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Apple's iPhone 7 Smart Battery Case Offers 26% More Charge Than iPhone 6s Version
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What Apple's case has going for it, is a pass through Lightning port. Has any other manufacturer brough that to market yet? With the loss of the headphone jack, it's far more important that the battery cases include Lightning then micro-USB.
Why have replaceable batteries when the user could just carry several cases, and slip the delpleted one off, and the charged one on? I can't imagine a replaceable battery design that wouldn't add bulk, and likely require removal of the case from the phone anyway. Unless the case is made of leather, it's hard to imagine much savings in replaceable batteries. Also, how do those extra batteries get charged if not in the case?
Because batteries are smaller than entire cases; it requires less material and thus would be more efficient; and it would be more sustainable, since the battery case could last as long as the phone. Remember as well my original post was about using the iPhone for outdoors activities such as camping, so weight and size matter, along with not wanting to contribute unnecessarily to the pile of electronic waste we thoughtlessly produce.
I am on my 3rd battery cases for my iPhone 4S. The phone and its battery are fine, but now the third battery case is going bad. Thus, I'll have to buy a new battery case, when probably all that is wrong with the old battery case is that its battery is shot.
As for charging batteries, they could be charged from any USB port if they had a micro-USB connector. Replaceable batteries were common in mobile phones before planned obsolescence won over the industry and everybody started gluing things in place.
I don't dispute any of that except, I think you overestimate the size of the case compared to the battery. You make the claim that size is important, but making a removable battery will do exactly that, increase size. You recall correctly the state of mobile phones with removable batteries before the iPhone, but they were also considerably thicker. Having two or three Apple battery cases are not going to substantially add to the battery load, vs. carrying a battery by itself, and adding a micro-USB connector means adding charging circuitry, which further adds to the bulk of the battery which likewise makes the case bigger to accommodate it, along with redundant circuitry. That's not exactly saving resources. And micro-USB is the last thing I'd want to have to deal with using an iPhone -- another reason to just buy two or three Apple external battery cases.
Your way might work, if Mophie designed their cases to have the batteries replaced at end of life, with a mail-in replacement program. Now, when you start talking about Otter boxes, then you're also talking about a massive case that could easily be designed to allow for a swappable battery, but at the cost of increased size and weight. There's no way to have it both ways ...
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A better choice might be an external battery pack and a regular case. Most of the external battery packs available these days consist of one or more AA-sized or 18650-sized lithium-ion batteries, along with a very small circuit board, wrapped in a plastic shell. And they're easily available with capacities that dwarf those of the battery "cases" that piggyback on the phone (I have several, ranging from 3,000 mAh up to 26,800 mAh, for various uses). Then it all comes down to how much capacity do you need vs. how much size/weight are you willing to carry. And you don't have to carry them when you don't need them. I commonly carry a small 6,000 mAh battery in a runner's belt pouch when I go on long walks. I play a game called Ingress (game map overlaid on the real world, so you go walk around outside - it's where most of the tech for Pokemon Go came from) and everyone who plays the game much ends up with external batteries - I've met hundreds of players, basically all with external batteries (Anker is a favorite brand), and precisely one of them was using a Mophie battery case. These external batteries are as large or as small as you want them to be, the vast majority of their mass is the batteries themselves, since they use comparatively huge battery cells they'll last practically forever before you need to replace them (because you won't be charging them nearly as often) - if you really wanted you could pry the casing open, swap out the cells, and glue it back together, but chances are something better will have come along by the time these wear out.
Agreed to some extent, but having a phone. cable and external battery pack can be bulky and sometimes if I am scrambling up a hill the cable comes lose. Actually usually I have a battery case plus an external battery. The Highlands of Scotland are not a good place to get lost, and I prefer using GPS to compulsively checking a map....
At this point I think you'll have to concede that yours is a unique use case. While I can totally appreciate Otterbox designing what you need, it won't be something most people need or want, and something I'll have to visit REI to buy, rather than the Apple Store.
That said, I do have to wonder why Apple's own offering uses such a small battery in their external case, which does it no favors in the design department either. But as someone who occasionally needs to extend the battery life of my phone throughout the day, i'd much rather have a couple of Apple cases than a bigger, bulkier case and extra batteries that likely require removing the case anyway to swap out.
And while there's no substitute for a spare battery, I've got friends who do quite a bit of backpacking who carry a solar charging panel, that charges the phones while they hike, to some extent, as well as when they stop for lunch, etc. -- again niche use for most. But none of this addresses your biggest complaint which is what happens when the batteries reach their EOL. And for that, a way to replace the case battery would be useful, especially for the few who require high cycle discharge use. For most people, EOL with something like a Mophie battery case is relative since the battery should do its job for two years reasonably well under normal consumer use, by which time there will likely be a new iPhone which requires a new battery case anyway.
Alas, I live in Scotland. Sundown is at 3:44 PM and sun-up is at 8:15AM or so. Solar panels don't work so well here during the winter...
Anyway, I am just surprised that neither Apple or the battery case makes have really thought through the many people who use iPhone as their go-to navigation/GPS devices on extended (>=2 days) wilderness trips. Perhaps, as the inexpensive external batteries describe above preclude the market from being viable, but I'd be surprised if a company couldn't make some sort of niche for itself.
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