I'm more and more impressed by the courage and spot on observations of EU, sometimes it feels like they're the only ones actually representing the customer's interest rather than the pockets of phone manufacturers. Last time I googled why on earth I've had to spend hundreds of euros each year on like 6-8 iphone and mac chargers every year with Apple chargers being so criminally fragile the only ones that felt my pain were EU regulators. Today, my girlfriend just a week after getting an iPhone as a gift from me started to stress every day just like I've been stressing about the battery running from 100% to 10% by noon. I kinda got used to the struggle, didn't even think about how I'll actually end up introducing more misery to her life compared to her cheap android she'd had before which at least had a good battery and easily got her through the day. Now I regret my gift, she'll have to carry her old phone too if she wants to use this crappy iPhone on a daily basis, in order to have a spare one for the afternoons or evenings, or worse, a mobile power bank that you have to connect to the phone on the go with a cable just to desperately breath some more hours of life into it. Once again, seeing how miserable this greedy company makes everyone with their poor quality accessories and batteries, I looked up WHY on earth, if they are really not able to create a battery that consistnently lasts for at least a day, why can't they have the decency to give us back the option of just swapping our dead battery with a charged one, just like that, suddenly I can have unlimited battery and it's up to me how many extras I've tuck in my bag or pocket or wallet! Surely, not rocket science if it already worked in the past! It's just business interests, that's all! How dare they blame it on design, did anyone ask for phones to be so thin even if it comes at the cost of making them disfunctional?? Who the hell cares if our phones were an 8th of an inch thicker, if that got us the option to swap out a dead battery and get rid of the daily stress of having to anxiously check our battery lives every hour! And they blame it on the water proof 'feature' now that got me really pissed off because this one time I lost a 'water proof' iPhone to water, the sellers laughed their asses off saying "oh, water touched it? Then it's over my friend. No way it's survived that" and I'm like "What? You've sold me that shit advertising it as 'water proof for up to 1 m under water' and it just slipped out of my hands under the water running from the tap for like a few seconds and now you're saying oh actually all that was a lie, and all you can do is laugh, shouldn't you at least pretend that the company you're working for is not lying to its customers? Apparently no, because Apple just gets away with it. And then you come here saying that we should keep THAT water proof feature rather than having the swappable battery feature. Apple (and some of its blind defenders) really take us all for fools. But even if these phones were actually water proof, I won't believe it for a second that it's the battery swapping that would compromise that. So you can design a SIM card swapping slot that we can open and close and that's okay but you can't implement a similarly safe mechanism for the battery swapping? You gotta be short on engineers at the design table. And honestly, the way we have to live now with an iPhone, avoiding water at all cost already, it wouldn't make much difference, water resistance is the least functional and thus least important feature, hell yeah, I'll choose swappable battery any time. And if Apple doesn't want to comply with the regulations here, it can say goodbye to the half billion phone users living in the EU and we the European customers will be better off because we'll finally get that last push to go with Samsung and live happily with batteries and cables that last so much longer and cost so much less (isn't that an engineering miracle lol).
John - 4 years ago
Whoever votes no on user-replaceable batteries are only wishing the world to become polluted and run out of resources. Making batteries replaceable not only allows you to keep the phone longer, but also helps the planet more by reducing the need to mine more costly lithium and let people recycle their batteries easier, helping to reduce pollution more. The manufacturing process is detrimental to our world's health, not to mention how expensive new phones are these days.
troemich - 4 years ago
The Samsung Galaxy S5 had a replacable battery and was waterproof. Phone manufacturers glue batteries down because it's the first component to bite the dust. Then people either have to pay a high fee for getting the battery replaced or simply throw it out and buy a brand new phone.
Phone manufacturers could make phones with user replacable batteries as slim as possible and also make it waterproof. Unless they are forced by government, no phone manufacturer will do that because glued down batteries forces people to buy a new phone every few years. It makes them the most money and only a law would stop them from doing that. Also devices with glued down batteries are very hard to recycle. You can't shredder them as the battery might start a fire. So you need people to manually take them apart which takes a lot of time and often costs more than the recycled parts will be worth. That's why a lot of those electronics end up in landfill, get burned in a waste incinerator or end up in some 3rd world country where it will pollute the soil and groundwater for centuries.
Carlos - 5 years ago
I am amazed by the first 2 comments. One mentions Unless it's a danger to society, isn't a danger to society, the world and for the upcoming generations to have tons and tons of electronic waste just because the companies prefer to make disposable gadgets to make us consume and change the phone every year? One of the first things to die in a new phone is the battery, once the capacity to hold charge is gone, even with power banks the phone is almost useless unless it's permanently connected to the power bank and people will tend to replace the phone, even some of them would happily keep the phone if they would have a way to easily replace the battery.
We are not talking about companies, we are talking about the only world we have and what are we leaving to future generations. Companies are responsible for pollution and not giving a way to repair electronic gadgets.
J - 5 years ago
If EU want to play that ball then Apple don’t cower to these idiots and say that’s fine we will no longer be selling iPhones to any eu country due to EU government ruling. Then watch the riots erupt and the EU will fold.
Andrew - 5 years ago
I wonder why any government needs to dictate to a company what they need to do. Unless it’s a danger to society. Let the market dictate what is needed by a corporation to do or not do.
Kevin - 5 years ago
Most of my watches are waterproof and require professional battery replacement which sometimes runs to almost $150. This covers ensuring waterproofing is retained to the original specifications, warranty, shipping etc, but still, it’s not cheap. The real point for most people arguing for user replaceable batteries is hot swapping the battery which these days isn’t really necessary given battery capacity, addons and external power banks. If you’re talking end of life swapping you’re into the watch battery scenario I note above which wouldn’t be helped by mandating user replaceable batteries. All this assumes you want your phone to be waterproof which I would definitely take over user replaceable batteries.
James - 5 years ago
Really curious why folks feel that a user replaceable battery is not a good thing. Is it just about the waterproofing?
Is it slimness? It's not clear to me that those things are mutually exclusive to replaceable batteries. Apple is smart. I believe they can meet all those needs.
A user replaceable battery liberates us from Apple and the risk involved in breaking a phone open to get to the battery.
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I'm more and more impressed by the courage and spot on observations of EU, sometimes it feels like they're the only ones actually representing the customer's interest rather than the pockets of phone manufacturers. Last time I googled why on earth I've had to spend hundreds of euros each year on like 6-8 iphone and mac chargers every year with Apple chargers being so criminally fragile the only ones that felt my pain were EU regulators. Today, my girlfriend just a week after getting an iPhone as a gift from me started to stress every day just like I've been stressing about the battery running from 100% to 10% by noon. I kinda got used to the struggle, didn't even think about how I'll actually end up introducing more misery to her life compared to her cheap android she'd had before which at least had a good battery and easily got her through the day. Now I regret my gift, she'll have to carry her old phone too if she wants to use this crappy iPhone on a daily basis, in order to have a spare one for the afternoons or evenings, or worse, a mobile power bank that you have to connect to the phone on the go with a cable just to desperately breath some more hours of life into it. Once again, seeing how miserable this greedy company makes everyone with their poor quality accessories and batteries, I looked up WHY on earth, if they are really not able to create a battery that consistnently lasts for at least a day, why can't they have the decency to give us back the option of just swapping our dead battery with a charged one, just like that, suddenly I can have unlimited battery and it's up to me how many extras I've tuck in my bag or pocket or wallet! Surely, not rocket science if it already worked in the past! It's just business interests, that's all! How dare they blame it on design, did anyone ask for phones to be so thin even if it comes at the cost of making them disfunctional?? Who the hell cares if our phones were an 8th of an inch thicker, if that got us the option to swap out a dead battery and get rid of the daily stress of having to anxiously check our battery lives every hour! And they blame it on the water proof 'feature' now that got me really pissed off because this one time I lost a 'water proof' iPhone to water, the sellers laughed their asses off saying "oh, water touched it? Then it's over my friend. No way it's survived that" and I'm like "What? You've sold me that shit advertising it as 'water proof for up to 1 m under water' and it just slipped out of my hands under the water running from the tap for like a few seconds and now you're saying oh actually all that was a lie, and all you can do is laugh, shouldn't you at least pretend that the company you're working for is not lying to its customers? Apparently no, because Apple just gets away with it. And then you come here saying that we should keep THAT water proof feature rather than having the swappable battery feature. Apple (and some of its blind defenders) really take us all for fools. But even if these phones were actually water proof, I won't believe it for a second that it's the battery swapping that would compromise that. So you can design a SIM card swapping slot that we can open and close and that's okay but you can't implement a similarly safe mechanism for the battery swapping? You gotta be short on engineers at the design table. And honestly, the way we have to live now with an iPhone, avoiding water at all cost already, it wouldn't make much difference, water resistance is the least functional and thus least important feature, hell yeah, I'll choose swappable battery any time. And if Apple doesn't want to comply with the regulations here, it can say goodbye to the half billion phone users living in the EU and we the European customers will be better off because we'll finally get that last push to go with Samsung and live happily with batteries and cables that last so much longer and cost so much less (isn't that an engineering miracle lol).
Whoever votes no on user-replaceable batteries are only wishing the world to become polluted and run out of resources. Making batteries replaceable not only allows you to keep the phone longer, but also helps the planet more by reducing the need to mine more costly lithium and let people recycle their batteries easier, helping to reduce pollution more. The manufacturing process is detrimental to our world's health, not to mention how expensive new phones are these days.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 had a replacable battery and was waterproof. Phone manufacturers glue batteries down because it's the first component to bite the dust. Then people either have to pay a high fee for getting the battery replaced or simply throw it out and buy a brand new phone.
Phone manufacturers could make phones with user replacable batteries as slim as possible and also make it waterproof. Unless they are forced by government, no phone manufacturer will do that because glued down batteries forces people to buy a new phone every few years. It makes them the most money and only a law would stop them from doing that. Also devices with glued down batteries are very hard to recycle. You can't shredder them as the battery might start a fire. So you need people to manually take them apart which takes a lot of time and often costs more than the recycled parts will be worth. That's why a lot of those electronics end up in landfill, get burned in a waste incinerator or end up in some 3rd world country where it will pollute the soil and groundwater for centuries.
I am amazed by the first 2 comments. One mentions Unless it's a danger to society, isn't a danger to society, the world and for the upcoming generations to have tons and tons of electronic waste just because the companies prefer to make disposable gadgets to make us consume and change the phone every year? One of the first things to die in a new phone is the battery, once the capacity to hold charge is gone, even with power banks the phone is almost useless unless it's permanently connected to the power bank and people will tend to replace the phone, even some of them would happily keep the phone if they would have a way to easily replace the battery.
We are not talking about companies, we are talking about the only world we have and what are we leaving to future generations. Companies are responsible for pollution and not giving a way to repair electronic gadgets.
If EU want to play that ball then Apple don’t cower to these idiots and say that’s fine we will no longer be selling iPhones to any eu country due to EU government ruling. Then watch the riots erupt and the EU will fold.
I wonder why any government needs to dictate to a company what they need to do. Unless it’s a danger to society. Let the market dictate what is needed by a corporation to do or not do.
Most of my watches are waterproof and require professional battery replacement which sometimes runs to almost $150. This covers ensuring waterproofing is retained to the original specifications, warranty, shipping etc, but still, it’s not cheap. The real point for most people arguing for user replaceable batteries is hot swapping the battery which these days isn’t really necessary given battery capacity, addons and external power banks. If you’re talking end of life swapping you’re into the watch battery scenario I note above which wouldn’t be helped by mandating user replaceable batteries. All this assumes you want your phone to be waterproof which I would definitely take over user replaceable batteries.
Really curious why folks feel that a user replaceable battery is not a good thing. Is it just about the waterproofing?
Is it slimness? It's not clear to me that those things are mutually exclusive to replaceable batteries. Apple is smart. I believe they can meet all those needs.
A user replaceable battery liberates us from Apple and the risk involved in breaking a phone open to get to the battery.