Apple Makes iPhone 16 Batteries Easier to Replace to Comply With EU Law

[now i see it]

There are hundreds and hundreds of comments on MR forums over the years of people hemming & hawing whether or not to get a new iPhone or get the battery in their old phone replaced.
A-Inc knows better than anyone that non user serviceable batteries drive new iPhone sales — which is why they were designed that way in the first place.

 

[platinumaqua]

I wonder if this also means replaceable rubber gasket instead of glue in between the back panel and the chassis?

 

[ric22]

It feels like the EU is doing more to improve Apple devices in recent years than Apple themselves!

Now if only the EU would insist that SSDs must be removable in all devices, and RAM in any device bigger than a tablet....

 

[Unregistered 4U]

No one ever thought of putting in bigger batteries before the EU.

The EU sees that, in order to make manufacturing and internal repair easier, companies are improving their internals as newer methods and techniques come to market. The EU says, “YES, YOU MUST DO THAT THING YOU’RE ALREADY DOING.” and take credit for it.

USB-C all over again (when they realized that everyone was ignoring their potential demand to standardize on USB-mini. Vestager is out October 31.

 

[The_Cynic]

How dare those most foul question the almighty. The soulless heathens that dwell in the den of inequity and darkness that is the EU.

A rag tag stain on humanity these shadowy reprobates of the unholy, no better than the beast below us. Sinners and witches one and all.

May the lord have mercy on their pitiful souls

 

[breenmask]

Lord knows some of them really need a bit of intelligence.

eu wishes they had some.

 

[breenmask]

Apple has a market cap of 3.404 trillion as of this writing.

"company abc has x trillion, therefore we deserve free products" is one of the worst takes I've ever read. thanks.

 

[GMShadow]

How dare those most foul question the almighty. The soulless heathens that dwell in the den of inequity and darkness that is the EU.

A rag tag stain on humanity these shadowy reprobates of the unholy, no better than the beast below us. Sinners and witches one and all.

May the lord have mercy on their pitiful souls

This, but unironically.

 

[breenmask]

Let's not act like apple has been one to give lots of new features each year. Gotta keep them to use as an upgrade when you have nothing else to (look at AI).

let's not act like: inflation doesn't exist, the product line up hasn't been expanded substantially adding extreme amount of complexity to the supply chain, the product categories haven't matured, etc...

 

[dannys1]

Nice try. Go back and read what people were saying. The end of the world was upon us. The phones would fall apart easier because of the lack of Apple glue and the mechanisms and doodads needed to make the phones serviceable would eat into the precious space and reduce the size of the batteries and eliminate components. Armchair engineers in full swing.

To be fair if you read the full article it's likely Apple will be excempt anyway. They meet all the criteria and there's no way they're going to make a tool-less opening phone.

 

[JapanApple]

Happy is easy to replace, otherwise who cares who cause forced it

 

[maverick2007]

Stupid EU regulations forcing Apple to do this. Apple should pull out of the EU

/s

I Support EU 100%, just imagine without their objection we would have never got USB C. Because EU we are getting at least 7-8 years that Android phone introduced.
That crappy lightning cable wasn't good in 21st century. Apple controls you and its customers money by fooling every one.

 

[Vasilioskn]

lifelong Apple iPhone user , I’ve never not wanted to upgrade so much. I guess that’s a compliment to Apple as my iPhone 14 Pro is still running like new ?

 

[H2SO4]

I hereby send my sincerest gratitude to EU. This is a wonderful move from them for us globally to finally enjoying it back.

Am genuinely waiting ro see what the downsides are to this from the anti EU brigade.

 

[svish]

Though not user accessible, glad to hear about easier battery replacement

 

[Artsketch]

Though not user accessible, glad to hear about easier battery replacement

User swappable batteries are 2027 mandatory in the EU. This is only the first step.

 

[SebCohen]

restricting AI is hardly good.

Thalidomide.

That there are guardrails on a technology we don’t know what’s doing, the people who invented it doesn’t actually know what’s happening inside it to get what it produces, what companies can do with the information we don’t know what contains and have no control over that they are getting etc etc.

Sometimes regulation su* but sometimes it’s also very good.

Thinking about all the disfigurement..

 

[davide_eu]

Yes, but customers should have this kind of freedom if the manufacture doesn't want it.

The manufacture "freedom" is under the legislative power. If the environment protection is considered to be a priority, it has to change its behavior.

Anyway, a$$le has always the... freedom to go to a court against EU decision.

 

[Rygaard]

User swappable batteries are 2027 mandatory in the EU. This is only the first step.

Living in the EU im both glad and sad at the same time.
Often EU is behind the curve when setting standards... think what crap it would have been if they had demanded Micro USB (and not waited until USB C was on par / better than lightning)

Bluetooth is a great standard, but the limitations on bandwidth is giving high-end products like apples a real challenge on what they can fit in (not an expert, only what i have been reading) - but here i think it would be a mess if every cellphone made their own standard and then their own charger plug.


on the other hand when forcing a formfactor it could hamper how great a product turns out.

A better law would have been along the lines of "free battery replacement first 5-8 years if drops below 90% - OR easy to replace by normal person) this would give a real option to either make them easy to replace or REALLY so good that you dont need to.

because as some write.. what about things like water and dust how do you seal Propper - and test the seal as a normal person.

 

[n-evo]

im implying usa and other countries' users.

Many people outside the EU won’t have their languages supported as of yet either or simply won’t have the capacity to run it. So the enjoyment “soon” is extremely relative.

 

[Bremse]

Funny the EU encourages inclusion of tools with the spare part. Those would likely be used once and then go into the trash, going against efforts of sustainability.

 

[playtech1]

Funny the EU encourages inclusion of tools with the spare part. Those would likely be used once and then go into the trash, going against efforts of sustainability.

I think the goal is that the device itself doesn't go in the trash because of the cost / difficulty in replacing its battery. That's a more meaningful sustainability goal than a tiny screwdriver, although I also think many people will pop that in the drawer for the next one.

 

[User 6502]

As if Apple will support most EU languages anytime soon regardless of EU rules.

Indeed, they couldn’t even manage to support English in its entirety from day one, and for whatever reason just support a very specific dialect (American), I have very little confidence they’d support all European languages anytime soon, regardless of eu rules.

 

[User 6502]

The EU sees that, in order to make manufacturing and internal repair easier, companies are improving their internals as newer methods and techniques come to market. The EU says, “YES, YOU MUST DO THAT THING YOU’RE ALREADY DOING.” and take credit for it.

USB-C all over again (when they realized that everyone was ignoring their potential demand to standardize on USB-mini. Vestager is out October 31.

Vestager was very successful and the next eu commission will continue her policies, especially considering the president of the commission hasn’t changed, so there is even a chance Vestager herself will continue in the role. If not, somebody else will carry on the same path.

 

[Astrohunter]

Crazy how fanboys would love their devices to be impossible to repair and still use lame and slow lightning connection port lmao.

Oh that evil EU!