Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are any of them bad so far?
Having cookies message popup on every website you visit is a good thing?
How is that hardware?
European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
211–220 of 622 posts
Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my understanding, sealant used to make phones waterproof is basically glue, which precludes "easy" replacement of batteries.
I don't think you properly understood my comment. I am specifically saying: even if replacing the battery makes the phone no longer waterproof, you can just not replace the battery . Nobody comes into your house at night and forces you to install a new battery because your old one isn't good anymore.
It's very nice to be able to replace a battery in the field. I used to carry a spare charged battery and swap it for an instant recharge. That use case is still valuable to me, but isn't possible anymore.
Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
#213The 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…
I think Apple would never tolerate that. I can see them lobbying political parties in order to sabotage EU cohesion if that gets proposed.
Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
#214Earlier 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.
How about as part of FCC approvals you submit everything needed to unlock the device, and it goes into a vault for X years than gets automatically released.
Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
#215Earlier 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!
> This makes it very difficult to build in replaceable batteries! Except it doesn't. The last two waterproof phones I had had user-replaceable batteries, a USB port, and even a headphone jack. What it does is add a few dollars onto the BOM.
You must be joking if you think its just a BOM adjustment and a small cost... way to oversimplify the actual implementation
Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my understanding, sealant used to make phones waterproof is basically glue, which precludes "easy" replacement of batteries.
I don't think you properly understood my comment. I am specifically saying: even if replacing the battery makes the phone no longer waterproof, you can just not replace the battery . Nobody comes into your house at night and forces you to install a new battery because your old one isn't good anymore.
I understood your comment. The article implies that the battery has to be _easily_ replaceable, i.e. that you could just take a battery and maybe a screwdriver out of your pocket and replace it.
I don't think it's easy to design a phone that would at the same time a) have easily replaceable battery, and b) be waterproof until the first battery replacement.
Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
That just doesn't happen because you lose economy of scale. The EU actually has a ton of soft power through this, enough for it to be a term in geopolitics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect
Europe is about 20% of Apple sales internationally. It's not that much power. https://www.statista.com/statistics/382175/quarterly-revenue...
I don't think many companies would be able to take a 20% overnight drop in sales without it causing some major issues.
Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Carrying around bulky power banks or worse, chargers to then tie you to sit close to an outlet and wait for the battery to charge, is not entirely ideal when you're on the go, foreign or domestic. It's also less anxiety-inducing to not have to worry about where will I get my next charge and how long will it interrupt my plans for.
When battery life is a concern, I carry around a small flashlight and a (very) short USB cable. The flashlight can both receive charge (from the wall) and send charge (to the phone) through its USB port. Lots of high-end flashlights do this. Mine isn't much larger than the 21700 cell it contains. If you want to go smaller you can get a 1850-based flashlight and still almost double the capacity of your phone. Plus, it…
But it doesn't really address the use case well. It won't fully charge the phone and it takes time to do the charging.
Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
#219The 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…
Why don't they sell updates? Even if they open source everything, I'd pay for them to support my phone for longer and I imagine the margins on a SW update outweigh the cost of producing more hardware.
Re: European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you properly understood my comment. I am specifically saying: even if replacing the battery makes the phone no longer waterproof, you can just not replace the battery . Nobody comes into your house at night and forces you to install a new battery because your old one isn't good anymore.
It's very nice to be able to replace a battery in the field. I used to carry a spare charged battery and swap it for an instant recharge. That use case is still valuable to me, but isn't possible anymore.
Yes, that is why I'm arguing that even if changing the battery must necessarily break the waterseal, the battery should still be changable. In this hypothetical scenario it would be worth it to leave it open to the individual.