Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

techspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 622 posts

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#311

Post by pwg »

deelowe wrote: post #120
surgical_fire wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please, EU: bring a law that forces manufacturers to release their drivers / firmware whenever they stop updating a digital device. I wish I could upvote this more. It's a crime how I had to throw away in the past perfectly usable devices because they were forced into obsolescence.

I don't see how this would work given modern supply chains. It can be extremely difficult to track down all of the owners of a particular IP and when you do, many of them may not even exist any longer making it near impossible to get any sort of permission to do something like this.

IP permissions, i.e., copyrights, are not natural rights, they are instead government "grants" of protection. And protection granted by government decree can also be taken away by government decree.

So no "permission" to release would be necessary if government's modified ther copyright laws to withdraw their granted protections after some "event" occurred.

The bigger problem is not the permission, it is actually finding the code so it could be 'released' once the event triggered. To make this work would require some form of required escrow in order to gain copyright protection in the first place where the code would be held until such time as the removal of copyright protection from it triggered, and then it could be released.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#312

Post by cthalupa »

smn1234 wrote: post #16
danpalmer wrote: post #6

I love the EU's focus on consumer protections and I'm all for progressive policies on environmental issues, but this and the USB-C issue strike me as misguided, policies from people who aren't qualified to to make the decisions they are making, and aren't listening to experts. I'm glad we're getting USB-C on the iPhone, but it wasn't a huge problem and it was probably coming anyway in the next few years. But replacea…

I'd much rather be able to swap a charged battery for the drained one in my phone especially in such circumstances as when I'm in a foreign country and dependent on my phone (for e.g. safety, to get around) and there's not a iPhone cable or charge point around. It seems like a no brainer, certainly from a consumer benefit perspective. Using batteries as a mechanism for hardware upgrades is ridiculous, instead of the…

I feel like those rarer circumstances can be handled pretty easily with a portable battery bank, and also pull double duty for any other USB devices you might have.

With my 14 Pro Max I charge my phone every 2-3 days, and I'm not letting it get down to Personally, at least, I'll take the sleeker design vs. an easily swap-able battery. Thankfully, it sounds like the EU law doesn't actually require it be replaceable in a tool-less manner, so it sounds like the type of design the iPhone 14 (non-max) uses will qualify.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#313

Post by oblio »

thrashh wrote: post #228
codetrotter wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many of them may not even exist any longer making it near impossible to get any sort of permission to do something like this So plan ahead. For the 2024 model of each iPhone, get all the permissions to release all of the firmware in year 2032.

The usual concern with regulation is not the big players. It’s the smaller products and businesses that cease to exist because it’s too expensive to meet regulations. Bad regulation raises the cost of entry into the market and strengthens the big players like Apple.

Thankfully people here are asking for good regulation, once which states that at some point in the future every phone ever sold in market X needs to have its core software open sourced, so companies can plan ahead.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#314

Post by skissane »

pwg wrote: post #311
deelowe wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this would work given modern supply chains. It can be extremely difficult to track down all of the owners of a particular IP and when you do, many of them may not even exist any longer making it near impossible to get any sort of permission to do something like this.

IP permissions, i.e., copyrights, are not natural rights, they are instead government "grants" of protection. And protection granted by government decree can also be taken away by government decree. So no "permission" to release would be necessary if government's modified ther copyright laws to withdraw their granted protections after some "event" occurred. The bigger problem is not the permission, it is actually fin…

> To make this work would require some form of required escrow in order to gain copyright protection in the first place where the code would be held until such time as the removal of copyright protection from it triggered, and then it could be released.

Trying to mandate that for all software might be too ambitious to politically succeed in practice - but mandating source code escrow for software used in certain regulated devices - smartphones, cars, planes, medical devices, etc - might be more achievable. You wouldn’t even need to touch copyright law, it would just need to be a product regulation. Of course, copyright law would have to be touched for a compulsory license, but consider that phase 2 and source code escrow as phase 1 - phase 1 could be enacted now, phase 2 saved for later

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#315

Post by ktosobcy »

chongli wrote: post #56
unglaublich wrote: post #7

The problem is not really the battery anymore, it's the software mainly. It's all closed source and is often deprecated before the hardware is dead. Then the manufacturer makes it hard to unlock bootloaders; keeps drivers closed source and effectively bricks the device. For recurring sales are the backbone of modern economy so we must force obsolescence. Why would you want to replace a battery in a useless device? Pl…

No, it's batteries too. And water/dust/fluid ingress protection. Modern phones are sealed up pretty tight because users want them to be waterproof. This makes it very difficult to build in replaceable batteries!

I don't. I just want it splash resistant - it's more than enough. just because there is a promile of morons that can't handle the phone doesn't mean that a lots of users should be prohibited from easily changing the battery... because of that lots of devices end up on landslide because users can't get enough charge I fit anymore...

I loved lumia devices - easily openable back to replace battery, nice materials (rubbery polycarbonate?) that offered nice grip. Having PC displays instead of glass would be awesome - no need for extra protective case because the shatter woild be a tning od the past. At the worst, a scratch resistant screen protector, which we all already put in the devices either way to help avoid screen cracks..

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#316

Post by zgluck »

danpalmer wrote: post #6

I love the EU's focus on consumer protections and I'm all for progressive policies on environmental issues, but this and the USB-C issue strike me as misguided, policies from people who aren't qualified to to make the decisions they are making, and aren't listening to experts. I'm glad we're getting USB-C on the iPhone, but it wasn't a huge problem and it was probably coming anyway in the next few years. But replacea…

[flagged]

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#317

Post by oblio »

chongli wrote: post #56
unglaublich wrote: post #7

The problem is not really the battery anymore, it's the software mainly. It's all closed source and is often deprecated before the hardware is dead. Then the manufacturer makes it hard to unlock bootloaders; keeps drivers closed source and effectively bricks the device. For recurring sales are the backbone of modern economy so we must force obsolescence. Why would you want to replace a battery in a useless device? Pl…

No, it's batteries too. And water/dust/fluid ingress protection. Modern phones are sealed up pretty tight because users want them to be waterproof. This makes it very difficult to build in replaceable batteries!

This is just ridiculous.

See Jerry Rig Everything. He even says that there are solutions for this even for glued-up phones, manufacturers just don't want to implement them because they're for sure against battery replacements.

It's not like glue is some sort of magic substance.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#319

Post by diegoholiveira »

beefield wrote: post #305
burntwater wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the owners/companies no longer exist, then I would think the IP should be free by default. Perhaps that's another law to work on...

> If the owners/companies no longer exist, then I would think the IP should be free by default. Perhaps that's another law to work on... I think I have even more elegant solution. All IP should be subject to a tax (or maintenance fee or whatever you want to call it). As soon as the IP owner fails to pay the tax, IP falls to public domain irrevocably. The actual structure of the tax can be subject to debate. I would p…

The money made with the IP is taxable.

I can support your proposal only if the IP taxes are deductible from incoming tax.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#320

Post by rat9988 »

gok wrote: post #296
jrm4 wrote: post #143

Just broadly, let me just echo my full throated support for regulation in this space. Forget the vast majority of the goofy "innovation" arguments I hear, the fact that 3 family cell phones, 2 laptops, Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and Oculus can all use the same charger makes insanely more sense that what we were doing before.

So you're really happy that there is regulation requiring what the market already did on its own?

Yes, because some actors don't want to follow suit.
Post reply on HN