Repairability vs reliability: Apple argues that removable batteries add a potential failure...
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hahahanoobs
Posts: 5,224 +3,076
Stop it.
We had removable batteries and consumers let them go, and now 15 years later you want it back?
In 20 years are you gonna want headphone jack back too?! SD card slots? Physical keyboards? I can't wait!
>While some might not want to hear it, Ternus has a point. While an iPhone with a removable battery would be convenient, it likely wouldn't be as water resistant as a fully sealed model.
Every mobile device, be it laptop, tablet or phone, has eventually had the battery degrade. Sometimes not to the point of needing to be replaced before I replaced the whole device, but I've never retired an electronic device where the battery wasn't getting noticeably worse.
I've never dropped any of them in the bathtub or ocean.
He does not have a point that I care about.
Every mobile device, be it laptop, tablet or phone, has eventually had the battery degrade. Sometimes not to the point of needing to be replaced before I replaced the whole device, but I've never retired an electronic device where the battery wasn't getting noticeably worse.
I've never dropped any of them in the bathtub or ocean.
He does not have a point that I care about.
Yes, please. I'd like all of those things back. I never wanted them removed in the first place.
Well... physical keyboards I suppose were never my jam. But I know people for whom they were, and they still miss them! But SD card slots and headphone jacks? Absolutely I want those things.
Burty117
Posts: 5,112 +3,691
To be fair, nobody I know were desperate to lose any of those things. Literally nobody ever said:
"Gosh, this darn headphone jack is annoying"
"This SD Card slot is mighty convenient for increasing my storage, wish they'd get rid of it"
"I do love going to a store and paying someone to replace my battery every two years, glad they got rid of my ability to do it myself"
hahahanoobs
Posts: 5,224 +3,076
Not gonna happen. Technology is much better now. Cloud storage is big. SD cards get corrupted. Lost. If you truly loved wired headphones, it would still be an option on flagships, huh? Wireless headphones dominate top 10 headphone lists. Phones have greater storage amounts now. Batteries last days instead of hours. Charging takes minutes not hours.
No one is upgrading inside of 5 years because their battery isn't good enough anymore. The problem is the people that upgrade every year or two adding to e-waste, but they aren't upgrading because of degraded battery life I promise you. The average consumer doesn't care about removable batteries. $400 phones last all day and charge in under an hour. Going after Apple and Samsung flagships does nothing. Recycling isn't working. Removable batteries will just add e-waste. Bet.
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hwertz
Posts: 517 +273
Yes, technically true, adding a removeable battery ads a failure point (the battery terminals.) Which don't fail. And (if you go for it being water tight) a gasket. (The closest I've EVER seen to a failure is having some AA or AAA batteries leak so I head to clean the terminals.) So this is really a BS argument on Apple's part.
"John Ternus, senior VP of hardware engineering at Apple, said they want to focus on making sure customers have easy access to repair the things that are most likely to require repair."
So, you want to focus on this? Then do it. I note "want to focus" doesn't mean they are focusing on this or even plan to focus on this. Up to now, Apple is about the worst on the market for repairability. I don't buy any Apple products, but for those who do here's hoping they actually do focus on improved repairability on future models instead of just "wanting" to focus on it.
"John Ternus, senior VP of hardware engineering at Apple, said they want to focus on making sure customers have easy access to repair the things that are most likely to require repair."
So, you want to focus on this? Then do it. I note "want to focus" doesn't mean they are focusing on this or even plan to focus on this. Up to now, Apple is about the worst on the market for repairability. I don't buy any Apple products, but for those who do here's hoping they actually do focus on improved repairability on future models instead of just "wanting" to focus on it.
ruddevil
Posts: 37 +54
Guess you're not living in developing countries like where I'm living in. 2 decades ago the offline stores selling mobile phones (eventually it became smartphones) were popping up everywhere. In the past 5 years however, these stores were going away gradually as online marketplace became the norm. Guess what businesses replaced them? Yep, smartphone repair stores in which their biggest source of income is the battery replacement part and service.
Companies like Apple have been closing their eyes on their e-waste by not providing the ability to repair their phones (remember that screen replacement scandal). Do you know where those e-waste phones were being sent to? Yes, countries like where I'm living now, the developing and underdeveloped. If you think a battery e-waste will have a bigger waste footprint than a full smartphone e-waste, you've been doing your life incorrectly my friend.
"Battery life is MUCH longer now". - No, no it is not. I had to replace my phone last year after less than 3 years.
For the phone before that, I had its battery replaced after it inflated (bought the new battery and replaced it myself for just a few bucks)
I also know a lot of iPhone users who had to change phones because of battery issues (in the past 2-3 years).
Simply put, you are 100% wrong.
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hahahanoobs
Posts: 5,224 +3,076
Large amounts of trash and recycling from the west already gets sent overseas to be burned. Electronics are very hard and expensive to recycle assuming it wasn't just thrown in the trash like most trash and e-waste is. The EU can't save you.
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kira setsu
Posts: 741 +823
Failure point?
theyve literally built the damn things with glass bodies, theyre meant to shatter on impact so people just buy a new one.
theyve literally built the damn things with glass bodies, theyre meant to shatter on impact so people just buy a new one.
MakeMSGreatAgain
Posts: 246 +185
BS. That battery IS a failure point, always will be. You can make a excellent water resistant phone with removable battery, its been done. It's called ENGINEERING and DESIGN. Hell even their new sealed water resistant phones are a failure point. My wife's brand new iPhone 13 had water damage when she dropped it in the tub and it had never been opened and we bought it directly from Apple. Apple can do do a better job of this, even with removable batteries, they just don't want to. They want to charge you for services or a new phone. Hey and you know what their battery replacement charges really aren't that bad, I'd paid for it and been happy - and often times people want a new phone anyway, but don't effing lie to us Apple.
Tams80
Posts: 218 +168
Actually yes, I miss and want all of those back.
The physical keyboards only on some models, but still available as flagship variants.
If only because the the smartphone market has become incredibly boring.
I can't believe that you can't see how the smartphone makers are very happy with batteries very conveniently degrading significantly after a couple of years as it gives them excuse for planned obsolesce (which, may I remind you, is not legal in many countries).
Tams80
Posts: 218 +168
Sure, little old me is going to affect an entire market. Anyway, Sony's flagships (all their phones actually) still have 3.5mm sockets and micro SD card readers.
As it is, entire devices are thrown out instead of just the batteries. The number of batteries would hardly increase at all, yet the number of whole devices would decrease.
MakeMSGreatAgain
Posts: 246 +185
Just because companies set trends by force doesn't make it a good idea. A LOT of people liked all of these FEATURES, and yes removable storage and batteries are FEATURES. Headphone jack is a feature, so are physical keyboards. Perhaps not a majority of users used these features, and I get that... but they could have made "TechPro" models for the tech savvy who still want those features. Imagine if Apple made a TechPro variant of each iPhone model with removable battery, microSD card slot, and headphone jack and charged an extra $200... I bet a lot of people would still buy them.
And I know LOTS of people who have replaced their 2-3 year old phones BECAUSE of battery, that is probably the primary reason that I'm aware of for most reason replacing their phones. The next reason is they broke it. Then the third most common reason is because their phone was "getting slow". Yes there are lots of people who want to replace their phone every one to two years, but I don't think that is a majority. The market is heavily influenced by ads and forceful methods of the tech giants and again, that doesn't make it a good idea - and as far as ewaste is concerned it obviously isn't.
These companies have one goal and one goal only: to sell as much product and services to the customer as possible, and exploit everything in their scope of view to accomplish this goal. Greed and corruption drive industry, drive the country, drive politics, and drive a majority of the population. It is disgusting.
MakeMSGreatAgain
Posts: 246 +185
I had a Moto Droid 5 and the keyboard was awesome... way faster than touch typing or even swipe. To this day I still hate touch typing, absolutely hate it. It is fine for a few small things, but most of the time a keyboard you can actually feel the keys on is the way to go. Granted, dictation services have gotten way better being cloudified... I hate to admit that, but it is true. They aren't perfect, but they are pretty decent. Only major issue with dictation is it isn't always appropriate for every situation, and there are obviously privacy concerns.
hahahanoobs
Posts: 5,224 +3,076
Consumers let the features go. Now you just want to take a shot a big company because that's the cool thing to do nowadays. No one cares about removable batteries in phones.
Burty117
Posts: 5,112 +3,691
Surely making the battery easily replaceable would help recycling?
Isn't that the whole reason the EU want to do this in the first place?
someOtherGuy
Posts: 129 +88
Yes!!! BTW, who asked "us"? Who let go? If Apple doesn't provide an iPhone with a 3.5 jack you have 2 options:
- "you change", drop all your 3.5 stuff and embrace the lightning (the adapter SUCKS B*LLS)
- you drop apple, and try to "find" something similar/equivalent that suits your needs
Sadly there are A LOT of companies that think that Apple's excrement is gold, and they just follow whatever Apple does, so, when Apple dropped the 3.5 Samsung followed through, and LG, and... and... and... Same story with replaceable batteries (not sure if there was ever an iPhone with one of those), microSD slot, etc, etc.
someOtherGuy
Posts: 129 +88
You "could" make a case for convenience on any of your points BUT not with Apple.
The smartphone is basically a small computer, which, like many computers, HAD some breakthroughs some years ago. It had been YEARS since there was a real "jump" in computing power and decades for full size computers. That's why you can run Windows 10 on almost anything these days, because 10yrs old hardware is able to work "just fine" as long as it's actually functional, and you can even push it further if you dive into Linux. Enters the smartphones, where "the hardware" is tied to a battery, which basically gives it an expiration date.
If you think that's unfair, let me point you to the macs: Apple saw how old hardware would hurt new sales and created an "accelerated deprecation process" (~5yrs) for all its hardware. For a phone, 5yrs it's a lot, for a computer, it's nothing: a 14yrs old mac Pro, which set someone back $3k-$6k when it was purchased, it's still usable. Dual Xeons, 32GB or more of RAM, dual or even triple GPU setups... and all that was render "deprecated" (read effectively unusable) around 5 or 6 years ago. Apple just stops supporting the hardware on their OS and good luck to you. Ironically, you could install Windows on such machine via bootcamp and give some extra life to it, supposedly.
With your iPhone is a different proposition, since there's no bootcamp or other alternative at all, which makes it basically a paperweight as soon as Apple declares it "deprecated". If you don't understand how this works, just check the "compatible hardware" section on the release notes of any Apple OS, they usually release around September-October. The replaceable battery debacle is just a step to "show" the real issue (once people can have 6yrs old phones with brand new batteries): forced obsolescence enforced by Apple's software and no alternatives.
Wrong, consumers were forced to let those features go by the companies since they've all agreed on removing them even when customers said "please don't". I guess saving 1-5$ on the production of a flagship phone was more important.
You sure like to talk a lot about what I care and don't care about.
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