The EU dont care… lol
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…
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 bitching 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.
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.
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.
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.
