61–70 of 334 posts
Interestingly, the regulation apparently also applies to small devices like smart watches and wireless earbuds.
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> Doable for layman? Well, some people are afraid of opening up a device in any way. How do we (or, rather, lawyers) draw a line? Start by not requiring a screwdriver in the process of changing batteries. I remember the early days of Samsung/Android phones where you only needed to pry open the back cover using your nail and the battery was easily taken out. It's a small change but the layman will be way less afraid.
Those phones were not water resistant. While maybe not important to some, to others it is
And it's 10 years later in 2023. If Apple/other big companies want to they can do R&D and come up with waterproof+dustptoof solutions.
Let's face it, they don't want to because it sells more phones.
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> I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. That's your problem then, don't you think? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_by... Now, whether all of these are actually manufactured locally or not is another matter, but the EU definitely is regulating its own market. As they have been empowered to do so. I'm all for it. And I would love to see standardized battery packs fo…
The wp article does mention gigaset and https://www.shiftphones.com/ but not Fairphone nor https://www.carbonmobile.com/ who as with shift and gigaset are building manufacturing in Germany (mostly north east). Shift has a plant in China and just does finishing in Germany. But that's a given, I believe. Can't source all things in one country. Or?
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The second proposed legislation from the article seems to require that at least 5 years of updates must be provided after the device was last sold. This is far more than many low-end and mid-range Android phones, moreover many Android phone manufacturers start counting after the device was released, not last sold. Interestingly, they also seem to put upper bounds on how quickly these updates should be rolled out. Eg.…
Is it? It is going to meant that Android can't take advantage of the high end features of the new phones that are being released, and that old and slow phones are going to get updates that makes them run even slower. To top it of, it is not like manufacturers are into throwing away money, so this will likely mean that prices on the cheapest phones will increase more.
That's perfectly ok, what you don't have you can't use.
> and that old and slow phones are going to get updates that makes them run even slower.
It would be up to the manufacturers to ensure that this is not the case. One way to do it would be to reduce bloat.
> To top it of, it is not like manufacturers are into throwing away money, so this will likely mean that prices on the cheapest phones will increase more.
This makes no sense: manufacturers are competing with each other, if the prices on the cheapest phones will increase more then surely someone will exploit that.
I think this is fantastic news. It will be interesting to see how it affects the amount of phones that get discarded. I think the next bottleneck is likely to be software longevity. This has improved a lot lately! But basically I think phones have now reached a place like laptops and desktops where HW capabilities are stable, and there's no good reason for devices to be obsolete in 5 years any more. I wonder if regul…
In my experience, the current bottleneck with (Android) phones is that the get very slow without any apparent reasons after a few years. I've had multiple reports of acquaintances complaining about their phones getting slow after a few years, and I've always assumed that they were just full of apps... until it happened to me. I can't find an unambiguois explanation; my guess is a mix of CPUs deteriorating over time d…
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Nokia has been sold, I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. The market is so small that adding regulation isn't hurting the EU, which is why its an easy target compared to the automotive industry.
It's also perhaps of interest that one of the few alternative OS efforts is still being led by ex-nokia folk out of Tampere, Finland. Jolla. Much of the Plasma development for mobile is spear headed by devs in Germany (KDE folk). Point being, the heritage of Nokia is not quite dead yet.
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Is it? It is going to meant that Android can't take advantage of the high end features of the new phones that are being released, and that old and slow phones are going to get updates that makes them run even slower. To top it of, it is not like manufacturers are into throwing away money, so this will likely mean that prices on the cheapest phones will increase more.
> It is going to meant that Android can't take advantage of the high end features of the new phones that are being released That's perfectly ok, what you don't have you can't use. > and that old and slow phones are going to get updates that makes them run even slower. It would be up to the manufacturers to ensure that this is not the case. One way to do it would be to reduce bloat. > To top it of, it is not like manu…
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> It is going to meant that Android can't take advantage of the high end features of the new phones that are being released That's perfectly ok, what you don't have you can't use. > and that old and slow phones are going to get updates that makes them run even slower. It would be up to the manufacturers to ensure that this is not the case. One way to do it would be to reduce bloat. > To top it of, it is not like manu…
Maybe it'll play out differently on the low-end, but on the high-end it seems there's been some "soft collusion" where one manufacturer raised prices, and others saw that as a signal they can also raise their prices.
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> That's your problem then, don't you think? No need to play the man or be belittling. Point still stands that the EU smartphone market is so little that any regulation isn't hurting them. Regulation on car repairability definitely would, hence why you stil need to visit the BMW dealer if you want to change the 12-volt battery or activate your heated seats. The EU will not likely do anything about that.
It is their market to regulate. And right to repair is very much a part of EU regulations. Without those regulations you'd be in a far worse situation. https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/automotiv... If BMW idiocy gets you upset: don't drive BMW. My car is 25 and I can do just about anything I want on it. Your beef is first and foremost with BMW, and I'm fairly sure that if the EU deems this kind of b…
I don't have beef with BMW, that was just an example. "Don't drive a BMW" is the equivalent of "Don't buy an iPhone" if you care about repairability. It shouldn't be like that.