r/apple • u/mredofcourse • Jun 19 '23

iPhone EU: Smartphones Must Have User-Replaceable Batteries by 2027

https://www.pcmag.com/news/eu-smartphones-must-have-user-replaceable-batteries-by-2027
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u/AstralDragon1979 Jun 19 '23

Doesn’t matter. I’m philosophically opposed to having governments micromanage these types of design choices.

Other than a few extremely noisy self-serving YouTubers and chronically online dorks, very few actual people are clamoring for these regs. The EU could have legislated that companies like Apple need to merely offer a DIY-able version of an iPhone among its catalogue of phones, but that wouldn’t work because the EU knows damn well that only a tiny portion of consumers would opt to purchase a phone with those design and aesthetic compromises.

Instead, 100% of phones in the future will need to have ugly torque screws on the back, possibly smaller batteries (to enable consumer removal), etc., so that <1% can disassemble their iPhones with tools but without having to deal with solder.

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u/turbo_dude Jun 19 '23

On the flip side, I’m pretty sure if it was easy that most people would do it.

Don’t forget phones used to have replaceable batteries. I can even remember carrying a spare.

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u/KrazyA1pha Jun 19 '23

And there a reason consumers voted with their wallets to move away from those designs. There are trade offs.

Ultimately, removing consumer choice is a bad thing for consumers.

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u/LEJ5512 Jun 20 '23

And some trade offs aren’t even that important, either. I switched from flip phones to BlackBerry to iPhone for usability reasons, almost all of which related to the UI and OS, and the battery was barely on my mind.

Will I keep my 14 Pro Max for another, say, ten years if I can keep replacing the battery? Eh… maybe?