The EU dont care… lol
If I remember correctly: If it is watertight, replaceable batteries are not required. EZ way to skirt around this stuff.
Nah.
To ensure the safety of end-users, this Regulation should provide for a limited derogation for portable batteries from the removability and replaceability requirements set for portable batteries concerning appliances that incorporate portable batteries and that are specifically designed to be used, for the majority of the active service of the appliance, in an environment that is regularly subject to splashing water, water streams or water immersion and that are intended to be washable or rinseable.
So watertight is definitely enough of a reason.
Except this is a bullshit exception because not only is it 100% possible to make waterproof devices with replaceable batteries, they have existed for years already. There is absolutely no technical reason for this, and the exception probably only exists because the corporations influenced the legislators to effectively gut the law.
I don’t think a phone counts as that since it’s not something that’s expected to be regularly subject to water
That’s really stupid, waterproof phones with replaceable batteries are certainly possible and have been done before.
Until you use some of that money for lobbying political influence they don’t.
Facebook can get away with advertising literal scam to kids and old people alike and there are no consequences for them.
It is called a rubber o-ring.
That’s how other companies have been making water-tight compartments for batteries and other things for literally decades now. But all of a sudden, Apple wants to pretend this is some unsolvable problem. For fucks sakes stop acting like this is some insane ask, goddamn it.
No other government body is as consumer-friendly as the EU, so I really hope this bill passes and forces Apple to comply. I am so sick of the bullshit from these megacorporations who are so big they just don’t give a flying fuck about what consumers want. And on the flipside, there are going to be a million Apple apologists who will side with Apple on this topic. Those bootlickers only make things worse for everyone.
Just wait, Apple will solve this with a rubber o-ring and will receive heaps of praise for their innovation.
You mean magic rings?! Or maybe they’ll be called i-rings.
They’ll come up with some stupid ass name like that to make it seem like it is a proprietary thing. Man, I hate that company so much.
The Magic iRing™ is a cutting edge, replaceable* sealing appartus for your new iPhone 18, made of military grade special compound and sleek design to ensure your new iPhone with replaceable* battery stays sealed to IP67 Standart.
Magic iRing sold separately starting at $99 *replaceable by authorized dealers only, needs to be serialized to your phone, Magic iRing™ must be replaced after every use.
I hate how accurate this probably is.
replaceable by authorized dealers only
I believe that same law doesn’t allow that, no? Or was it another?
The magic retina pro max rings. Available at an extra $29.99
iRing.
The $999 rubber oring
EU wasn’t asking bro
They tried asking before, with the charging connector. Apple effectively ignored them for about a decade, so they’re going with the firmer option now.
Govs should never ask. They must implement the regulation. The corporations are so greedy, they will follow for the money.
So glad to see the Apple fans here aren’t a bunch of blind yesmen. With an R&D budget the size of Apple’s I am sure theres a way to figure somwthing out.
Especially since waterproof phones with replaceable batteries already existed. They aren’t exactly working from nothing.
I remember dunking my flip phone into glasses of water as a party trick and it was totally fine. This would’ve been around 2010 or so.
They exist but not at this thinness. That’s an important difference.
I don’t think anybody really cares about an extra half millimetre of thickness, especially if it means that you can save hundreds in replacement costs and extend its life by a few years. Nobody’s buying an iPhone and busting out the calipers to compare it to their previous phone.
Apple’s sales fall and people don’t buy new phones because “it looks just like last year’s phone.”
There are so many things a company can change about a phone besides its thickness.
You also start running into usability issues. There’s only so thin a phone can be before it’s less of a phone, and more of a blade that’ll bend if you sneeze at it wrong.
Happened with the iPhone 6
Really refreshing to see Apple fans who have not forgotten they are consumers who have features they want as opposed to accepting whatever decision is made for them.
Other site was a weird mix of people who seemed less Apple consumers and shared more in common with Apple shareholders with the lengths they’d go to defend things from Apple’s financial point of view.
Indeed, I personally consider myself an apple fan but there are definitely things that are bad. People who think apple has done only good and defend them at all time are just imo thr worst.
use 3M’s post-it note glue.
It seems they are not going to make batterie replaceable without a fight. The waterproof excuse is crap, they already don’t give us repairs if the iphone is « water dommage » and they can just make a new water resistant design around the new requirements
Same lame excuse they used for removing the headphone jack… Never forget what they took from us and the shitty trend they started in the industry
I think the charging port is the next one to go. Just use wireless charging, roast the battery and buy a new phone when the battery finally dies after a few years. However, if the battery really is replaceable, it’s going to change the economics of this plan.
I don’t think so. They would still need a way to connect to the phone for diagnosis reasons and all that, or to connect to it via iTunes.
That’s still wired, so they can’t get rid of it entirely.
Just so you know, the Apple Watch no longer has a diagnostic port. It’s all 100% wireless now. Source
Apple has been tinkering with this idea for a while now, and it’s already in use. Next, they just need to do the same thing with the iPhone, and they’re ready to ditch all cables.
NFC or something to that effect can be forced"on" with their special charging connection… Or something like that
Would be horrible for data rates but it could be done
The waterproof excuse is crap
Yep. Galaxy S5, released 9 years ago with an IP67, removable battery, sd card and headphone jack with a back you could open with a fingernail.
Yep. Galaxy S5, released 9 years ago with an IP67, removable battery, sd card and headphone jack with a back you could open with a fingernail.
Spot on. They boast about how the iPhone is IP68, but IPX7 means…
Protected from immersion in water with a depth of up to 1 meter (or 3.3 feet) for up to 30 mins
There may be a tradeoff, but I’ll take this level of waterproofing with a removable battery over being able to dunk my phone under water for 2 hours without a removable battery. Like that’s an easy choice.
It’s all moot anyway. This is just Apple trying to justify their anti-consumer standpoint of wanting to own the device after it’s been bought, like every other fucking manufacturer out there. We will own nothing and we’ll be happy about it.
It would be great if the EU steps back:
Dear phone manufacturers. It seems to be impossible to build water resistant phones with easily replaceable batteries. So we have an alternative for you: In future you must provide a unconditional, professional battery replacement, free of charge for 10 years for each individual phone which is water resistant. Since the phones are so water resistant you also have to replace all water damaged phones free of charge.
2 hours later Apple announces a keynote for next week. A week later Tim Cook presents us next years iPhone with an easily replaceable battery…
jeeeeesus christ, the idea that a component in your MOBILE PHONE will never need repair is a one-way ticket to fucking landfill electronics.
add a gasket, holy shit it’s waterproof again!
I mean, they said it never needs to be repaired, so just offer a lifetime warranty if it degrades. Should be easy enough
What a horseshit excuse: add 6 screws on your backplate, give it a frame with center glass, add a grommet. Give a torque setting for the screws to have a good seal in your instructions. L
Done.
Samsung did this shit years ago in a phone with a replaceable plastic back.
Don’t go pros have replaceable batteries too and get used in like the ocean?
Yes, but they have a very sturdy case. The gopro itself (without the case) is not waterproof.
Edit: looks like I haven’t kept up with the times (username checks out) and now they ARE waterproof even without the case.
This is wrong btw.
Since the Hero 5, Go Pros have been waterproof without the case. The current GoPro is waterproof to 10 meters without a case or 60 meters with the case.
Compared to the current iphone which is only water resistant, so can be submerged for 30 minutes, upto 6 meters.
I mean if you remove the waterproof case you have a naked circuit board, if they could make that waterproof we wouldn’t be talking about this.
or are you thinking about ancient gopros that needed an extra sealed case?
Yeah, I’ve updated my reply to reflect that.
Most modern gopros still need the extra case for deeper depths
As do almost all phones
Yeah I know, just wanted to make sure nobody takes their unprotected or old gopro to 100ft of depth.
anyone going down 100ft knows if their shit is depth rated
They are if i recall correctly(at least the newer ones) waterproof till about 30ft without the extra case and with it till 150ft or so. But the extra case is very thick and sturdy
Samsung still does it. It’s called the Xcover lineup.
Liars! Galaxy S5 was IP67. One of the Xperia phones (forgot which one) was also water resistant but without an IP rating. IIRC one of the HTC phones was also water resistant. At the very least Apple, don’t piss in our faces and tell us it’s raining.
Motorola DEFY was IP68 rated
Put THAT in your dust hole, apple nerds!!!
Lmao
what do you call those little plastic building blocks ?
Lego?
I owned the Galaxy S5 and I fucking HATED it’s design. You dropped the phone and it backplate flew off, the seals were terrible, the stupid flap on the charging port broke off super fast. Let’s not use the S5 as an example because that shit fucking sucked.
You shoulda gotten the S5 active. I loved that phone.
I miss my S5 :(
I loved the galaxys5
Treat your devices better then, this was never an issue for me when I had one. And I never had a case on it.
My old ass Galaxy S5 had a ip67 rating, dropped it into a pool once and still working to this day, so apple and the rest of these phone manufacturers can piss off with this flimsy excuse especially when they’re charging me hundreds of dollars.
Apple needs to have a look at the new Surface devices: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/14/23761037/microsoft-surface-spare-replacement-parts-microsoft-store and https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/11/23453263/microsoft-surface-pro-9-repairability-improved-ifixit-teardown
Microsoft now sells Surface replacement parts, including displays, batteries, and SSDs / If you have a modern Surface device, then there are plenty of replacement parts to choose from.
Microsoft’s Surface Pro 9 has (…) now has a screwed-in battery module as opposed to an adhered one. Between that and other components having become more modular over the years, repairability is actually achievable.
But instead they’re already removed to the press about this new regulations. This is the same crap they pulled with USB-C, still no USB-C iPhones whatsoever and unlike everyone else I’m not confident it will happen this year. To be frank Apple even decided to srew the customer even more by having newer iPhones come with USB-C to lightening cables and without a charger instead of plain USB-A.
230$ for a battery!! They have lost their minds lol.
Well, still better than 1000$ for a new iPhone because you can’t replace it yourself, Apple won’t do it for almost the price of a new phone and they lock 3rd party batteries with serialization :) and you can buy 3rd party batteries for a fraction of the cost. What matters is that 1) you can replace the battery - no glued, soldered bs and 2) they actually sell them.
Apple charges $99 for a battery replacement.
Yeah I agree, it’s better to be able to change them than not.
Either way that price point still hurts for a battery (when an original standard enterprise laptop battery is usually less than half the price)
Yes, it’s very overpriced.
Surface is literally twice the thickness of the iPhone (14 vs 7mm). That makes a waterproof iPhone with user-replaceable battery very very difficult, especially since users complained that iphones are heavier than previous models.
iPhone with user-replaceable battery very very difficult
Isn’t Apple allegedly good at engineering? I’m sure they could find a way. There are old Nokia phones that are as thick as current iPhones (or less) and have use-replaceable batteries. This has nothing to do with waterproof, its all about their continued interest in using planned obsolesce and other means to sell new devices.
Being “good at engineering” doesn’t change the laws of physics.
Those Nokia phones were not waterproof. Also, I’m pretty sure they were thicker.
An o-ring only works if the battery cover is rigid enough that it will not flex at all even if, for example, you drop the phone in cold water rapidly cooling the battery cover while the internals stay warm for a minute or two.
The battery cover will change size slightly with the temperature change and no screw can be strong enough to stop that. Covering the entire battery cover in glue and attaching it to the battery though… that will eliminate the movement.
Perhaps Apple can find a water proof battery. But there’s no way they can keep water out of the battery compartment while being user serviceable.
It’s always amusing when people who aren’t engineers assume something must be simple to make. Please show me a Nokia phone that was as thin as a current iPhone, with auto focusing video cameras (aka moving parts), and had a user-replaceable battery. I’ll wait. Samsung’s galaxy phones caught fire because they tried to make it just as thin
with a user-replaceable battery(leading to short circuits), so that’s yet another thing you have to prevent in your hypothetical “it’s easy!” phone. Oh and it has to be rugged enough to withstand multiple drops like current phones AND not lose any of that thinness.Edit: okay the galaxy battery wasn’t replaceable but you still need to make higher tolerances in a user-replaceable item to prevent that, meaning it cannot be too thin for safety reasons.
The Samsung note 7 that had the exploding battery issues wasn’t a removable /swappable battery, so you’re wrong. That whole phone was as glued together as iPhones of the time.
Such a weird take.
Good point, but that still supports my overall point; you’ll need higher tolerances to prevent shorts and fires which means you need thicker casings. A user-replaceable battery has thicker battery cases and connectors compared to devices where the battery isn’t accessible.
Look at laptops for a similar story; making batteries user-inaccessible allowed them to shed thicker casings and instead fill more space when they weren’t constrained by a user compartment and casing and need for easy-detachable connector. Going back to a user-removable design in the exact same size case means slightly lower capacity batteries, which customers don’t want as a trade off.
Did you even open an iPhone? Frankly speaking, if they didn’t have special screws and removed a few of the glued parts it would be more than a reasonable compromise to have to deal with their current connectors to replace a battery. The problem is that even if you have the proper screwdriver you’ll have to deal with glued stuff that won’t come out easily and sourcing batteries isn’t easy.
“User replaceable” can be different from “open a back case with your finger and pop the battery out”. I believe if Apple did something like: remove 2 phillips screws from the bottom of the phone and then the back/front comes out (without single-use adhesives) and a battery hold in place by two other screws and one more for the current power conector it would be “user replaceable” enough for most people and situations. This would be simple changes to their current design that wouldn’t, most likely, require a change to the thickness of the phone nor a complete internal redesign while delivering a very huge improvement in repairability.
By your standard then, Apple already has user-replaceable batteries.
Which Samsung phones with replacable batteries caught fire? Picture unrelated.
Hey, I never said it was easy, I just said that if Apple applied 35% of the engineering effort they apply into creating vendor lock-in, part serialization and other twisted anti-consumer “solutions” they would be able to accomplish it.
No, it can’t be done. The iPhone is as thin as it is because the battery cover is glued to the battery. Take away the glue and it just can’t be that thin (or at least, if it was that thin it would be too weak - you’d probably snap the logic board by just putting it in a pocket - sometimes phones get pressed against your leg and legs are round).
Well, they have to.
They could also tell the EU to get bent and stop selling there.
Good grief.
Too greedy to do that.
Unwillingly is also fine with me.
Fuck water, I want to change my battery.
It’s not even that hard. I had a Galaxy S5, which had Micro-B and a replaceable battery. It’s called using a Cover on your USB Port, and a RUBBER GASKET. It’s not rocket psychology.
Money. Answer every single time is money
and here I thought it was always DNS
True
