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European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

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Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#361

Post by stavros »

astrange wrote: post #327
oblio wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The EU isn't making good regulation, they don't have any tech companies and are just attempting to make it illegal to make anything in a fit of pique. The end result may be nobody selling phones there anymore. Europe has an unhealthy culture of naturalistic hippiedom, so this is just the same thing that causes Germany to shut down nuclear power. (If you think this one's good, try combining it with their six other gia…

I've been trying to find words to describe this take but I fail. It's as if someone thought "what's the most jingoistic thing I can say in support of the US and its anti-regulation free-for-all?".

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#362

Post by bmicraft »

Timon3 wrote: post #67
eterevsky wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a battery lasts a couple of days, I would much rather my phone were waterproof than be able to swap the battery. Having a power bank solves the problem of discharged phone for me, and anyway I almost never have to use it. Being able to drop your phone in the water and pick it up still working is far more valuable to me.

Waterproof phones with replacable batteries might not be waterproof after the replacement - so why don't you just keep the original battery, and have a waterproof phone? Win-win for everyone.

Galaxy S5 did it 9 years ago

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#363

Post by wesapien »

dtx1 wrote: post #135
chongli wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

solved see galaxy s5

I asked Bard and Samsung started making IP57 phones during the Galaxy S4 era with its "Active" brand.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#364

Post by fsflover »

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.

There are already small businesses that do this: Purism and Pine64.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#365

Post by dbg31415 »

wongarsu wrote: post #356
dbg31415 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugly to have 2 ports.

Before we standardized on micro USB, lots of phones had ports easily three times the width of USB-C. We were ok with that back then, so why would two USB-C sized ports next to each other be so bad? In return, all your gizmos and chargers continue to work in the transition period. Or, just make the new port a barrel connector like a headphone jack, just with more segments. Bonus points if you can plug in an actual hea…

Why do I want a headphone jack on my phone?

I don’t. It’s all Bluetooth now. I like wireless headphones.

But you should be free to buy them and we can both vote with equally with our wallets.

Go buy phones that have the 3.5mm jacks and send the signal that consumers still want plugs invented in the 1950s. If that’s what you want to signal. You have a great way to tell Apple if you like what they are doing! So do I.

Maybe Europeans like wired headphones over wireless? That’s news to me, but they should vote with their wallets. If you like what a company does, but things that company makes. If you don’t, don’t.

It bugs me to see a government meddle with what customers want to buy.

Don’t rig the system so you get a bigger voice than others. That’s not fair.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#366

Post by astrange »

stavros wrote: post #361
astrange wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU isn't making good regulation, they don't have any tech companies and are just attempting to make it illegal to make anything in a fit of pique. The end result may be nobody selling phones there anymore. Europe has an unhealthy culture of naturalistic hippiedom, so this is just the same thing that causes Germany to shut down nuclear power. (If you think this one's good, try combining it with their six other gia…

I've been trying to find words to describe this take but I fail. It's as if someone thought "what's the most jingoistic thing I can say in support of the US and its anti-regulation free-for-all?".

The US isn't the only country with tech companies. You may have heard of China, Japan, or Korea.

And every country regulates cell phones in particular, since they use shared airwaves, have rare earth metals in them, sometimes have exploding batteries etc.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#367

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

xenadu02 wrote: post #165
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But really waterproofing the phone doesn't require gluing everything together to within an inch of its life, just a gasket and a few screws. Yes it will add $5 or something to the cost of a phone, totally worth it, and will improve repairability in general to boot.

You make this claim but have you ever worked in product design for something trying to achieve an IP water and dust ingress rating? It is far more than "just a gasket and a few screws". The rating can't just be good on unboxing day. You want it to hold even after a few years, several drops on the floor, in cold weather, etc.

Controlling water in machines is not new, neither is phone design. It's been done a million ways and all of those ways have certain trade offs. It's just another design challenge and the flipside of your comment is a suggestion that there isn't some person other than me that is up to the challenge. Customers can make their own judgements about looks and size versus (replaceable battery) functionality as they always have.

The fact is gluing is simpler and cheaper but most importantly it reduces the repairability of phones by third parties. Quite often trying to repair a phone will cause it to be destroyed, making replacing a battery more risky and difficult. Companies would love not to have to use glue, but ! Nothing at all to do with built-in obsolescence.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#368

Post by isidor3 »

xenadu02 wrote: post #165
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But really waterproofing the phone doesn't require gluing everything together to within an inch of its life, just a gasket and a few screws. Yes it will add $5 or something to the cost of a phone, totally worth it, and will improve repairability in general to boot.

You make this claim but have you ever worked in product design for something trying to achieve an IP water and dust ingress rating? It is far more than "just a gasket and a few screws". The rating can't just be good on unboxing day. You want it to hold even after a few years, several drops on the floor, in cold weather, etc.

Users of cars pretty routinely replace seals that are under a lot more extreme enviroments and abuse than a phone without issue. All of the ones I've dealt with pretty much are "just a gasket and a few screws" Sure, there needs to be some design process to get there, but let's not pretend that doing this would be some unheard of technological advancement.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#369

Post by asddubs »

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.

releasing the firmware primarily would affect the chip makers, phone manufacturers generally do not write this code themselves.

Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries

#370

Post by roenxi »

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…

Is this really [0] the most [1] important issue [2] that the EU should be focusing [3] on?

Going by HN traffic, it appears that what the EU is for is to redesign the iPhone to get the details right that techies disagree with Applle on. We live in extreme times with some remarkable challenges - the EU is wasting bandwidth on this triviality. And it isn't a phone manufacturer, it is probably not going to make phones cheaper or, on net, better for consumers.

Please EU, behave rationally and focus on creating a peaceful and prosperous environment. Stop generating headlines about backseat driver phone redesigns.

[0] https://theconversation.com/poland-dreams-of-building-europe...

[1] https://www.iea.org/commentaries/europe-s-energy-crisis-unde...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65235579

[3] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2022/html/ecb.sp220...

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