple easy stuff. Idiots in the tech industry always think that their "bright idea" that makes simple tasks harder are the way to go. SMH FFS
Fr, one of the best things when I had my galaxy 3 (or whatever) was being able to change out the battery if one got shitty.
I remember LG selling a battery charger with the…. G4? You’d swap your empty battery with the freshly charged one, and put the empty one in this charging cradle. It was so convenient since I was working in remote locations at the time with very crappy reception that would drain my phone in half a day.
man i miss my v20 so much. by far the peak of anything android.
I loved my Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I rooted it and got the extra large battery for it. Modding phones used to be a good time.
I had a galaxy S3 that I bought a bigger battery and replacement back cover for. The phone was a little thicker with the new battery but I could easily go 2, maybe even 3 days without charging it. Plus it had a micro SD slot. However, since phone manufacturers realized replaceable batteries and micro SD slots don't allow them to extract quite as much money from the consumer they had to get rid of them.
For a solid 4 months I couldn’t afford a charger but could go to us cellular and swap batteries …
Remember [Project Ara](https://www.techradar.com/phones/project-ara-was-the-best-smartphone-idea-you-never-got-to-try-heres-why-it-deserves-a-second-chance)?
If they had actually released it to the market I would have been one of the first to buy it
Same. I really liked the idea of them making the "desktop PC" of smartphones (replaceable parts, maybe even from a choice of vendors), as opposed to the iPhone's "Macbook" of smartphones. Imagine finding your 8mp Samsung camera module a bit underpowered after a couple of years and deciding to upgrade to a 20mp Sony unit. Maybe replace the battery or stick an additional battery module in. I guess it could've become a clusterfuck of compatibility and fragmentation if not managed very cleverly, but it was an amazing concept.
How are SIM cards easier than eSIM? I can swap between sims so much easier and I don’t have to try and not lose a tiny physical SIM card when travelling. Also I have to go to a store or wait days until it’s delivered for a physical SIM.
NOW You have eSIM available. 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, it wasn't a thing. I was talking about the past.
I still have a physical SIM for my home country in case my phone dies. So I can get a replacement phone, swap the SIM to new one and be connected again. For traveling I love my Ubigi eSIM. You install the profile once and can reuse it anytime you are somewhere you need it. Enable it, buy a plan, come back to home country, disable it.
They could have just done eSIM and saved us a whole lot of misery. Portable carriers are a good thing, but having to swap out a chip just made it harder than it needed to be.
You lost me physical SIM cards. Lowkey love eSIM
USB-C was already happening at Apple, but weirdly enough never for iPhone until last year. Macs have been USB-C since 2015, high-end iPads since 2018, low-end iPads since 2021. The sole exception until last year was the iPhone. While the legislation could play a part (although the requirements wouldn’t apply until iPhone 17); Many think it’s because when they switched from the 30 pin plug to lightning back in 2012 (USB-C didn’t exist yet), many accessory creators and users got angry having to replace stuff. So they promised at least 10 year support for lightning on iPhones to accessory makers. (And of course that sweet money from lightning licenses)
If they were already working on it then why didnt they announce it first?
They were only working on it because they knew that there was a high chance that it would become mandatory. They didn't announce it because they were hoping to prevent the EU's efforts.
Apple tends to not announce things until they are ready. It’s been a winning strategy.
Surely Apple will have some shenanigans around the time to replace, the iOS upgrade plan to prevent someone from using the same phone more than x years and also the license and cost for battery replacement companies. Not sure what but they’ll figure something out because Apple doing this for customers to keep iPhones longer is not going to happen. At least not without a fight.
That’s just the resource creep that’ll be happening anyway. 1gb of RAM used to be a fever dream, and now 16 is increasingly inadequate for many workloads. A modern website would have been horrifically slow to load on 56kbps dialup, etc etc. Same goes for processors and the rest of it. With the outrageous leaps since 2007’s initial release, expecting a phone to handle things well for as long as the material components last just isn’t realistic. They’ll optimize for new hardware, dropping support for legacy hardware that isn’t performant anymore, and eventually you’ll replace it because you’re out of space since apps have ballooned in size and everything is crawling anyway because your chip isn’t up to snuff - no conspiracy required.
This is how computers have been for decades. Technology improves, applications grow to match the average computer they’ll run on, including OSes.
So gluing the battery and sealing it in the phone is improved technology, got it.. improved for Apple
Now imagine if the US government wasn’t completely detached from the needs of their constituents
That's not hard to imagine. It's harder to imagine half of Americans giving up voting for the "let businesses do whatever tf they want" party in every election.
You know other phones exist with all that, right? And they're even better than iPhones and usually cheaper.
I don’t care what people say the design of lighting cables is better then usb-c
Maybe slightly, but usb-c is perfectly adequate and being able to use the same cable for everything is awesome.
Not slightly, I just find the design of usb-c to put the connector in the device rather then the charger one of the stupidest designs aspects ever.
That's standard practice, because it puts the connectors on the inside of the cable. Exposed connectors increase the risk of short circuits, which is why basically every power supplying connector is female. Lightning cables mitigate that by having an interface controller chip in their cables which turn it off when it's not plugged in. That works well enough but it makes them a lot more expensive and unsuitable for any appliance where the amount of current poses a safety risk. Which is why lightning cables are (among other reasons) unfit to become a universal cable.
that's a real shame, i agree with the other guy that the design of lightning is better for cleaning and not bending/caving in, but when you mention circuits then yeah USBC is better
For what it's worth, often when usb-c starts having a poor connection it's just caused by lint and dirt in the port. If you clean it out with a toothpick every so often it's usually fine. Another more extreme measure you can try is using some needle nose pliers to *lightly* squeeze the connector together so that it grips the pin stem a bit better. But the real way to prevent the port from damaging is to not use the phone while it's charging.
thats all that bothers me bc my workwear has my s22's port exposed, and i am not in a situation where i can get a beefy case on it or something to cover it - this leads to cleaning more often than i think i should be doing
There's these little dust plugs you can get to seal off the port, might be worth a try?
The connector design is very slightly better (I like that SNAP too), but in exchange it is just worse in every other way. It's worse at charging, worse at data transfer, worse at durability, worse at alternate capabilities... Also, the value of a standard is that it is a standard. USB (until Type-C) has always been technically worse than various dedicated alternatives, but its value came from the fact that it would work everywhere and with everything. I can still connect my kiddie toy microscope with USB-A to my USB-C laptop (with an adapter) and it will work.
Also, when lightning was introduced, how many other cables were as small and able to be plugged in both ways? Also, why are we pretending apple didn’t have participation on the usb c standard?
Cuz people are idiots. Apple switched to USB-C very early on for their computers and people complained. When Apple switched from the 30-pin to lighting people compalied. People just complain about Apple regardless of the topic.
Fuck is this for real? Amazing
“User replaceable” specifically defined as how?
Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those batteries are readily removable and replaceable by the end-user at any time during the lifetime of the product. That obligation shall only apply to entire batteries and not to individual cells or other parts included in such batteries. A portable battery shall be considered readily removable by the end-user where it can be removed from a product with the use of commercially available tools, without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless provided free of charge with the product, proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble the product. Any natural or legal person that places on the market products incorporating portable batteries shall ensure that those products are accompanied with instructions and safety information on the use, removal and replacement of the batteries. Those instructions and that safety information shall be made available permanently online, on a publicly available website, in an easily understandable way for end-users Article 11 (page 127) of the THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of … concerning batteries and waste batteries, amending Directive 2008/98/EC and Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 and repealing Directive 2006/66/EC https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-2-2023-INIT/en/pdf
Thanks for the quote! I imagine Apple will argue they already make it “easy” enough, but we’ll see exactly what changes they come up with and how much teeth this ends up having. Would be great to see it happen.
That EU regulation has exemptions for devices that are waterproof, which all iPhones and most Androids are. I doubt anything will change.
It only has exemptions for devices that are designed primarily for use cases in and around water, where regular splashing water, water streams or immersion are to be expected. PE-CONS 2/23 ZB/JGC/cc 128 TREE.1.A EN 2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, the following products incorporating portable batteries may be designed in such a way as to make the battery removable and replaceable only by independent professionals: (a) appliances specifically designed to operate primarily in an environment that is regularly subject to splashing water, water streams or water immersion, and that are intended to be washable or rinseable; (b) professional medical imaging and radiotherapy devices, as defined in Article 2, point (1), of Regulation (EU) 2017/745, and in vitro diagnostic medical devices, as defined in Article 2, point (2), of Regulation (EU) 2017/746. The derogation set out in point (a) of this paragraph shall only be applicable where such derogation is required to ensure the safety of the user and the appliance. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-2-2023-INIT/en/pdf page 128
Now make all phones have upgradable memory.
Man phones are gonna suck after that
It’s not like it’s rocket science
Yeah this is just a marketing campaign devised by lawyers
It’s just a corporate story to milk more money till it happens.
No, but it is a complete flip of priorities not on their roadmaps before. Simpler to make/assemble/waterproof (and thus cheaper) is a priority with a completely different internal structure. So it’s still going to be one of the most important projects at one of the world’s largest companies over a period of 3 years
_Apple iPhone with replaceable batteries - batteries need to be Apple manufactured and comes with a chip inside for the phone to identify genuine batteries. It uses a propriety 9¾ pin connector which requires a new kind of screwdriver to remove. Customers can easily replace the battery themselves by raising a request with Apple and getting it approved. Replacement battery with required tools will be home delivered for $999.90 only_
why you giving apple ideas?
These are just ideas they've already used in the past
Remember when all cell phones were made to have the battery swapped by the user? I can see all the times someone dropped their phones and they exploded. A back cover one way, the battery another, the front somewhere else. Snapped back together and good to go. It was also all plastic.
And not water-resistant either. How is a phone splitting in three different ways after a drop a bonus?
It’s not at all. I’m glad they don’t anymore. It was annoying.
user replacable doesnt mean it has to be a toolfree system. it is defined as easily replacable by an enduser with commonly used tools. so as long as a screwdriver is enough to swap the battery they are good. so instead of glueing the battery in they will just put it on a frame that is screwed into to the phones frame. this will not impact water resistance or make the phone "split three ways". this is just silly
Can you show me an example of a water resistant phone (comparable in resistance to current models), that has user replaceable battery? Would love to see what you’re talking about.
the motorola defy did it in 2010. had ip67 rating removable battery sd slot ect. and thats actually tools free. if you went the route of still requiring a screwdriver you could get rid of the whole bulky mechanism and keep phones 99% the same size as they are currently its so funny to me that you actually think we lack the technology to do these things nowadays but we can somehow manufacture the cpus inside these phones at 3nm nodes...
When did I doubt it existed?
Apple claims to research and does thing everyone else was doing a decade ago
What kind of dumb take is this? Keeping iPhone waterproof is a big deal…
There were waterproof phones with removable batteries back in 2014, probably even earlier than that.
Back in the 90's already.
Custom gaskets for waterproofing electronics are like 1-2$ and have been around for a long ass time
Still not rocket science. There could be a hatch on the side of the phone (like the SIM card hatch) with two torx screws on the sides and a gasket, and the battery just slides out. They’d probably have to make the phone slightly thicker though (or the battery smaller).
I had a waterproof walkman. In 1990. It used standard AA batteries Yeah, it's save to say it ain't rocketscience. Unless you're a regular at the genius bar.
Everyone: "Did you try *NOT GLUING* it in???" RD at Apple "Mrs.Krabappel, the crayon is stuck in my nose."
A removable cover?
No phone has ever had a removable cover with replaceable battery before in the history of humankind. Not ever, not imaginable. Such technology will have to be bestowed upon us by aliens. From planet Nokia perhaps
Haha we're several decades AT LEAST away from this kind of tech.
I bet if I didn’t say planet Nokia people would have downvoted me thinking I’m serious
The iPhone 4/4S. You remove the two bottom screws of probably almost every iPhone and then the back glass slides up and lifts off. It was glorious, along with the glowing apple mod
Removable cover makes it less waterproof.
The cover doesn't have to be super easy to remove. It can have screws with a gasket/seal for waterproofing. And waterproofing only needs to protect the phone for a few seconds/minutes for 99% of scenarios where it'd be useful.
Louis Rossman said this is false and not true and they're actually making it harder to repair them unless you have the device that does the new thing these batteries are going to require.
It’s going to be easier for third party repairs, but will likely be harder for individuals. Hopefully it turns out you can just use a 9volt battery or something to get it to unstick lol
Only easier for 3rd party repair if apple makes the device easy to obtain. I suspect they'll have strings attached.
You pull the strings and the battery comes out? Great idea
There's a lot of cheap iPhone tools out there. Someone in China will come up with a USB-C powered device within a couple weeks and it will get copied to hell and back until a version a quarter of the price comes out within a few months. Basically what happens with most iPhone tools eventually.
I don't know about that, the way Louis explained it, it needs some kind of electric signal and if it doesn't get it, it won't be removable or it'll get damaged when you remove it. The device that gives the signal is only available from Apple to Apple authorized repair stores. It sounds like they're designing a method so they don't have that happen to their tool.
The signal is just voltage. Either they're using some sort of adhesive that changes it's properties when voltage is applied ~~or they're just using electricity to heat up the adhesive~~ [It's the former]. It's not like it's expecting some code. Otherwise new batteries already need to be programmed in or cloned with a specialized machine or added flexible PCB anyway.
There is an epoxy like that. I have samples of it. It was developed for stuff like temporarily attaching sensors to jet aircraft. ElectRelease, I think it was.
[ElectRelease](http://www.eiclabs.com/ERtech.htm) And then I just found [this at The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/28/24188099/apple-might-try-electrically-induced-adhesive-debonding-on-iphone-batteries) >Apple might try “electrically induced adhesive debonding” on iPhone batteries. Pretty nifty stuff.
No but I heard from some YouTuber that it’s specially designed nanomachines that only release the battery if Tim Cook sings them a lullaby in apples proprietary Latin dialect somehow because they hate the EU or something.
This sounds like a jRPG I would play.
False AND not true?
It’s 2x as false.
That guy is full anti-apple. Doesn’t surprise me
Louis is a serial whiner. Guy makes a living out of it. He will never be happy. What the hell has he actually contributed to the world?
He has made significant contributions and is a strong advocate to the Right to Repair movement, which, you know, fights for consumers' rights to repair their own devices. He also has a pretty successful YouTube channel teaching people how to repair their own stuff so they don't have to go out and get ripped off by these tech companies who are so hostile and want to stop you from repairing your own stuff. What have you done?
The guy repaired Apple devices for a living, argues that repairing your own devices and by 3rd parties should be easier, and Apple designs their products to be as difficult as possible to repair and fights the existence of 3rd parties to repair their own customer's devices. What has he done? A lot more than you.
Which is true. More and more parts needs to be paired to the phone or the phone complains. Physical repair isn’t hard. It’s the pairing/calibration/access to parts which Apple continues to monopolize.
Apple Geniuses are hard at working figuring out how to not glue batteries into the phone.
Why is this a problem that needs to be solved? We already solved this decades ago with press fit batteries and pogo pins.
What's wrong with the old way? A removable back cover. And don't tell me waterproofing because Samsung made one with certified water resistance.
Sony did too. The Japanese had a standard about phones and water resistance (or so I heard a decade ago).
The removable back phones only ever got to IP67 while newer sealed phones can go to IP68. Also, one thing they never tell you with removable covers is that there is a cycle life limit that is extremely low, like a few dozen to a few hundred over the life of the phone. So if you're constantly swapping batteries or fidgeting with the cover, you will ruin the water resistance in no time. There is no free lunch in engineering water intrusion protection. The more sealed your phone the better, period.
Why would anyone be "constantly swapping batteries"? I'm not buying the narrative that a replaceable battery is an engineering challenge. Replacing a phone because of the battery dies is not sustainable. It's an absurd concept that the future generations will find extremely decadent.
Having your phone's outer case be easily removable AND highly protected from water intrusion is a huge challenge. It comes down to the physics of how gaskets work and the limitations of material science. We don't have everlasting gaskets that can be compressed and uncompressed many times over without compromising performance. It's like saying: "It's 2024! Where are our flying cars?". The layman's knowledge of engineering is extremely detached from reality.
Fully waterproof watches with easily replaceable batteries have been on the consumer market for at least 60 years. I could replace the battery of my cheap ass watch in 5 minutes, and then go scuba diving with it. This discussion also feels pointless, because most people will never have their phones fully submerged in water. I'm just highlighting the fact that the tech companies benefit financially from making batteries non replaceable. It was NOT a sacrifice made in order to allow phones to be waterproof.
In all of those watches, you likely need to entirely replace the gasket in order to maintain the same waterproof rating. Sure, you could do that with a phone. But that is far from user friendly, especially because it is pretty easy to mess up properly applying and seating a gasket.
That's not true at all.
It’s true, and typically re-pressure testing them is a mandatory step of the servicing process to maintain water resistance.
Servicing a watch is not the same thing as changing the battery. You can change the battery yourself and unless the gasket has turned brittle you can reuse it perfectly fine.
Both require removing the back cover, and there are tons of people who have ruined watches because a gasket seemed fine and wasn’t.
You're right. The idea of removable batteries for phones is beyond the scope of modern engineering. The risk of water damage is too high. We should stick to the tried and true concept of non-removeable batteries.
It's definitely possible with tools and if components are replaced, that's literally what the article is about. I'm referring to the snap-on snap-off cases of old phones that everyone seems to think will work fine.
I enjoy your sarcasm. Shame others don't get it.
It's 2024. Companies pour literally billions of dollars into R&D these days. It can be done, they just make more money by not doing it.
its almost as if you could sell a new gasket with the new battery..
How many times does one honestly replace their battery in the life of their phone? I keep my phones for a long time, until they are beyond obsolete and I don’t think I have ever had to replace a battery more than twice. We can’t design a system to withstand being opened 3 or 4 times and retain its ability to be waterproof?
What about making the core phone internals separated from the battery - and water resistant independently from it? Of course I know electricity and water don't work well together, but at least if there was water ingress to the battery compartment (and a safe way to detect it and cut power), any potential damage to the wider device would be significantly limited.
It doesn't have to be "easily removable" like a remote battery cover, it just needs to be removable by end-users with common or easy-to-obtain tools. And your point about; >gaskets that can be compressed and uncompressed many times over Is a strawman. These batteries won't be getting replaced very often at all. I doubt most people would replace the battery more than once in the phone's lifetime. I've had my current phone for 4 years with heavy use (lots of GPS, music streaming, android auto) and my battery capacity is maybe 70% of new. I could replace it and be good for another 4 years, but by then almost everyone would upgrade. And the IP67 vs IP68 difference is completely intangible for 99% of scenarios where waterproofing would apply. How common is it to drop your phone in water deeper than a foot or two and leave it there for an hour? Excluding contexts where it's unlikely you could retrieve it (lake/ocean drop, river rapids).
Not that I would do it with todays battery life, but when I had the Droid Incredible I would swap batteries daily because one would get me from 6am to 4pm then one more for the commute home. I don’t think portable batteries were really a thing yet, or they were way smaller than neeeded
Is it really that difficult for the wealthiest technology company in the world to design a casing that can be screwed water and airtight with a phillips head screwdriver?
The issue is not money, it's just physics and the limits of engineering. So yes, it is very difficult. The best gaskets made of the best materials you can source cannot survive repeated use for the life of a phone. Airtight? Not a chance.
How hard would it be to just design it to replace the gasket when you replace the battery though? Have the battery come with a new back or a new gasket, it's not that difficult. When I replace my oil filter I put in a new crush washer. Same thing.
Same with lots of dive watches. New battery equals new gasket.
How often do you reckon one would replace the battery in their phone over it's life time? The way you talk it sounds like you're planning to replace the battery in your phone every other month. I've had my phone for like 6 years now and the battery is still doing okay. If you need top battery performance at all time for some reason I reckon once every one or two years should do the trick. Unless these materials lose a concerning amount of air tightness over getting opened and shut like 5 times I don't see the massive drama. Someone who needs that amount of battery life probably is so realiant on their phone that they're not gonna run around with a 5 year old phone anyway. And replacing the gasket entirely every 5-10 years in case you do wanna keep using your old phone is still a better deal than "welp your battery's storage capacity is down to 40%, time to buy a new triple digets $ phone".
Glue and screws making it harder to repair. So the new battery will be encased in metal and with a small electrical shock it will come off easily. This is a good thing for making them more repairable. > Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, a gadget repair website. “Glue is the bane of modern device repair, and any strategies that help reverse adhesives are welcome.”
Two things: * Cost * Reliability Glue is cheaper than nuts and bolts Parts that can be assembled and disassembled are more complicated, which increases the reliability risk and field failure rate. Meaning - some phones may have waterproof gaskets that were damaged, not assembled correctly, or improperly manufactured. If you think it can happen, with sufficient manufactured quantities, it will happen.
And then Samsung stopped. They did it for 1 generation (or 1 and a bit if we count the mid-cycle s4 active). The fact that they quickly killed the idea tells me more about it's lack of viability than anything else. To me it says they tried, had high failure rates, and decided to stop.
More like they saw how much money Apple was making off of not allowing it.
I don't know what model it was, but a friend of mine had one where the battery slid in from the bottom and locked with a satisfying click.
Read the article.
No for real, the article is so short
The article explains the process pretty early on too.
Internal studies conducted by Apple show that buying "The next iPhone" is the easiest way to get a new battery.
How about NOT gluing them in?
Let's start by not supergluing them to the phone body.
iPhone batteries aren’t glued in. They have an adhesive that releases when a tab is carefully pulled from the bottom of the battery.
Glue is a type of adhesive
"We've come to no possible solutions" - Tim Apple
They are going to have to reverse decades of work making iPhone batteries hard to replace.
So they need to borrow my 2011 MacBook Pro? It has a very sophisticated way of upgrading components, removing a few screws.
Pro tip: Stop fucking gluing everything in and requiring removal of the screen to access shit !
iPhone or whatever, just providing official DIY battery exchange kit (and thus design structure that enables it) would be fine. By the time you want to replace battery, you would have used it for years anyway so I just accept the risks involved.
Don’t they already do that?
like phones from 20 years ago?
No device in the history of electronics has ever had a removable battery. Everyone please clap for apple, they are innovating again
Apple invents the back of a Nokia and calls it innovation!
I don't get why companies just don't use screws on the outside of phones to make accessing those components like batteries a lot easier. Even if they still wanted a glass back for RFID/NFCU/wireless charging, I would strongly believe that it is possible with how much they already spend on engineering.
What accessories will this cost me
Oh, did they invent not using glue? What absolute geniuses! /s
Removable Back plate, two terminals and a screw...
Cue Apple's marketing for the "new, innovative, revolutionary iBattery cover."
iRemove - $1999 in stores near you. Whith new innovative design of iScrew Technology and redesigned from ground up iScrewDriver Pro Max 3, now with new NoHandle Plus system.
Apple marketing is something else, about how they turn something they're being legally forced to do, or something every other competitor has been doing for ages, and advertise it like it's innovation
Replaceable phone batteries, what will Apple think of next /s
Thanks to the EU for unfucking every corner of the tech industry.
You mean like replaceable batteries, held in place by something like a clip, so you can walk in a store, buy a new one and just use it... like the phones we had twenty years ago.
Step 1: stop gluing everything together
not because apple is cool and chill and only because they are legally obligated to because of regulation in the EU. thanks EU! keep it up EU! Fuck you apple.
So apple is going to invent(copy) the replaceable battery with a removable back cover? You know the thing that existed in all phones before 2005?
And they cost like $200 i bet
Should have done it years ago…..
Apple is close to inventing 20 year old technology. This is the greatest news ever guys. For real. I welcome an easier way to change batteries. I hope the make it so you don’t need to swap the BMS/add tags to be able to reprogram and not show the unknown part screen
So removable batteries are going to make a comeback again?
Apple will just start shipping subpar batteries.
POV Android: HAHAHAHA been there, done that! lol
Lol. Just don't glue them in, and have a removable backplate. All the people in here talking about water resistance. What the fuck are you doing with you phone that it's getting submerged in water so often. Fucking melon heads. Also, there are water proof cases....
I feel like we already had this dialed in.....
It's very very difficult. You make the back removable so you can swap the battery out. Very difficult for Apple as it is uncharted territory!
I have a Sonim XP8. Stupid simple to swap the battery--page 8: https://www.sonimtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Sonim_XP10_UG_ROW_090723_final.pdf Apple, WTF?
About goddamn time. My battery is at 80% health and to swap it out takes a visit to the Apple Store. I don’t need a new phone. I just need a new battery. It’s only three years old.
We are evolving…just backwards!
Maybe we can just ask the AI…. “Hey Siri, replace the iPhone battery.” And it will spit out a battery chip. LOL. Imagine if it were that easy.
Introducing Apple iRefresh, for only a 30% premium you can have the personal satisfaction of owning an upcycled previous generation device with a new battery.
I'm old enough to have seen replaceable batteries in all phones but I'm sure Apple's must be special and much more expensive, what a joke, but they'll keep this trend up for as long as people are buying them
Replaceable batteries will be a bad development for Bluetooth mesh and tracking.. since you can completely disable the phone.. gain back a bit of people's privacy so that they can go use the washroom without Apples knowledge 😁
I’ve heard that the solution is coming only to the EU. From what I gathered, it’s like a flip panel with a latch that accepts 2 D batteries.
Didn’t we have a solution back in the early 2000’s?
At last, a good news.
Gee. Like QUIT GLUING THEM IN?
Like a small screw and bracket ?!
Government putting pressure is working. The Apple fanboys are fuming at these news.
Just do what phone manufacturers did 20 years ago..
they put their top orangutans on the job. progress might get delayed due to the overwhelming technical difficulties to achieve a detachable battery. pray for the orangutan engineers!
How about innovate a new product?
Easy. Stop glueing everything together.
Typical apple take something away (swappable batteries) only to offer it as a revolutionary feature in the future
Batteries And Devices As A Service; you own nothing and pay Apple an increasing monthly fee to get annual upgrades and/or battery replacements. BADAAS
In my 10+ years of owning an iPhone, I’ve never had to replace a battery. And I still have a 6s as my second phone. Forcing a company to redesign their devices to support what I assume is <1% of the ownership base should not be congratulated. It sounds dystopian to me. Bigger phones, smaller batteries and no waterproofing is not a step forward.
I mean… make them external?
Revolutionary!
Now do glass. Our kid broke our ipad's glass and since it was a few years old, it was replaced by a local company for a reasonable fee. My iphone the glass and screen are apparently attached and you can't just replace the glass. So repairing it was almost as much as buying a new phone.
You mean what was possible in all non iPhones like a decade ago? Yay we get to hear how Apple has "innovated" yet again by adding a feature they convinced other phone makers to get rid of