All smartphones, including iPhones, must have replaceable batteries by 2027 in the EU::undefined
Thank fucking god for the EU, for fighting for global digital rights where nobody else does.
We have a fake economy. All investments, researching and efforts could be decided by state (we/public). Protecting society interests and not “investors” interests is an obligation
Does this mean we could potentially order phones from there as US folks?
Doubt Apple will have 2 different devices for each area.
One sensible right doesn’t overweight the never-ending bullshit coming from them.
And imo this is not a sensible right. To change a battery in phones is easy even now. All you need is heat gun (hairdryer), new battery, phone tape (2$ ali) and 30 mins of your time…
Also watter resistance will take a hit… I wouldn’t sink my phone under watter with detachable back cover even if it had ip68 by producer. They don’t even cover it in reclamation now.
Compare to how it used to be, removing the battery cover and replacing the battery on the fly. And water resistance with removable batteries has been and can be done. Stop with this nonsense.
One sensible right doesn’t overweight the never-ending bullshit coming from them.
True. Between the private healthcare, abortion rights, school shootings…
Oh wait, you weren’t talking about the US?
I came across this insane opinion piece the other day: https://www.laptopmag.com/features/mind-eurown-business-for-the-sake-of-the-iphone-apple-needs-to-fight-back
It’s so surreal, it feels satirical
Say, “We at Apple, Think Different.” and refuse to be shepherded into the flock with the likes of the dirty android heathens. You can’t give in so easily. First, they’ll take your Lightning ports, then they’ll take your internal battery and IP68 rating, and before you know it, they’ll take your blue iMessage bubble too.
At that point, why even bother? You might as well throw a Qualcomm Snapdragon in the next iPhone and call it a day. Congratulations Apple, you have the best UI of any Android phone on the market.
What the actual fuck?
You swear this isn’t satire?
I love how higher IP rating is always the argument, it looks like everybody in this planet is doing daily deep diving and needs its smartphone to do that 😅
Phones with IP67 or even IP68 exist with easily replaceable batteries.
My Galaxy XCover 6Pro has a removable battery (and headphone jack) and is ip68 rated
I have a Samsung Xcover (5, not 6) and this thing is such a breath of fresh air!
16:9 screen, audio jack, good USB-C, SD card, removable battery, physical shortcut button that’s programmable to anything, decent performance (some newer phone games like Genshin don’t run well, but emulated NDS games or Morrowind? Just fine!)
And this is SAMSUNG‽
Where’s the world going‽
You’d think they’d figure out a way to have those high IP ratings and have removable batteries (they have afaik)
I sure hope it’s satire, but that pun!
“Mind EUROwn business?” chef’s kiss
I… Couldn’t even make it through the whole article. Absolutely insane.
Looking at this guy’s other articles, unfortunetly it does not feel as satire.
Man, Tim Apple sounds pissed.
All we need now is a headphone jack
We need SD cards more. They removed them so they can charge you 300 $ to upgrade 128gb and to force you into shitty cloud service.
Again, just anti consumer bullshit spearheaded by Apple and gargled by Samsung.
I have flashbacks to using external storage on Android. It was such a shit show of an API. That being said, external storage, to break away from cloud storage is the next needed thing. We need to own the data.
When you design an OS to pretend there’s no such thing as a file, it ends up being bad at handling files.
Yeah, even today, browsing through files on Android is a fucking mess. And there isn’t an SD card.
So the SD card wasn’t the problem
I was trying to figure out recently how do I copy files into application user data directory, it turns out you just can’t, lol.
You can with very basic root tools, but really that just solidifies your point. It’s an easy thing to do, but they’ve intentionally taken away the ability for no good reason
It’s perfectly fine on Sony Xperia.
Which did away with the headphone jack and asks €400 for crap performance.
Nah I’m sticking to my Samsung XCover
Xperia IV aren’t crap performance but they are 3x €400
It was the SOC that wasn’t great. Nothing to do with the manufacturers.
Mobile Linux seems to carry it really good
Again, just anti consumer bullshit spearheaded by Apple and gargled by Samsung.
Samsung was actually one of the later Android manufacturers to drop it is my recollection.
Yeh and fuck them
I’d be almost ready to say that we don’t need them any more if Bluetooth headphones were about 100x better and cheaper
At the same time, wired earphones/headphones are already just as good with a lot less parts/complexity.
You don’t need batteries, radios, and chips for coding/decoding a signal coming out of a headphone jack. You can just plumb it straight into the speakers. No need to mess with controls and all of that, which would make them a lot cheaper.
Still too much lag. I love my QC45s, but there’s still just enough lag to bother me
Bluetooth headphones are solid now, as long as you have something that supports aptx HD and LL (HD for music, LL for movies/games). But yeah they’re not cheap.
Can’t imagine that getting mandated unfortunately
The fact that some of the gen Z crowd think it will be horrible have forgotten that it was much easier to carry 2 batteries and swap them out vs carrying a charger and cable with you everywhere. Pop in the new battery, power it on and carry on with you now full battery phone. Being tethered to a wall so you can have 10% from 20 minutes of charging is crazy.
I used to do this. I thought it was awesome but I was literally the only person I ever knew who did this. It was not a popular thing to do.
Zero lemon had them so cheap that I had 4 extra batteries (they also had the extended batteries that would last forever but the cases were janky). I would keep one at work, one by the door to take with me and two at home if you include the one in my phone that I would swap out. I rarely charged my phone at all, just the batteries. I loved it.
Most people did not do this nor needed to since the very beginning of cell phones
We literally do not need replaceable batteries in 2023
Maybe, but you have to admit that battery live used to be longer (specially pre-smartphones), if your phone could comfortably last a couple of days there was less need to have portable power.
I fondly remember the convenience of having a flat, replaceable battery in my pocket even in the early Android days, and I’ve missed it ever since it went away.
The main reason I’m thinking of upgrading my mid-range phone now is the battery is on its last legs.
In fairness it’s lasted 6 years, which is two years more than my Nexus 4 got. Pokemon Go eventually killed that.
I don’t know when we all just collectively accepted that batteries should last one day and not a second more. Sure, it’s doing more than a Nokia 3310 ever did, but sometimes you really do need it to last more than that, like when travelling.
What is this sorcery? Wouldn’t this cause issues with internal clock and stuff?
Not really. The phone, especially these days, would just synchronise the internal clock as soon as it got internet access, and unless you’re leaving it powered down for long periods of time, there’s enough power for it to keep the last set time, if it doesn’t keep it indefinitely.
Huh. My mom has a flip phone that messes everything up when the battery comes off so I figured that it would be the same for newer ones too.
If switching batteries is actually doable with next to zero inconveniences… 2027 can’t come soon enough.
Huh. My mom has a flip phone that messes everything up when the battery comes off so I figured that it would be the same for newer ones too.
Assuming you mean an older flip phone, those tended to have problems (they probably had no way to fetch the time compared to modern smartphones), but they’ve not been an issue for a while, in my experience.
I regularly swapped the batteries on my old Nokia/Samsung smartphones without running into clock problems at all, since they would synchronise the moment they connected to the network, and got internet access, if they didn’t keep the time in the first place.
It’s from 2011 (it’s also not a flip but a slider, I messed up my terminology), if the issue got solved since then that’s great.
It’s NOT just phones.
It’s EVERYTHING with a battery. Including cars, laptops, e-bikes, video game controllers, headphones etc. (im not even sure if there are exceptions, such as tiny tiny “airpod” like things… ?)
And they must be (with a few exceptions) replacable by a “layman”, without the use of special tools - which means no heat pads, to soften up glue etc etc. (and for gods sake, i hope it also means apple can’t hardwareID lock a battery)
an exception mentioned in the EU document about the law says, high power batteries for example in an electric car, must be done by a profesional - but of course it still has to be “replacable” and not… tear the whole car apart and rebuild it using new batteries.
replacable batteries in headphones, bluetooth mice, laptops etc, is gonna be awesome.
and lets not forget, they have to recycle the old ones - and produce new batteries using recycled materials.
in fact, i will try to hold on replacing my current (2 year old) phone, and wait to get one before 2027. Usually the battery turns to shit in 3ish years.
I’m having a hard time finding the actual regulation text with all these details. Anyone have that?
You could buy fairphone if you don’t want to wait and your battery can’t handle it anymore
Also if you want to be blocked by banking apps
I didn’t knew that
The cars will be fun to see unfold considering new EV platforms have them integrated straight into the platform the chassis is built upon.
Not so much new. Has been on the road map for years. More like disgusting.
There was a choice to be made to make things repairable, or not. The industry chose not.
They must all have reached nirvana when they realized they could build in planned obsolescence straight into the platform. No more replacing a tiny belt, now they get to sell a brand new car when the battery goes bad!
I really hope that this regulation from the EU stick and it doesn’t get shut down by Germany as usual when they act as an extension of the auto-industry.
My current device and the two before that all have had removable batteries. I’ve always thought built in batteries are stupid and it’s nice to finally notice that other people agree. Hopefully they next mandate that it has to be able to be taken apart with a screwdriver and spare parts must be able to be purchased straight from the manufacturer.
Ya the only reason I get new phones is because the battery gets too weak. I could easily keep the same device for 5+ years if I could swap batteries
The only reason I get new phones is cos OS updates stop flowing. That happens way before I notice any battery degradation. This law solves nothing.
I’m an android guy but you can solve that problem by going iPhone if so inclined
The fact is I prefer Android when it comes to phones.
Really? How long does Apple support iPhones?
I’m not sure but a lot longer than android
You can. It cost $15 every three years to have someone replace the battery for you or you can spend the hour doing it yourself.
On a pixel phone?
Yes. $15 and an hour. You can bring in your own battery or pay ~$60 USD for an official one. It’s all very easy.
This law won’t change shit. People are still going to dump their phone every 2 year.
Hopefully they next mandate that it has to be able to be taken apart with a screwdriver
It does include that, mostly. It says that any tools that aren’t commonly available without proprietary rights or restrictions (i.e. screwdrivers) have to be provided by the manufacturers free of charge
I prefer ip68 to easily accessible battery. I’ll need to change my battery maybe once every 3 years, but I need to know it can handle moisture far more often than that.
I prefer ip68 to easily accessible battery
You can have both. My Galaxy XCover 6Pro is ip68 rated.
The another benefit with removable batteries is that if you have two you can go from 0 to 100% charge in about a minute.
This is why I want replaceable batteries in small EVs like bikes and such, too.
And why I have thought for a while that it would be nice to have maybe 30% or so of electric car batteries be replacable with a moderately large rack in the “frunk” or trunk. But that’s just me.
Most of the ebikes and motor scooters I’ve seen have removable batteries. Gogoro in India even has a battery swapping network for their scooters.
Gogoro’s existence is kinda bittersweet, it shows that it’s possible, but that companies aren’t willing to standardize and cooperate to make it the status quo and actually possible to build swap stations for globally, of even across just Europe.
Ideally I’d want to see a plan where an e-bike or electric kickscooter takes one or two, and motorcycles take a few more. Idk if you could make batteries in that form-factor and put 12 or so into a car to gain enough miles to make a difference. Perhaps eventually, if we get the energy density gains we’re hoping for.
Car-wise, I have no expectation that the industry will shift towards low weight and drag like Aptera is pushing for, so I don’t expect efficiency gains that way.
This isn’t a replacement, but I have said for years now that someone needs to market a rentable tow-behind or rooftop battery sort of like U-Hauls for extra capacity needed for longer trips.
People have tried it. The extra drag of a trailer or roof box consumes most of the extra energy that they carry.
Can be done with screws and rubber seal, no need for glue and glass.
I prefer ip68 to easily accessible battery.
All it needs is that little rubber band, and you have to handle it carefully when closing the lid.
Psst those Brands are not your friends and might lie about their reasons to make batteries non-removable.
I have a handheld marine vhf radio with a removable battery that I can throw in the ocean and it will work and continue to work for days. Don’t believe the bs the manufacturers tell you.
Stand back everyone, I’m going to attempt nuance.
Industrial design is about tradeoffs. Making the battery easily replaceable will come with drawbacks. Maybe it’ll be size, or water resistance, or durability, but something will have to be compromised. The extent of the compromises remains to be seen, and people will have different opinions about whether it’s worth it.
Ordinarily I’m not a fan of regulators making product design decisions, because that’s exactly the kind of thing market forces are supposed to be good at. In this case, though, there’s a demand that’s clearly not being met, and companies clearly have a vested interest in pushing consumers toward replacing their old hardware rather than repairing it, which creates externalities markets are unable to account for. Market failures like this are exactly the kind of situation where government regulation is needed.
If by size you mean it’s going to become fatter, I’m all for it. PSP Slim was basically as slim as I need for things which go into my pocket. Laptops don’t, so these can be twice fatter than that.
About “market failures” … This particular “market failure” is strongly connected to patent law, which cuts down most of the potential competition. So maybe it’s not a “market failure” at all if you have monopolies and oligopolies because of patents. Because patent law is not a market mechanism, obviously.
Considering Samsung during their cost cutting days designed Galaxy Xcover Pro 2 without drawback just fine, I think everyone will be able to do it without drawback just fine as well.
Maybe it’ll be size, or water resistance, or durability, but something will have to be compromised.
definitely size at the least. We’ll probably have to go back to removable backs so I imagine water proofing will be difficult without adding at least a little size.
Coming soon from Apple. Screws that require a 4D tesseract shaped screwdriver to undo.
But if you can undo them, feel free to change the battery.
The EU defines user replaceable as you can remove the batteries with common tools. Common tools is defined as a Phillips or flathead screwdriver. So even Nintendo and their stupid try-force screw thing won’t be acceptable.
Ahh yes, screws that can only be unscrewed using The Force
I’m sure apple will happily sell you the proprietary tool to turn their proprietary screws for a very reasonable price.
They’re not allowed to do that. The tool design has to be freely available for any manufacturer to fabricate free of charge, they’re not allowed to try and use this as a profit making exercise.
I don’t know why it is that every single time the EU comes up with a law there’s always people in the comments that say it’s a bad law and that they haven’t thought it out, when they’ve not read the documentation. All of the little tricks that the companies might come up with to turn this to their advantage have already being thought of and protected against. This is exactly what happened with the mandating the USB-C port.
Exactly, the law definitely defines that the tools have to be commonly available with no restrictions or proprietary rights, and that any tools that don’t fit under that definition must be provided free of charge. It also lists a few practices that are outright banned regardless of availability, like needing thermal or chemical tools. They’ve been very thorough.
Laws being made in good faith and corporations taking advantage of ambiguities or loopholes for “compliance” has been the staple of western corporate lore. I’m sure many of those commenters would love replaceable batteries with usb-c port on their phones too.
Sure but if anybody clicks through to read the article they can see the full wording of the law. It goes on for pages and pages it’s far from ambiguous. This isn’t just something they thought above on a random Friday afternoon this is something that’s been worked on for a few years now.
Yes, but then there’s this decades-long tradition of Lemmy/Reddit/Digg/Slashdot/etc users not reading the actual article and comment based only from headlines often crafted to maximize engagement.
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*batterie exists out of two parts. One of them is fused to the screen.
Pesky EU throwing their weight around giving consumers more rights! --Brexiteer logic
Oh well hopefully we’ll (UK) still benefit from it. Easier to design one phone than “EU” and “Rest of world” versions after all.
Easier to design one phone than “EU” and “Rest of world” versions after all.
I mean … sometimes those companies consider it preferable to actually have two versions.
That’s already happening though. The US version of the IPhone doesn’t have a physical Sim while the “rest of the world” version does.
That’s a fairly minor alteration though compared to the redesign required to have a removable battery …
Honestly good. Usb C is so good.
I have a couple of 100w chargers around the house, no messing about can charge nearly everything at full speed.
A portable battery should be considered to be removable by the end-user when it can be removed with the use of commercially available tools and without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge, or proprietary tools, thermal energy or solvents to disassemble it. Commercially available tools are considered to be tools available on the market to all end users without the need for them to provide evidence of any proprietary rights and that can be used with no restriction, except health and safety-related restrictions.
I’m glad they got specific. I wonder where Apple’s self-service battery replacement program falls under this? AFAIK it’s not free. They charge a fee to rent the specialized tools, which are also proprietary.
This gives Apple a few choices:
- Make the tools commercially available, but at an astronomical price in typical Apple fashion
- Make the tools commercially available at a normal consumer price (unlikely)
- Make the self-service battery replacement program free (most likely, but will require a significant revision to the tools used since they are industrial-grade)
I’m not sure that #1 and #2 are options, I think Apple’s tools would still be considered “Specialized” or “proprietary” since they can’t have any proprietary rights or restrictions, so I don’t think that they can get away with selling them at a huge markup. I’m no lawyer, but to me that reads like they either need to give the tools away for free, or change the iPhone so it can be disassembled with regular screwdrivers. Given those choices, I’m thinking #2 sounds a lot more likely unless they can weasel out of some loophole
The current tools are not even close. Very proprietary, very specialized, not commercially available. Check out this video or this one. These things are rental only because they are exorbitantly expensive and only really useful to iPhone, and IIRC they differ for some lines/models.
This law absolutely will require an iPhone redesign, which I think is going to be somewhat controversial. If you check out the iFixit teardown it’s pretty obvious there is not a lot of space. Even the larger Pro Max is tight because I think in the case of the larger phones, they tend to fill the space with battery. What I think would be the easiest is make it more like the iPhone 4. In that version, there were like two security screws on the bottom, and then you could remove the whole back plate. Some battery would have to be sacrificed to add space for connectors and a retaining system of some sort.
I say controversial because this is probably going to mean less day-to-day battery, but I think I’m in favor of that rather than having to deal with going through Apple to do a battery replacement and get another year or two out of the device. If they make it more like the hot-swappable old days of Nokia’s and Motorola’s past, I can’t really see anyone being pissy. In practice these days, I don’t worry about battery life anyway, so it’s hard to not see this being a win.
As someome who was able to disassemble and repurpose multiple iphone 4’s.
This was the way.
unless they are provided free of charge
Honestly, they should have said “fuck you, no tools whatsoever to replace the battery.”
My mid-2010’s phone has this and probably the only reason I still have it (instead of contributing to electronic waste) is because I can replace the battery so easily, which I’ve done at least twice.
Can’t want to be able to buy used phone and just pop in new battery. Still we need a law to allow easier mobile operating systems development for third-parties.
You are not going to find many legislators understanding the difference between this and open documentation for iOS/Android developers.
This needs to be true of notebooks too. I love my 2015 Macbook Air, but the battery lasts about five minutes and I use it way too much to take the time to get it replaced. Especially when it’s old enough to not be supported soon. But if I could just spend $50 and replace the battery myself without fucking things up, which I totally would as things stand now, I would be able to use it without keeping it plugged in all the time like I used to.
Good news, it applies to all battery operated devices, not just phones
Not a bad idea but there are flaws and this also doesn’t seem to address the issue of pricing or availability.
- So you can remove the battery, will you be able to buy one.
- They could prevent 3rd parties from making batteries that work.
- They could just not sell battery replacements.
- They could add more parts needed, like seals, screws that strip too easily, that annoying sticky tape etc.
This insufferable shit is exhausting
Back in 2014 you just bought a spare and replaced it, nowadays they all want to play the same bullshit games Apple innovated on. It was was about time an authority that ruled over a market with significant purchasing power made a decision against it.
Although I think it’s too expensive, this is why we need frame.work to make a phone too (or any company to do this). Great idea, good products, their markup just seems too high imo.
The neat thing about EU regulations is that they are iterated over constantly, so even if they don’t get it 100% right the first time, they’re able to nail things down in subsequent iterations. Look at how quickly they struck down any fantasies Apple had of still fucking people over with their own type c implementation fuckery. The direction the EU is taking is already doing plenty good for the entire world.
Is the glass half full or half empty? For you, I guess it’s half empty.
Rules can be updated and tightened if needed. This is a good step, another could be taken if they don’t play nice.
I don’t see how you decide what my beliefs or views are by a single message, interpreted by you. Pretty unfair to assume not to mention when I already stated “Not a bad idea”. But your message makes a great point, the glass is half full and they have more work to make it full.
Of course it’s a step in the right direction. However, it could be better if they included more than just requiring the battery to be removable before hand. As is we have to wait until 2027, and then further delays for adjustments to be made etc. Why not spend the time now to add to it to ensure an available market.
You made 4 points about things that may or may not happen. For some of them you made the worst assumption possible (eg: batteries may not be available to buy. As if China won’t go brrrrrr making them :P ). And that’s why I said that “I guess” that for you the glass is half empty (aka you’re focusing mainly on possible issues).
You might be right of course, but keep in mind that the main players (eg: Samsung, Apple) already sell some components to 3rd parties or are starting to do so. Even Apple, with all their control, don’t disable 3rd party batteries on their phones, they just show you a warning inside the settings menu. So, from a slightly different point of view, the glass is actually half full and you may not need additional rules. I guess we’ll have to wait and see if someone wants to piss off the EU and have more rules imposed on them.
Anyway, it was a quick reply to the top comment on this thread (when I opened it at least). I didn’t spend much time trying interpret your comment :P
They could start selling tiers of battery quality which TBH sounds awful if they make the best battery life duration paywalled.
Yeah, that’s possible. I’m more worried about a built in battery chip preventing users from sharing batteries, like once it’s installed, it’s activated and it’s locked to that device. Meaning you’d have to buy only from that manufacture and the price will be higher.
I’m hopeful that the EU would put a stop to this. They are pretty progressive on that front generally.
It needs to meet spec though.
