Now require manufacturers to provide like 5 years of OS updates so devices aren’t insecure bricks once you get updates.
OR disallow banking apps from blocking custom ROMs/root, so you can just install your own updates ROM without losing updates.
Already a EU regulation.
Huh? Which part?
Five years OS upgrades. I was mistaken though it’s not law yet, just a finished commission proposal, scroll down to the end and look at the annex.
Oh wait that’s actually the same thing that’s promising replaceable batteries.
Oh shit, amazing!
Yes! mandatory usb C and replaceable battery, and i’d like the 3mm headphonr jack to also be a standard 😁
Me too, but that one might be dead for good.
Out of the phone vendor fuckery with the connector, battery, micro SD, and headphone 3.5mm, the headphones were always the biggest thing.
Bring it back please EU hear my prayers. Right now I’m listening to music on my iPhone with a half broken dongle that pauses if I jiggle it wrong.
The fucking audacity to remove a quintessential port is typical Apple. Was the same with DVDs, Ethernet, now even USB. Next thing I know there’ll be no more ports, you’ll have to wirelessly (and inefficiently) charge your phone even if you like it or not
It must be nice to have leaders that actually do useful things.
For every good thing they do 2 bad things come next. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Curiously as someone who only usually sees the greener side. As a US Citizen, what EU laws would I be shocked to see?
Well… I can cite a few laws. First, the part that protect DRM, second, the law that require search engines to make contract to quote article, third, the interest in policing private communication, and last, a project that isn’t really advanced to infringe net neutrality.
I doubt a US citizen will be shocked about them. But they are likely to dislike them.
(but I tend to see the greener side of “for 1 bad things, 2 good things come next”)
There’s currently a law in the pipeline that would scan all conversations, videos and images sent over social networks as well as chat apps like Whatsapp for illegal material. It would also include backdoors in encryption technologies and possibly banning any services that don’t comply with the scanning, e.g. Signal. Love the EU in principle, but unfortunately it’s often used by national governments to push things like increased surveillance.
I had the battery for my OnePlus 6T replaced, extending the phone lifetime for probably 2 years. It cost me about $100.
Forcing manufacturers to make batteries easily replaceable by the user without special tools and skills seems like it could make phones less lightweight and less waterproof. I would be fine if they just require manufactures to make it available as a reasonably priced service.
Any battery is replaceable if you pry it hard enough
Every component is replaceable ~by buying a new iPhone~
-Apple
Now let’s hope that the batteries aren’t provided in overpriced proprietary formats with a software lock attached to them like Apple’s iPhone screens.
I used to have a phone with a replaceable battery and it was awesome. I would charge the other battery while using the phone all day, carefree. When it was about to die, I’d swap out the battery. It was basically like I had an instant charge of 100% on my phone. Those were good days.
I like replaceable batteries but there is no doubt that the simplified unibody designs have other benefits besides the planned obsolescence companies seek. Battery life or thickeness will certainly take a hit. I feel like having some form of incentives for more repairable phones would work better to bring better, more renuable options without blockingotherr designs
We heard the same things from the laptop industry. But framework proved you can make laptop that’s modular and still thin. And battery density keeps improving so even if it adds 2mm it’ll catch up in a generation or two.
Battery life or thickeness will certainly take a hit.
Modern phones tend to have a big bulge for the camera, so the rest of the phone can be thickened easily without impacting the maximum thickness.
I’m fine with internal batteries, but please use some form of standard cell size and connector.
The EU already standarized chargers IIRC.
The big issue for me is waterproofing. It seems that this would present a significant opportunity for fluid ingress. Personally, that is a design trade I would be unwilling to make.
We’ve had waterproof phones long before glass and metal sandwiches with irreplaceable batteries became the norm. Sure it’s probably a bit more difficult, but not impossible.
If nothing else there are fairly simple steps that can be done to at least make a battery swap not too painful.
Would this affect the waterproof ratings of phones? It would make the phone less sealed.
Plenty of phones were waterproof with removable batteries before a marketing campaign.
I bet it would, depending on the definition of “removable”. A casually removable cover that’s also waterproof usually involves a rubber seal that can fail a bunch of ways. On the other hand, shrink-wrapping the electrical parts of a phone all together is cheap and nearly foolproof.
If they allow batteries that can be replaced with specialised but available tools that might be a nice middle ground.
Most batteries can be replaced relatively easy if you have special tools. The inside of phones is actually surprisingly modular. The hardest part is usually just getting the back cover off without ruining it… and that you can’t easily source original batteries and have to rely on 3rd party ones of questionable quality.
Maybe companies should be required to sell spare parts at a reasonable rate, then.