News: EU mandating changeable batteries starting 2027

[Longplays]

If such a Mac existed nobody would buy the existing overpriced Mac Pro.... but then again, Apple would price it the same if not more so it'd be well out of reach for normal consumers. You'd also have a bunch of Apple jockriders justifying the price as well; and you can bet your life on that because it happens on Macrumors EVERY DAY.

Why not skip the Apple tax and buy a i9 + 4090 then?

 

[I7guy]

You know.... somehow I dont believe you ever owned anything that wasnt Apple branded.

A mon collègue affiche: while I am fond of my Apple gear I have other non-Apple brands.

 

[I7guy]

This is a lie; consumers never had a say. If they ever did, all phones would have a MicroSD card slot. Manufacturers aren't putting them in anymore (except for Sony) for one reason; money.

One more thing; I want a user replaceable battery. So your wrong either way.

Ask Blackberry if consumers have a choice.

 

[dgdosen]

Apple could argue for tiered, sealed and glued batteries in the super compact Ives days, but now their laptops are boxier and less dense than ever. It's now rather indefensible for them to continue to be what could easily be argued as anti-environment and anti consumer.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

The trilogues have already happened (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legi...-revision-of-the-eu-battery-directive-(refit)). All that remains is the Council adoption in the bottom right of your diagram, and publication in the Official Journal.

You do know the trilogues is the negotiations between 3 parties. If the council don't approve then it can still be kille.

The council is equivalent to the US senate, the parlament is similar to the US executive branch and EU parlament is similar to US House of Representatives.

Calling the council sermonial would be like calling the senate the same, and very strange concidering they kill bills constantly.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Good. The USB-C thing was a test baloon and just the beginning. Apple accepted and now must face the consequences. Many more mandates will follow. Freedoms are very easily lost and very difficult to regain.

It’s thanks to directives like this that we have freedoms and choice with our consumer products. Without anti monopoly laws, we’d have the likes of Apple continuing to produce products with bonded intervals that can be maintained resulting in the penalisation of every consumer who doesn’t buy their expensive insurance policy.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

“Consumers” are not a monolith.


The explanation couldn’t be more simple: choice. Do you really have no clue why consumers would be pissy about reduced choice.

I think it’s great if manufacturers make phones/devices with removable batteries, and even greater if people who want those models buy them. Hell, I might even be one of those people!

…but I also understand that everything in design—particularly product design—is a series of trade offs.

I would love there to be a variety of choices, so that I can independently decide as a consumer whether I want a device with a removable battery, with the gains/tradeoffs that that entails, OR a device with a sealed-in battery, with the gains/tradeoffs that that entails. The choice should be mine, and, by extension—the market’s.

Spare me the tinfoil hatters that believe that devices that have replaceable batteries have ZERO compromises/tradeoffs as compared to sealed-in batteries. That the ONLY reason to choose sealed-in batteries is “planned obsolescence”, and that they are “sure” that Apple or any other company could design a device that is equal in every other respect other than a replaceable battery vs. not. Anyone who claims the latter has clearly never engineered/designed anything in their entire life, and doesn’t understand what “opportunity cost” is. I doubt any one claiming that has ever even made something as simple as a recipe, if they can’t understand that every choice has a domino effect on the rest of the result.

Yay for replaceable battery devices, but BOO to *only* (easily user-serviceable) replacement battery options, enforced by law, which limits consumer choice.

Are the any actual evidence of there being anything more negative with a modular laptop? Could simply be a lack of innovation on apples part.
Seems like they just lack the motivation.

 

[H2SO4]

Well, at least in the EU anyway.

Not sure how I feel about this but feeling a lot more positive than negative.

 

[blazerunner]

Why not skip the Apple tax and buy a i9 + 4090 then?

Because a lot of us prefer to use Mac OS so much more that it's essentially a forced purchase. Windows sucks. And all these years later of Microsoft getting exposed of how much it sucks still hasn't made Windows tolerable.

 

[Longplays]

Are the any actual evidence of there being anything more negative with a modular laptop? Could simply be a lack of innovation on apples part.
Seems like they just lack the motivation.

View attachment 2219845

I look forward to seeing how this company will do before 2030.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

I think that's the wrong way to put it.

The truth is that SD cards aren't important enough in a phone for consumers to care. Phones pack more and more technology. Consumers want that technology. That technology is expensive to R&D and manufacture. In order to pay for that extra tech, phone manufacturers remove SD cards and force consumers to pay for it by being cheap on storage.

Basically, storage upgrades pay for the other tech in phones. Consumers seem to be ok with it.

If phone manufactures add external storage into phones, then they will cost more. It ends up being the same cost really.

Any evidence of that? Considering how many people purchased the 64Gb iPhone and a few years later would love to upgrade the storage when the phone already works fine. The price of 500gb today is much cheaper than it was 5 years ago. And many times you get more for your money down the line. Spend money on small part of purchase a new phone just because one tiny thing dosent hold up anymore

 

[Longplays]

Because a lot of us prefer to use Mac OS so much more that it's essentially a forced purchase. Windows sucks. And all these years later of Microsoft getting exposed of how much it sucks still hasn't made Windows tolerable.

Why not Linux?

 

[blazerunner]

Why not Linux?

Lack of software and confusing as hell for the average user. No thanks.

 

[Longplays]

Lack of software and confusing as hell for the average user. No thanks.

Looks like Windows the best compromise...

I hear good things with 2021 Win11 on a 5nm AMD chip.

 

[blazerunner]

Why is the thumbs down disabled in this thread??

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Apple could argue for tiered, sealed and glued batteries in the super compact Ives days, but now their laptops are boxier and less dense than ever. It's now rather indefensible for them to continue to be what could easily be argued as anti-environment and anti consumer.

Sure they could try to argue it. But they would actually need to prove it in EU to expert judges of the field instead of clueless jurors and old judges.

Why not Linux?

It has barely anything worthwhile running on it. And indeed it could be interesting to see considering you can purchase individual parts to upgrade your computer instead buying a new computer.

And framework is kind of an interesting counter evidence to anything have to be glued in.

 

[Longplays]

And framework is kind of an interesting counter evidence to anything have to be glued in.

Would framework's business model survive with so little volume and a replacement cycle that may extend dozen+ years?

This is why I am interested to see how a low volume very modular laptop would do that runs non-macOS.

Google proposed a modular smartphone but it failed.

Why was Google Project Ara Cancelled? [Case Study]

Google's Project Ara was Google's vision for making truly modular smartphones, but Why did it failed?. Lets find out.

startuptalky.com

 

[senttoschool]

Any evidence of that?

Yes. The evidence is that no other high-end phones have expandable storage but people still buy them.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Would framework's business model survive with so little volume and a replacement cycle that may extend dozen+ years?

This is why I am interested to see how a low volume very modular laptop would do that runs non-macOS.

Google proposed a modular smartphone but it failed.

Why was Google Project Ara Cancelled? [Case Study]

Google's Project Ara was Google's vision for making truly modular smartphones, but Why did it failed?. Lets find out.

startuptalky.com

Replacement cycle? they do have it, And ey sell the upgrades as well.

I think the biggest advantage is they can't canabalize their own sales compared to other manufacturers who have the incentive not to destroy their more lucrative way to sell whole computers. For every upgrade sold its a lost computer sale.

While framework only sells the modules, and new computers are just swapped out parts savings them tones on not needing to reinvent the chacie everytime.

Yes. The evidence is that no other high-end phones have expandable storage but people still buy them.

That's just a correlation. A phone not having expandable storage is simply less prioritized than other bells and wisles.

If they have higer profit margins by selling the consumer a phone with no SD card then they wil do so. Alot of things aren't decided by the market and follows along. Just as evolution haven't removed catastrophic biological arrifacrs, because nothing Pressures it to be removed as other benefits more

 

[Matthew.H]

Yes. The evidence is that no other high-end phones have expandable storage but people still buy them.

Or that people want the high end phone and want expandable storage but fork out for the extra internal storage instead because the choice of an expandable option has been removed.

 

[lindros2]

Because a lot of us prefer to use Mac OS so much more that it's essentially a forced purchase. Windows sucks. And all these years later of Microsoft getting exposed of how much it sucks still hasn't made Windows tolerable.

As a windows and Mac user, yet again today proved the merit of macOS.
My work machine was off/offline unplugged for a week, and even after doing the nonsense corporate asset scan crap, it was usable in a couple min.
My main overpowered windows box has been a disaster today. From BIOS to OS and AV scans, web sites taking forever to load… nothing like this on my Macs.

I’ll take a sealed battery.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Why is the thumbs down disabled in this thread??

Despite this being a News thread, it's not in the News Subforum. Can only use thumbs down on threads in:

MacRumors.com News Discussion

forums.macrumors.com

I just assumed it was there because of the Title, I guess not, interesting.

 

[blazerunner]

As a windows and Mac user, yet again today proved the merit of macOS.
My work machine was off/offline unplugged for a week, and even after doing the nonsense corporate asset scan crap, it was usable in a couple min.
My main overpowered windows box has been a disaster today. From BIOS to OS and AV scans, web sites taking forever to load… nothing like this on my Macs.

I’ll take a sealed battery.

My Hackintosh runs better than any computer I've ever had, and that included my 16" M1 Pro MacBook.

Sealed battery won't make a difference for stability though.

 

[Analog Kid]

Are the any actual evidence of there being anything more negative with a modular laptop? Could simply be a lack of innovation on apples part.
Seems like they just lack the motivation.

View attachment 2219845

How many do you own?

As far as evidence that there's negatives to a the modular design it is priced about the same as an M2 Air at the 8/256, 16/512, and 32/1TB tiers but is heavier, 40% thicker, 45% bigger, yet has a smaller screen, lower resolution, lower brightness, worse color gamut, half the battery life, lower performance benchmarks and no international locations you can walk into for support or repair.

The memory options are degraded to maintain backwards compatibility (the 13th gen Intel chips will support DDR5 5200, but is outfitted with DDR4 3200). And swapping modules, especially when not all modules are compatible with all motherboard types, means generating a ton of ewaste rather than specifying the machine that you need and keeping it for its useful lifetime.

The battery may be easier to replace, but it will need to be replaced twice as often.

And that's just what I can see on the website. I have no idea how reliable it is or for how long you'll be able to procure modular parts.

And the Macbook Air numbers in your table are all exaggerated compared to the official data sheet from Apple.

 

[mushy peas]

but is heavier, 40% thicker, 45% bigger, yet has a smaller screen, lower resolution, lower brightness, worse color gamut, half the battery life, lower performance benchmarks

That’s a lot of sacrifices we’ll all be required to make because of this stupid law so that a tiny number of people can change batteries themselves instead of having Apple do it for a small fee.

Cool.