You seem to referencing from a older exemption for self serviceability if your smartphone can do 1,000 cycles and retain 80% battery. Specifically - B 1.1 (1) (c) (ii) (b) . Here is the link - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Article 11 of the new regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...) covers exemptions but nothing to do with 1,000 cycles or Apple as far as i can see.

So manufactures might just responds to this by making your phone heavier with a bigger battery that is being under utilized.

Surprisingly the phone was fine and works fine after a brief rinse under the tap. It must be hard to combine that sort of water resistance with easy user changing.

This same thing happened to Pixels 6a after 500 cycles.

I’d rather get the additional structural rigidity, compactness, and weatherproofing that comes from the tight construction and then pay $99 to have Apple professionally install a new battery for me in 3-4 years. Forcing everyone’s iPhone to take all of the tradeoffs of replaceable batteries so some people can save $50 to replace their own battery isn’t a good deal.

I wouldn’t be surprised if forcing all phones to have easily replaceable batteries would result in a net increase in e-waste due to the additional failure modes introduced. Even if batteries were easily replaceable I think most iPhone users would have Apple do it for them anyway.

I’ve also replaced some iPhone batteries myself and it’s really not that bad if you are familiar with taking modern electronics apart. Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.

Not really. Take a 4000 mAh rated cell, advertise it as "rated for 3500 mAh" and that's it.

But Apple batteries are already user replaceable? I've replaced my own and batteries come with kits that have all the tools and disposable glue strips and seals.

This is going to be harder, or, at least, harder to replace your current phone with something objectively better. RAM and Flash shortages / high prices are likely going to last for years, wars are additionally jeopardizing production of electronic components, and the current crop of mobile devices is already insanely powerful. It's going to be pretty hard to sell most people an upgrade that feels meaningful when it's going to be like 30% more expensive.

Running AI locally could be a big selling point for an upgrade, but see the problems with RAM and general production capacity overload. I's not going to be a mass-market thing.

But what if you asked the right question, "what is the biggest problem with your phone?"

Most would answer, "the battery dies too soon. It doesn't last all day like it used to."

Before that, you wrote "One of the most frustrating things about HN is that people seem so unaware of how idiosyncratic their preferences are" and it's exactly what I could say here. Not everyone has lots of money and for some people extending the life of their phones is important. They really do wish they could replace the battery without hassle and without paying a shop to do it.

Possibly true, and equally true of the screen, the charging port, or any other component.

"Repairability" isn't a feature people list unprompted, it's a property they notice the moment a £5 part bricks their phone.

The street-corner survey tells you what people currently notice, not what they'd value if the option existed.

> by the time batteries wear out, most people are going to want a new phone

In a market where batteries are glued in and replacement costs a meaningful fraction of a new device, of course people upgrade on that timeline. Change the cost structure and the behaviour changes with it.

Fair point that we'd want data, but the original claim rests on the same intuition, just pointed the opposite way.

The broader framing (that repairability is an idiosyncratic preference being imposed on a majority who don't want it) gets this backwards. Most people don't want to care about repairability, in the same way most people don't want to care about food safety standards. They want the option to exist without having to think about it. That's what the law provides.

Agreed, and software-locking parts, like batteries, to only first-party or authorized third-party repair shops is one of those drivers.

I can see the argument for software locking some components (to cut down on theft) even if I don't appreciate or agree with them - it is at least a valid reason from some perspectives.

Batteries are a wear item though, and will have to be replaced periodically until the device is discarded. Software-locking them to only "Apple and people Apple likes" is unconscionable

I'd be happier if this was something the market took care of, but after 10 years of glued-in batteries that you most likely can't even buy, I think it's time for a regulatory nudge.

https://rugone.net/products/xever-7

They already are. 5 years of updates is now the legal minimum in the EU. https://www.osnews.com/story/142500/new-eu-rules-mandate-fiv...

Ideally, there should be some set of standard protocols/connectors/voltages/sizes, but the manufacturer should only be held to "downward-compliance" with at least one of them, so they can have flexibility in design but still leave a suboptimal standard option available to users as a fallback.

It was not said that Apple was exempted. What was said is that Apple complied with the exemption rules.

Are you sure about this? I've heard this complaint from a lot of non-tech people who are old enough to remember flip phones with replaceable batteries. It might be age related.

(a) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for replacement of the display assembly and of parts referred to in point 1(a), with the exception of the battery or batteries, meets the following criteria: [...]

[...]

(c) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for battery replacement:

(i) meets the following criteria:

— fasteners shall be resupplied or reusable;

- the process for replacement shall be feasible with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools;

— the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out in a use environment;

— the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out by a layman.

(ii) or, as an alternative to point (i), ensure that:

— the process for battery replacement meets the criteria set out in (a);

— after 500 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 83 % of the rated capacity;

— the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles, and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;

— the device is at least dust tight and protected against immersion in water up to one meter depth for a minimum of 30 minutes.

---

So manufacturers must make the battery replaceable, or meet all the conditions from (a) for replacing non-battery components, and meet the 1000 cycle / 80% capacity requirement.

It appears what you're looking for is in B(5)(c)(ii).

> (c) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for battery replacement:

> (i) meets the following criteria:

> — fasteners shall be resupplied or reusable;

> — the process for replacement shall be feasible with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools;

> — the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out in a use environment;

> — the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out by a layman.

> (ii) or, as an alternative to point (i), ensure that

> — the process for battery replacement meets the criteria set out in (a);

> — after 500 full charge cycles the battery must have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 83 % of the rated capacity;

> — the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles, and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;

> — the device is at least dust tight and protected against immersion in water up to one meter depth for a minimum of 30 minutes.

Psychologically, people understand charging a battery to "125%" (or whatever) a lot better: Do it when you really need to but if you do it all the time it wears down the battery a lot faster.

Just looking in maps, there are three Apple Stores within a 45 minute drive from where I live in central Florida.

The situation is worse in my hometown in South GA admittedly, you have to drive 70 miles for same day service for an authorized repair place - mostly Best Buy.

Those don't really exist anymore.

> Do we need to regulate something that isn't a problem?

It is a problem and needs to be regulated.

> All regulation has downsides, is it worth paying this price here?

Of course the upsides of regulations are worth it. The downsides might cause slight inconvenience to the manufacturer, so that doesn't really matter.

As an example, in Jan 2026, Apple published iOS 12.5.8 which provides updates for iPhone 5s which released in Sept 2013. That's 12.5 years ago. The equivalent would be to connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086, 512 kb of RAM and expecting an update for your DOS operating system.

I'll admit it's a little annoying that I have to pay a hundred bucks to get the battery replaced, but the phone is otherwise fine and still gets updates, so I don't know that I buy that it's "planned obsolescence".

Note that early phones had replaceable batteries and it was later phones that dropped that feature. The idea wasn't that making the phone impossible to open would compel people to replace their phone faster; it was that given that people didn't keep their phones long enough to wear out the battery, there was no need to make the battery accessible.

Meaning, when you forcefully standardize and regulate how phones are built, you might expect that companies will not compete on making better phones (since they are not very much differentiated) but on who produces the cheapest phone.

Some were a bit of a pain in the ass to replace though.

like this law isn't about users causally replacing batteries like on very old phones

but about an repair shop easily and without risk of breaking your phone being able to replace it without only holding on your phone for idk. 10 minutes

So that you can just drop by (once they have the replacement parts) wait a moment and have a new battery.

This means in the worst case something like needing to a add a bit of additional seal/wax/glue or similar to improve sealing is very much fully viable (Id the sealing agent is generally buy able.)

It just is something you have to design in from the get to go. And it's easier to not do so at all. And maybe if you obsess if your phone is 1/10mm smaller or not that gets in your way too. And not doing so is more profitable as people will buy successor products more likely, even if just very slightly more likely.

But in general? That really isn't the problem.

Also even if it where the problem. What is better? Having a less waterproof phone, but not needing to buy a new one for another one or two years or having to buy one now?

- rules on disassembly and repair, including obligations for producers to make critical spare parts available within 5-10 working days, and for 7 years after the end of sales of the product model on the EU market

- availability of operating system upgrades for longer periods (at least 5 years from the date of the end of placement on the market of the last unit of a product model)

I agree in spirit though: storage chips wearing out seems to be common from my limited experience and it would be good if you could solder on, or slide in, a new chip with some standard procedure

This sounds like the exact opposite of real life. Every battery ages to the point of uselessness, not every phone gets to take a dive. It's not a stretch to say most phones never see more than some rain or a spilled drink. But the worst part of every discussion on this topic is this false (uninformed) dichotomy that water resistance and easily replaceable battery are mutually exclusive.

A camera doesn't care if you take the battery out, except for that sub-second bit when it's saving the photo. Otherwise it doesn't notice you swapping the battery at all.

Modern phones are different because they are basically computers, and computers really don't like it when you just cut the power with no warning.

   > is good enough for 99.999% of the public use-case

I am not sure if your statistic is correct or people giving you excuses to get the latest model. If we speak iphones, flipping the battery is cheap and fast process, incomparable with the hassle of doing re-setup.

I am not sure if the process is equally or more simple with android phones though, but in my circle noone buys new phone because of the battery (often the battery is used as excuse to get a newer model).

In 3-4 years yes, but how about in 10-15 years? Apple will refuse to take your money then.

> Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.

Which is malicious compliance. They should allow the friendly neighborhood repair shop to purchase a toolkit so you can choose who does the repairs for you.

This last point is actually a real killer, an easily swappable battery in a phone probably sacrifices >10% "maximum" capacity in lost space. e.g a phone with a glued battery can have 5000mAh but the same phone with a more durable battery connector can only be 4500mAh.

If it's such a superior product that people want despite the tradeoffs, why don't they just fund a company to create such a phone? Why doesn't anyone?

I question whether battery packs would be a good thing to bring back now. USB power banks have 100% interchangeability among many device classes, which is something that not even dry cell batteries achieved. I can choose to leave the house with or without a power bank and just rent one in my city (YMMV). Modern charging wattages are high enough that I don't miss shutting down my Nexus, changing the pack, then rebooting.

It's tempting to say that this could be solved if battery sizes were standardized, but that would inevitably limit device dimensions. For example, I especially loathe how the 18650 has made almost all modern flashlights clunky. I would hate it if Apple pushes for a 4.5mm thick battery standard to kill all foldables because they don't want to enter the market and cannibalize their iPad demand.

I'm quite certain you can find many companies in the far East who will produce cells of exactly the size and shape you want, as long as you're willing to order a minimum quantity. There are also a few semi-standard sizes of prismatic cells available.

That said, having a few truly standard sizes like we had with 1.2/1.5V and 9V batteries would be a good idea. BL-5C and its variants were a de-facto standard for many years too, and apparently are still available new.

As to why we want to make phones as thin as possible... I don't know, but I guess it makes them look futuristic, which helps with sales. The same goes for highly-reflective, glossy screens. I guess I'm not gonna cry if that gets regulated away.

There’s a bunch of things that don’t need their own battery if they just drew enough power off USBC. I have an office coffee setup. My grinder and espresso maker have their own batteries. But there’s no reason I couldn’t have a single battery pack and just plug both into USBC saving me a ton of weight. (In fact the Lagom Mini 2 grinder is powered straight off USBC with no internal power.)

For phones and cameras, that need their own power source, a replaceable battery is mostly just an end of life thing for me. Because I’d still have to carry a cable or spare battery around.

> Replacement batteries for any model will have to remain available to users for at least five years after the last unit of the product is placed on the market, the regulation also states.

Typically that's subject to some sort of recall or remediation through a service centre?

It's a genuinely hard problem to measure battery capacity with existing smartphone hardware, also because it's a matter of opinion how much to factor in the peak load capacity (how do you count the bottom 40%, where it can't handle peak draw anymore? Should one include half of it because the phone is still usable but in a degraded state?), so I'm not faulting Apple here at all. They choose to display this estimate and it's better than nothing / better than most manufacturers. Just that you can't take it at face value, even if you charged your phone from 0% to 100% for >=1000 days

I'd rather force larger companies to offer battery replacement at cost + shipping.

I have no real interest and opening up my own devices and messing with batteries, but I have no problem paying the manufacturer $100 for service.

If Apple resorts to those tactics, then there is no limit in moving the goalposts.

Most people I know get a new phone when they can't take the cracked screen anymore, or when they completely lose the phone. Or because a pretty new one came out and they upgraded two years ago so it's "time". That's most people.

That is why I have the battery replaced every few years.

They all know about Apple's battery replacement programme that's been around for years now

And iCloud backups makes setting up a new phone trivial

Actually will push a lot of people away. I don't want any hardware that has special relationships with AI LLM's.

The main enemy of cars is rust, but for that there are cost effective mitigations now. The real reason people ditch cars is always they get tired of the old car and want something more modern, not because the car is at the end of its "useful life".

Batteries are not like that. They actually have a useful life that degrades over time, which makes them non-servicable.

What I would like to see is serviceable batteries, where you can replace individual damaged cells and keep the battery going. Everyone would benefit from that, especially the used EV market, which would help stem the massive depreciation hits EV buyers are facing now.

Why not ask me my motivations instead of assuming them?

I'm not fine with the range; I bought an EV to stop burning fossil fuels, my 24-year-old RAV4 was on its last leg, and there was a $6K bonus for trade-ins (my RAV4 would have been about $5k in parts).

Plus, the long-term cost savings kick in after about 8 years, which I blogged about at: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/08/06/typesetting-markdow...

> Why you have to replace it with longer range?

Because I want to explore the interior of BC, drive across Canada on fewer charges, visit family, go on road trips, etc. Just yesterday I spent 30 minutes trying to charge my Kona. It's a long and boring story, but suffice to say our charging infrastructure here sucks, and is not as simple, quick, or convenient as "tap-to-pay" (with a credit card) at petrol stations.

FWIW, that is actually a thing you can do. It is mostly done for SUVs and pickups since the primary use case for the extra range is off-pavement driving and the upgrade is simpler.

That was totally a thing for phones in the past. Depending on the model you could get a larger pack that had a bulge on the back of the device to have extra battery time. There was a similar thing with a number of laptops.

I do agree its kind of a questionable thing on something like a car. I imagine packaging concerns would really get in the way of adding a bit extra.

In that experiment, it’s also unclear if the 30% lower limit or the 80% upper limit is more important. I suspect the former.

I recently investigated large portable power banks (Jackery, etc.) and like that there are options to charge faster with a battery life tradeoff. Let people make their own informed choices.

I've also had iPhone dying from gasket leaks, the circumferential double sided tape seal dries out after a while.

All of those can be achieved with replaceable batteries.

I don't disagree with this, but I also think it's because the battery often dies around the time most people would consider upgrading anyway. The battery isn't the only reason people upgrade, it's just a forcing factor.

If batteries normally last 3-5 years, I don't think we're going to start seeing most people keep their phones for 7-10 years. I still think we're going to see people upgrading around the 3-5 year mark. I would point to the current market as evidence of this. An iPhone battery replacement is somewhere between $50-$100 right now which is drastically cheaper than a new iPhone and yet we still see the 3-5 year upgrade cycle. Maybe making it something you can do at home in a few minutes will result in a few more people just choosing to replace the battery vs the entire phone, but I don't see it drastically changing things since a cheap alternative to replacing the phone already exists and yet we still see the 3-5 year replacement cycle.

https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement

Getting the battery replaced is already trivial and cheap. Revealed preference is that most people say they want it, but don't. This won't even decrease the cost or difficulty (you'll still need a screwdriver).

They’re winning.

I'm not sure about the rules around required ability but I'd like that too

Doubt. They have already switched over every other line they had.

I believe it was more of a marketing stunt, they calculated that n% of customers will be upset with the change, so they waited for the EU ruling so now they can just point these n% to blame the EU who will take the blame instead of them.

Anyways, Apple was working on an iPhone with usb C in 2022 and said they were going to do it anyways* so I don’t see it as some massive win that shows the prowess of the EU legislative body.

Granted this may have shaved a couple of years off of the timeline but at what cost of legislation (monetary, attention, and time cost)!?

# https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/apple-pushes-back...

Everyone moving to "battery must be replaceable without tools" doesn't do anything useful for most users. Yeah, now you can carry an extra battery on a camping trip, I guess, though you could also carry a portable USB-C charger and use it for more than just your phone. It isn't particularly useful that it doesn't take tools to replace the battery when it starts failing, five years after your phone was discontinued, if you can't find a replacement battery for that exact model.

Speak for yourself, I've gained nothing but annoyance. (I'm willing to accept a theoretical greater good argument - but I'm not precisely sold)

I think if the EU really wanted to reduce phone waste they'd make it easier or cheaper to fix screens. Still, this doesn't seem like a terrible move. I bet you can make it relatively easy to replace batteries without compromising much. Look at the Macbook Neo for example.

Still no real upgrade for hexbright, which is a shame.

I wish they were still being made. Fortunately, mine are still fine, and I expect to be able to repair them should they break. (xtal is a common failure point apparently)

Standard battery type is nice, but also has microusb charging port, the part that didn't age well.

Perhaps new circuit boards (with usb-pd charging, usb-c connector and mems oscillator) will be the way forward. It's definitely easier to order a pcb than the housing.

Modern phone water resistance is incredible. I've even seen people literally swim with their phones and not even question if it was a bad idea.

“let’s just pass a law that says ‘no trade offs’, problem solved”

This doesn't restrict the design space that much at all.

You make it sound like a large number. I’m keeping iPhones for 4 years now and upgrading because of cameras. Are pixels really that bad?

it's so routine that they get abused that every llm I asked blamed leaving laptops plugged in for a spicy pillow.

There is a shocking amount of apathy on the part of people who think this doesn't affect them because they personally have no desire to use their car out of warranty or to take a car to an independent mechanic. It affects them because it affects resale price, which affects depreciation which hits their pocketbooks directly. Even if they lease the car.

There is a reason that EVs are getting hammered and even ICE vehicles are seeing steeper depreciation curves, and that's because they are becoming more disposable and harder to repair. People are talking about "useful life" of a car as if this was a disposable consumer device, and not a durable good that can be repaired and maintained for decades as long as the ability to replace components is out there. Toyota famously said "Our mission is to build cars that last for 30 years in the third world" and what do you know Toyotas don't depreciate nearly as much as other cars and people still pay 5 figures for 20 year old landrovers.

We also used to build toasters and refrigerators that easily last 50, 60 years or even 100 years if properly maintained. There is no reason cars can't do the same, and for some cars this is possible, but not for modern cars and certainly not for modern EVs. This can change.

It is interesting to think about the range of physical tool usage that is within a reasonable expectation. Is owning and being able to operate an implement to open and replace a battery in a simple watch like the Casio F91W reasonable?

> Video Playback: Up to 27* hours

> *: 25 hours in the EU

Replaceable battery and 10 years of OS updates and a large percentage of people would stop upgrading their phones. There hasn't been much innovation in phones in the past 10 years. If the battery hadn't died and the OS was still updated there would be zero reason for me to not be using my iPhone 7.

That is not an argument.

Not me, and not most people.

like unified charging cable, free EU roaming or intercountry bank payments that are instant and almost free, air travel protections?

"Cheap" isn't enough, especially if it's cheap through externalizing cost.

They do claim it at least for iPhone 15 "under ideal conditions": https://support.apple.com/en-us/101575

As a datapoint my iPhone reports 522 cycles and 89% max - from march 2024. I do use the "limit charging to 80%" feature which I suspect may become mandatory before 2027 ...

There's big conspiracy here. They just don't matter to most people.

And this regulation is really bad and will harm innovation for very little to no value.

Maybe iPhones are better about this, though, I don't know. But I definitely don't have a lot of faith in the laptops maintaining 80% for 1000 cycles.

So I pay them and they do it. The result:

- back cover becomes rather loose while it's warm e.g. from fast charging or a hot day out. No longer waterproof

- the battery is no better than the original and is (2y later now) degrading faster than the original. If you ask a lot of it, the last 35% are gone within minutes. I think it's a knock-off battery but that the repair person doesn't know that

If there had been commercially available repair parts and tool access, neither would have been a problem and I could just have done it myself

My mom has the same model and sent hers in to the manufacturer for a battery swap. Took a while and cost half the price of the phone (since it was a 2yo second-hand at that time). That could have been much faster, even if the manufacturer is free to set the same steep prices

A colleague got their phone back from Google for some repair last week, I don't remember if screen or battery swap. He asked and they said it wouldn't be reset. He put a sticker on it not to wipe the device. They wiped the device. He's now trying to piece together what's in various backup files that Android allows making. Fun fun fun. Also not necessary if you, or your techy nephew, can just do it at home

---

The requirement for commercially availability of repair is so much better than the current state of what repair places can/are offering

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835530

I think they will eventually. People hang on to their computers for longer and longer because old ones are just good enough. Phones are getting to that same stage in their evolution where they stopped evolving by leaps and bounds between generations. A seven year old phone like an iPhone 11 for example is perfectly adequate for a lot of people.

There are two real blockers from keeping a phone for so long, official software support and battery life. If some big manufacturers solved the first with extended support cycles, which is an expensive one, why not solve the second too?

I do. I lasted more than 15 years on 2 phones, and the only reason I'm at my fourth right now, is because the third was stolen after 3 months of use. I'm hoping its replacement, a used phone already, will last at least 5 years. Regardless, my next upgrade will not be a choice. I will milk my current phone until I am forced to change, as I always do.

most people would buy one phone and keep it forever if they could, because most people can't actually afford to be replacing their phone frequently.

The only reason they do is because they get slower, or battery gets worn out or whatever else. If their one phone actually lasted forever they would likely happily keep it forever

It's a philosophical thing, sure. But the EU is taking the approach that businesses should make honest money by selling quality products, not through consumer-hostile practices like inflating the cost of spare parts + labour for fixing stuff.

In the past our family has had several Android phones where the battery was easily replaceable. We even had a couple of Motorolas where the screen was a simple and cheap thing to replace. That seems to be increasingly a thing of the past.

With those phones, I have never once experienced a failure mode related to seams / screws holding the phone together. If it's one thing that's extremely well known technology, it's fasteners and gaskets for consumer products.

The ancients managed to design around replaceable batteries, I don't think these techniques have been entirely lost to time.

My older Samsung Galaxy had an easy clip-off back cover and easily replaceable battery. Nothing related to that ever failed.

Whereas two newer Pixel phones have had issues with the back cover glue coming loose, leading to interior damage.

Given that, the idea that a case that can be opened easily “compromises the shell of the phone” sounds like a weak excuse for some other deficiency or agenda.

Your circle sounds pretty strange honestly. Everyone in it lies to you about why they do things, but you secretly know their real motivations?

(Thought Apple's $99 to do the repair themselves isn't terribly bad all things considered; and likely part of their attempt to forestall complaints and litigations).

https://xkcd.com/2501/

There is a lot you can do with advanced materials science but as you get close to the high end of capability the cost goes up very rapidly and the ability to scale production is reduced.

Can we have this discussion once? In this thread alone, there's like 50 instances of people making this claim and each time it takes about 20 minutes before at least one person replies that it's not the case, after which no refutals are posted. I'm happy to learn it is false if it is (I never had a phone that I trusted to be waterproof to any degree so I don't have first-hand knowledge), but it gets really tiring to read the same information level over and over as a reason for why we can't have nice things

Taking this comment as an example of someone who actually used a battery-swappable phone in rain on a motorcycle: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835184 (I'm not only taking the person's word for it: the device is also IP certified as waterproof 30 mins at 1m depth)

Anecdotally on this front, I have had to replace the screens of my iphones at least three times in the past (different models). Incidentally, I have never needed to replace the screen of a phone that had a replaceable battery. YMMV, but this seems needlessly defeatist.

>maximum battery life

One could also claim that bespoke charging cables allow for faster charging or longer battery life, but I don't know any iPhone users that are a crying a river for their deprecated non-standard chargers. But again, YMMV I guess.

Essential complexity is inherent to the problem being solved; it can't be eliminated through better tools, process, or design. Incidental complexity is anything added by poor choices or flawed tools. Every line in a "hello world" program that isn't something pretty close to `print("hello world")` is incidental complexity.

To change the battery in electric vehicles that follow typical present-day design patterns, it's essential to have a way to get some clearance under the vehicles like a lift, ramps, or a pit, and it's essential to have a lift or jack to support the weight of the battery. Everything else is basic hand tools.

It is not essential to use any proprietary tools or software that isn't onboard the car or battery. Requiring anything like that is incidental, and a regulation could forbid it in the name of right to repair, reducing waste, or maintaining a healthy used car market.

For a simplest example - somehow my watch is waterproof to 200M down and replacing the battery just takes a tiny screwdriver. Gaskets are not particualarly hard to work with.

You've bought into and are now parroting Apple & Samsung marketing BS.

P.S. it had a headphone jack too. Gaskets over the ports. The headphone jack was the first victim of "but muh waterproof" despite all the other holes and cutouts.

It’s ridiculous that regulators are forcing Apple’s hand with design and engineering (I was one of the few against the USB-C switch), but it is also true that Apple is often incapable of making certain kinds of design decisions that have become impossible due to organizational inertia or shareholder-pleasing. Look no further than macOS 26, or the history of bad design decisions on the hardware side.

$100 is worth it, but you can get a good discount by going to that one mall kiosk instead of the Apple Store.

It says

* replaceable with 'commercially available tools' (which means: Apple could just sell you a 'iphone battery replacment tool kit for 1000 Euros)

* has excemptions for high-cycle / long-lived batteries

* ... nothing about the price of the battery (which can be 1000 Euros)

* ... or that the battery/the battery's form factor can't be trademarked, essentially locking you into 'Apple batteries' and preventing aftermarket ones.

Also, I'd rather have a less bulky phone with fewer mechanical parts that can break as compared to a more user-maintainable. Because of 'high-security' software (think: banking apps, or - I assume - the soon-to-be-released EUId wallet), the thing is basically worthless after four years anyways and needs replacement.

I'd wager that ... nothing at all will change in 2027.

It’s like complaining about items from TEMU aren’t high quality and expecting the government to do more.

The definition is pretty well established, and Apple themselves have for years used it consistently.

https://www.apple.com/batteries/why-lithium-ion/

> You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that represents 100% of your battery’s capacity* — but not necessarily all from one charge. For instance, you might use 75% of your battery’s capacity one day, then recharge it fully overnight. If you use 25% the next day, you will have discharged a total of 100%, and the two days will add up to one charge cycle. It could take several days to complete a cycle.

the definition of a battery cycle is very well established. there isnt really any room to finagle it.

Also, given that iphones almost already pass the requirements, where is the harm to innovation?

Fwiw, based on tests I've seen recently such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj4LMlGr4og, I think limiting to 80% is overblown, but somewhere in the 90%s could be a sweet spot that gives you several hours' longer battery life than with 80% but still has a much reduced chance of significant degradation. I don't understand why they didn't make this configurable

The average person probably can't (or won't) replace an iPhone battery themselves right now, but getting an iPhone battery replaced is relatively easy and cheap compared to replacing the phone and yet most people still don't do it.

I feel people on here are forgetting that for a lot of people a phone is not just about utility. It's a lifestyle purchase that people tie into their self identity. That's why we see things like the whole blue bubble vs green bubble messaging drama that came up a few years ago.

Just making shit up.

If that's actually allowed, yeah, bad law. If it's not… well I guess we can hope prosecutors will prosecute. Though I'm afraid we won't get much more than hope…

I notice that Fairphone excludes headphones from their latest devices, and attributes it to the necessary of doing so in order to get an "IP55" rating.

I'm not sure if that ultimately makes sense (and suspect that it... doesn't), but the legibility trap of that ratings system might actually be part of the cause of the current market absence of a feature so many people still talk about after years of its unavailability.

Your link is from 2020 and does not say Apple was moving to USB C, just that the industry was. By 2022 the law requiring it had already passed, so it would make sense they were planning on doing it at that point. Regardless, a few years would be a lot of impact for a market where over 100 million phones are sold annually.

You could already use the same charger with nearly everything. It was the cables that were not necessarily USB on the device end.

Apple for example as far as I can tell has used USB chargers for everything (phones, tablets, music players, headphones, Apple TV remote) except laptops since sometime in 2012. For laptops everything introduced after the last MagSafe 2 laptop in mid 2017 has used a USB charger.

Usually there are compatible ones that still give you some juice for 1-2 years at a small fraction of the price (of the original one).

If you worry about that, you can always buy an "official" battery in advance to be used 4-5 years later.

Regulated, open source, flashable, USB-charging, and a standardized battery describes most lights from https://www.firefly-outdoor.com/

I’m still driving a 26-year old Nissan Micra – though it’s now on its last legs: the Irish climate isn’t kind to steel and we’ve had to have the under-carriage re-welded three times in the past five years. :(

Give these phone batteries a standard geometry and interface and pretty much all these problems immediately go away. 3 prongs on the battery (ground, positive, data). A standard protocol so the battery can communicate things like SOC or acceptable charge rate with the charger. And viola, you are off to the races.

Yes, this will mean manufacturers will have a hard limit on how thin they can make their phones and a constraint on what designs they can employ.

While your reasoning has _some_ merit, it reads as an apologia for the status quo .. rather than an example of why we should prevent easy battery replacement.

Isn't worth the benefit for who? the manufacturers? sure.

Let's say a single manufacturer decides to offer some phones with a changeable battery, invests in their marketing, and they start becoming very popular. What happens next? Every manufacturer does the same, nobody earn a premium, total sales volume gets cut in half.

2. There's a lot of tech on the back: NFC, wireless charging, structurally important [magnetic] attachment points. Ensuring electric contact and physical strength on a door is again hard and expensive or all that tech has to live on the battery.

3. Design. A glass-like openable door is going to be extremely failure prone.

4. Compatibility. You can't guarantee quality of 3rd party batteries, even more so if the tech is in the battery pack.

5. Planned obsolescence. Let's not kid ourselves, encouraging replacing the whole phone is good for business.

They still offer battery service for iPhone 6.

> They should allow the friendly neighborhood repair shop to purchase a toolkit

They do. My friendly neighborhood repair shop a couple miles away has the same tools and parts Apple uses themselves at their Store.

If the feature isn't expected and it decrease sales, why would manufacturer put it in ?

Using that hypothesis, the market also loves cookie banners and prefers subscriptions over one-time payments.

With commercially available tools, yes. The argument is that, given the skill, you could pull it off.

Then again, maybe cars are a different category. I really don't have enough skilll to add to this discussion

The EU, just now.

sure on highest end phones you have very good cameras since a long time by now, but even there they find improvements here and there (e.g. zoom, low light pictures, even better image stabilization)

but middle to lower end phones are still have major improvements in every generation of a certain brand/line/price category. And you might be satisfied with a "acceptable" quality camera, until everyone around you has way nicer photos, or you now have a reason to make photes you didn't had in the past, or you get older and your hands a bit unsteady etc.

Not sure how comparable that is when considering that the devices are also commonly required as ticket on public transport with no offline fallback (going so far as to include animations on the screen so you can't send a screenshot to a friend or print it out -- no, I have no idea why they think you can't send a video to a friend). Having 10 minutes of use time is simply not on the table, and GP was probably not talking about that class of phones (pre-"smart" phone) in the first place

https://m.gsmarena.com/results.php3?chkRemovableBattery=sele...

But that supports my assumption that realistically the batteries don’t last 1000 cycles even when charged conservatively. The last 9% will go faster than the first 11%, the battery already has lower capacity and needs to be charged even more often.

On the other hand if I only get to 1000 cycles by charging up to 80% then I’m not getting 100% of the battery, am I?

Dieselgate was caught by some dudes with an emissions measuring device. It’s not that extreme to get a number of iPhone batteries, test them to 1000 cycles and see if statistically they still retain 80% capacity. If they don’t Apple could be looking at replacing everyone’s batteries.

--- start quote ---

Article 11 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 states that a 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.

Guidance on tool types can be drawn from standard EN 45554:2020e (2). In the context of the assessment of a product’s ability to be repaired, reused and upgraded, this standard uses the following classification groups: (i) basic tools (including those provided with the product as a spare part) or no tools; (ii) product-group specific tools; (iii) commercially available tools; and (iv) proprietary tools.

The concept of commercially available tools mentioned in Article 11 comprises the categories of basic tools or no tools and of commercially available tools as per EN 45554:2020e.

The concept of specialised tools laid down in the Regulation refers to product-group specific tools that are not available for purchase by the general public but are not protected by patents either. Article 11 requires that any such specialised tool that might be necessary to have a portable battery removed and replaced is provided free of charge with the product into which the battery is incorporated.

As per EN 45554:2020e, proprietary tools refer to tools not available for purchase by the general public, or for which any applicable patent are not available for license under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Such tools should not be needed to remove portable batteries

--- start quote ---

(I fully expect literally no one on HN to spend even a second looking for and reading the relevant texts, and complain about the law being vague or impossible to implement or something)

It was clearly worse than the battery that came with my refurbished (!) phone, which never did that; it just couldn't hold a decent charge anymore. I won't even go into the absolutely ridiculous experience I had with the repair shop, like not honoring booked times and whatnot and having me wait in line for ages, both to drop off and pick up my phone.

My current phone has lost some of its battery health as reported by the OS, but still gives me over a day of use, but when the time comes to fix it, I'll go directly to Apple.

The only reason I upgraded to my current model was to get USBC (thanks Europe!!!).

I've replaced more batteries (and screens) than I can count, and it's increasingly difficult and complicated. 5 years ago or so I'd agree with you, but now there's no phone I can easily open without heat gun, controlling the air so no spec of dust land on the lenses (and a blower to remove in case it happens), and almost always I need adhesive (B7000) to patch or replace the original one to keep similar level of weather proofing. It's easy if you pay 100 bucks someone else to do it, sure.

Back in the days of my HTC Desire I could carry an extra battery, or two, in the pocket, without issue. Nowadays I'm married to a power bank that needs to be plugged for the duration.

This type of ambush agree to XYZ or you can't come in that we see with EULA's and privacy polices is unfair, just like if some scammer demanded people sign a fifty page contract before they enter the supermarket. This is something people understand intuitively.

It was foreseeable, and the end result is very little has changed as far as consumer privacy. Most people just agree to get the box to go away, if you actually want privacy your best bet is still a private browsing session and a VPN.

https://commission.europa.eu

Malicious compliance?

I don't care what the politicians intended. The outcome is no improvement in privacy but more annoying banners.

(I always buy phones in the cheapest tier, so that happens sooner)

Battery is starting to fade during the day, despite minimal use.

I think replaceable batteries should be mandatory and 10 years of security updates. In these times, phones are really expensive (however you pay for them) and we shouldn’t stand for planned obsolescence in any form.

On that note, mandating an SD card slot as a requirement would be a very much welcome next step.

Manufacturers selling space-crippled devices just to upsell "premium" models is such an environmental waste (at the very least).

But let's go back to the original point, about being able to UPGRADE (not repair/replace) battery in the car. 20 years old car is worth like $1k-2k, which is fraction of the cost of the new battery.

While it's cool thing to do for hobbyists, it makes 0 economical sense.

We COULD have an EV with a 200kWh battery that can go 1000km++ on a charge in -30C weather. But nobody really needs that beyond a few outliers.

What we NEED is ubiquitous and easy charging.

Going for a burger, it'll take 20 minutes for you to order, eat and walk out. On a 300kW charger in the parking lot you can in theory get up to 100kWh charged. Or less with a slower one. Even plugging in to a 50kW charger for 20 minutes is enough.

Same with shopping etc, giving "everyone" a 2kW charger in a parking lot is table stakes in 2026.

And with phones: just have the possilibity of charging everywhere. I have 13€ Ikea Qi2 ("Magsafe") compatible chargers[0] everywhere in the house. Anyone can just slap their phone on one and it'll charge a bit.

There's no reason why we can't have more of those in public - we did try when wireless charging first appeared, but it was a whole chicken and egg thing. Nobody had phones that supported it and finding the exact 1x1cm spot where the phone charges was a pain. Qi2 with the alignment magnets takes that problem away completely.

[0] https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/vaestmaerke-wireless-charging-s...

We don't need to fast charge anything, phones or EVs. Slow charging preserves battery life and smart charging will charge whenever it is cheapest.

alternatively, i can trade more bulk for more battery. if its got a connector, why cant i put a bigger batter in the slot that sticks out?

Because legislation is direct and gives better results to consumers. Thank god the EU standardized on USB-C.

There's no reason to jump through extra hoops and rely on the whims of investors to do something good for the people.

https://www.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-e-operating-sy...

Just like 3.5mm headphone jacks and MicroSD card expandable storage.

They're hard to find even on lower end devices any more, despite more ports being a premium/pro feature in other market segments.

The objective is to reduce e-waste, where phones whose only issue is the battery ends up in the trash / recycling, instead of continuing to be useful.

Fairphone 6, recent with replaceable battery: 9.6 mm

Galaxy S5, has a replaceable battery, released _12 years ago_ - battery tech has improved a lot since then: 8.1 mm

iPhone 17 Pro Max: 8.8 mm

iPhone 12 Pro Max: 7.4 mm

We want to make phones as thin as possible so the latest flagship iPhone is 1.4 mm thicker than the one from 5 years ago? A whole 0.8 mm thinner than a recent one with a replaceable battery with maybe 0.1% of the iPhone's R&D budget, and 0.8 mm thicker than one with a replaceable battery made 12 years ago?

Works just as well.

Some regulations are good, some are bad, all have second and third order effects that need to be weighed against benefits.

Frankly so long as my browser, VPN and mail app are updated I'm happy.

In contrast, users were also given the choice between headphone jack and Bluetooth for years when every phone had both, and clearly chose the jack. BT headphones were rare. But Apple and many other phonemakers figured out they make more money by removing it.

What is your hypothesis for why more phones arent designed with non-embedded, directly replacable batteries? If it's such a highly valued trait in a phone, why doesnt some company just gobble up that market share? Why havent existing solutions sold well? Mine is that consumers dont actually value non-embedded batteries when accounting for all the tradeoffs. What's your hypothesis?

I don't know how most people will dispose of user replacement batteries, but I suspect the recycle rates will be lower. If you want to ensure higher rates you also need to do something they do in the USA for car lead acid batteries. Charge a deposit fee on the new battery that is returned only when the battery is turned into a valid recycling entity.

No heat or solvents required. Sounds good.

If it is a special glue that needs to be heated (or something), I should be able to make/buy an oven the does the cure procedures.

Also quite noticeable that the laptop battery market became much smaller once the batteries became an internal component (around 2015) that you can't see without opening it up completely. These also used to be behind a slider or two

People don't dare unscrew electronics, even if it's about as trivial as replacing a light bulb in a fixture that requires removing a screw. With phones having the battery inside as well now, not above the sim tray for example, I wonder how much such legislation is going to help the average person

Incorrect. Here are 115 phones with removable batteries and rated for > 0 water protection.

You can have water protection and easily replaceable battery.

Still, I'm really curious about how many people take advantage of those standards and need IP67 (30min at 1m depth) as opposed to a quick splash or rain on it, or how many buy the artificial tradeoff of water resistance over easily replaceable battery because this is all that's offered.

But then I haven't broken a phone in a while so I haven't really talked to my friendly neighborhood repair shop. That only because my daughter finally grew up, they remembered me at the shop back when she was young :)

Unfortunately I do expect other tricks towards planned obsolescence. Long-term support is now a thing but what they can still do is make phones slower over time. Even Apple did this with the iPhone 6.

Obviously true for any iPhone battery.

Are non-premium new cars a scam too?

1) iPhones for example are ip68 rated while those are just ipx8/9

2) Do you want to be limited to the universe of those search results? Do you want to buy a Sony Xperia?

You can't make batteries directly replaceable at the same quality and price. There are tradeoffs. Obviously waterproof non-embedded batteries exist. Just like you could make a removable battery the same slimness as embedded. With massive tradeoffs. It's capacity will be terrible. No one is surprised a removable battery can be waterproof but the point is there are tradeoffs.