Lol who wants to keep a phone for 8 years? It’s gonna be so scratchy you can’t resemble it, and the camera is gonna be trash compared to new phones.
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News: EU mandating changeable batteries starting 2027
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First rule of MacRumors forums is that people only read the title of the article, not the content, before replying.
See I stop at the first word
Actually I'm wondering why they don't just make the stems as a screw on.
Government overstep all over the place...News (in German):
EU beschließt Ende verklebter Akkus
Das EU-Parlament hat eine neue Batterierichtlinie verabschiedet – in dreieinhalb Jahren sollen fest verklebte Akkus in Geräten Geschichte sein.www.golem.de
Press release (English)
Making batteries more sustainable, more durable and better-performing | News | European Parliament
On Wednesday, Parliament approved new rules for the design, production and waste management of all types of batteries sold in the EU.www.europarl.europa.eu
The EU is mandating consumer changeable batteries in 2027, banning glued batteries and other shenanigans.
I don’t think Apple is going to make special MacBook Airs and iPhones for Europe so in 2027 they will probably have changeable batteries again globally!
If you read the article, you'd know it's unclear.
The article refers to "portable batteries in appliances," which.. I don't know what that means, I'm afraid. I'm sure it'll be defined in the legislation. Elsewhere in this article and others there are references to "rechargeable industrial batteries with a capacity above 2kWh" and arguments that it would "apply to all types of batteries sold in the EU." I suspect that someone will have to actually go into the legislative text to see whether this would apply to any Apple products and, if so, to which.
2027, you say? Then by 2030 the EU is all going to be scratching their head wondering why e-waste has spiked.
Right goals, wrong approach. If you want to reduce e-waste, increase the cost of creating e-waste. This is just increasing the cost of creating products but keeping e-waste free.
Right goals, wrong approach. If you want to reduce e-waste, increase the cost of creating e-waste. This is just increasing the cost of creating products but keeping e-waste free.
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If I read https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2023-0237_EN.pdf correctly (article 11), it will fully apply to them. This will be interesting.
You can look up the definitions in article 3: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2023-0237_EN.pdf
The article, at least the English language one, doesn't say squat. I'm assuming you read the article, so let me ask: One of the bullet items says that the law requires "A due diligence policy for all economic operators, except for SMEs".
- Due diligence in regards to what?
- What is an economic operator?
- What's an SME?
Every EU regulation seems to go through this-- there's a little happy note that gets published when a new regulation passes committee, but I cannot, for the life of me, find the text that was agreed upon. There's a link to an agenda with links to content that I'm sure I could comb through if I had the time, but when I have in the past, I find the end document also assumes you've been following every discussion to date and understand current law.
Note: thanks @klasma for finding a link with information in it.
Ok, so there's a thread, now what?
Maybe Apple can just call the Airpods batteries with non replaceable sound drivers.
They could probably do that, BUT they’d have to make them usable as batteries for something external.
Make the charge cable bidirectional so I can charge my MacBook from my Airpods.
I'm not sure about every model, but the Airpods Pro in 2019 had more than just a battery in the stem. According to the iFixit teardown, Step 12, there's a battery, antenna, microphones, and a "mysterious black rectangle" speculated to be a sensor.
AirPods Pro Teardown
Apple further expands their collection of professional equipment, this time with a set of AirPods Pro. Apple’s line of wireless buds certainly has...
www.ifixit.com
Either all those non-battery components would need to be moved elsewhere without losing any performance (e.g. antenna sensitivity), or they'd also need to be replaced with each new stem. The latter would be an expensive proposition.
You should also add to that downtime erasing and then restoring a device, which can add some extra hours on top of that. If we could easily replace the battery ourselves, as in a watch or car key, it would be so much simpler and would save quite a bit of time!
Actually, they do. They could finally say "enough is enough" to the EU and stop selling products with batteries in their member countries. With the built-in demand for their products, they could rely on 3rd parties to buy their phones and sell them in the affected territories on the grey/black market.
Don't get me wrong, I know Apple would never do this but it sure would be interesting if they did. If they don't, they are basically telling the EU that they can dictate the design of all Apple products going forward.
-kp
I had an employee not be able to avail of the $29 Apple battery half a decade ago because the Apple Service Center made it so inconvenient to replace.
I love Apple's industrial design but I can live with the ugliness of user replaceable batteries.
But I'd likely lengthen my replacement cycle from 2 years to 4 years. Only replacing when the SoC is too slow or cannot use the newer 3rd party apps.
What I always find interesting is counting the number of slaves who want to be slaves not out of necessity, but out of attitude, as the only perspective of life.
There is someone who tells a company 'hey, you have to make your products user repairable and replaceable batteries', but it is full of slaves ready to defend their slave owner, instead of asking 'sorry, why don't we have user repairable products and replaceable batteries, and it has to be a third party to impose it?'.
They are ready to lace at the third subject.
When you say slaves by attitude.
There is someone who tells a company 'hey, you have to make your products user repairable and replaceable batteries', but it is full of slaves ready to defend their slave owner, instead of asking 'sorry, why don't we have user repairable products and replaceable batteries, and it has to be a third party to impose it?'.
They are ready to lace at the third subject.
When you say slaves by attitude.
On the upside of batteries not being able to be replaced... it forced a very aggressive annual iPhone chip refresh cycle.
Imagine if we're still stuck on 14nm nearly decade after its 1st launch because we all replaced our last tablet/phone 8 years later & laptop/desktop a decade later.
Where will the R&D funding come from?
That essentially what occurred with the Mac Pro for the last decade.
Imagine if we're still stuck on 14nm nearly decade after its 1st launch because we all replaced our last tablet/phone 8 years later & laptop/desktop a decade later.
Where will the R&D funding come from?
That essentially what occurred with the Mac Pro for the last decade.
Interesting way of looking at it.
I'm technically inclined or so I think. I used to help people upgrade the storage and batteries on their iPods. I even replaced some batteries on the iPhone 4s.
But after the 6, I stopped doing that. It just got too difficult with the way they were sealing phones. I could probably do it, but the risk of failure was pretty high - a risk I wasn't willing to take.
Fast forward to today's phones? Yeah, no... my wife and I have had several phones destroyed by Apple Geniuses themselves when attempting to replace the battery (6s+) or get a screen replacement (13 PM).
People wanted super thin water proof premium material devices and that's what they got. (I have fond memories of my Note 3's plastic tear off back and the phone was very thin but the OEM battery lost 50% capacity in half a year and the 3rd party ones didn't do much better...).
I've seen so many old iPhones at colleges that if it were easy and convenient, these phones could last quite a bit longer with a battery change.
I've always recovered iPhone, Mac, iPad, whenever possible even accessories or Apple Watch.
I too stopped in the replacement of the batteries to the waterproof iPhones, but only because the owner, informed thoroughly by me about it, agreed it was better to avoid, because to an iPhone that is not worth 40$ I would risk without problem to remove the IP67 gasket: better a working phone, but delicate, than a solid but not working phone.
On the issue of premium materials in my opinion we are teased: Apple abuses too much aluminum, a very delicate material, which ages badly and leads the user to replace the product.
When not using aluminum it uses steel: enormously heavy, it retains its characteristics better over time than aluminum, but not much more.
Years ago they were testing LiquidMetal: gone.
Titanium? Almost gone.
The ceramics? Practically disappeared.
I repeat, it seems to me they are making fun of us.
More runaround 😵💫:
I went and looked that up (source):
So in sum, it seems that that guy who said iF YoU BoThErEd To ReAd ThE ArtiCLe YOu wOulD SeE iT doEsNT aPplY to ApPLE sTuFf was wrong. The only thing that makes me question that conclusion is that you'd think this would be front-page news if it were true.
Yeah irreparable devices are a "design choice". Im sure they can over engineer a phone with superb water resistance and a removable battery.