Alternatively, folks buy batteries they don’t need just because they can. I did that with my Galaxy Note, bought a spare because they were $30 and because I could. Never used it, the Note had great battery life. Now it sits on a shelf, waiting for me to recycle it.
Somehow I am reminded of the lyrics "You spin me right round, right round, baby."
The spin, I feel, is that somehow being able to replace one's batteries is bad. Whereas having an iPhone with degraded performance and an expensive-to-replace battery is good.
You "bought a spare because you could" and "now it sits, waiting for you to recycle it", thus creating waste, but one can argue that anyone buying stuff they don't need creates waste, and that being able to replace one's phone battery isn't about saving the environment but saving one's hard-earned money.
First, you can replace an iPhone battery, just take it to your Apple Store. It's reasonably affordable ($79) or free if still under warranty/Applecare. User-replaceable batteries don't change anything for the environment.
Second, user-replaceable batteries don't come for free. They come with a series of trade-offs. Small increases in cost, space, even weight. If you plan to keep your phone for more than 2 years, user-replaceable will be more important to you than if you intend to replace every 2 years.
I remember when I switched to MacBook Pros from my Dell laptops. I had two flights a week that were about 5 hours each. I had to buy an extra laptop battery and charger so my Dell would last the entire flight. And sometimes I'd forget to charge both batteries and I'd be back to a dead laptop halfway through the flight.
Then I read the reviews of these new MBPs that lasted 7-8 hours instead of 5 hours, that used sealed batteries. I switched and my new MBP worked like a charm, easily lasting the entire flight every time. One big reason Apple made that advance was entirely because they abandoned removable batteries. They were able to fit more battery using a custom form factor that would have been super expensive to make removable. No one had done this as well before, because Apple was the first to implement good embedded battery conditioning software so they would last a couple years without needing replacement.
Sealed batteries aren't always better, but they typically are for most users and use cases.
> They were able to fit more battery using a custom form factor that would have been super expensive to make removable. No one had done this as well before, because Apple was the first to implement good embedded battery conditioning software so they would last a couple years without needing replacement.
Why speculate on a tech forum, when these things are easy to find out? Just look at the battery specs for both machines.
Clearly, it seems to be the opposite. After using all kinds of laptops, the main benefits of Apple laptops AFAICT is that they don't come with pre-installed bullshit, they're easier to test because they only come in like 5 varieties, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands combinations that Windows has to deal with, and that OSX can be easier to use, for some users. I would recommend apple to any non-technical user for sure. I personally have never found apple hardware to be any different than other brands. I'm still using my Sony laptop from 2011 and its just as fast and rock-solid as the day I purchased it. As an aside, Microsoft doesn't usually cripple their popular software (Office, Visual studio, etc) so that it requires the latest OS, unlike Apple which forces you on the upgrade treadmill - sure, its free, but you also don't have a choice. YMMV ofcource.
>So your rebuttal attempt to undercut my description of laptop market technology 8 years ago is linking to a couple present day laptops?
No, your claim was that making batteries non serviceable means you have more room for a larger battery. It doesn't seem to be the case now. You are welcome to point to an example from the year that you purchased your laptop.
That's a fair point, and I'm looking into these now that laptops are coming out that can be powered off USB. For me, though, I like the ability to drain a battery to zero, then hot-swap to a 100% battery instantly, then charge all batteries when I get back to the hostel.
Most phones are probably getting recycled now anyways, so it really doesn’t matter. In fact, I would think user serviceability would increase waste because people would throw their old batteries away.
There are quite a few good phones with a user replaceable battery, but that is just not what consumers want most of the time. The LG v20 is the most recent one that comes to mind
iPhones have the longest life of any smartphone and you can verify that yourself by looking at the used market for it (and any Apple product). User replaceable batteries may ironically decrease that and increase waste.
What metrics are you looking at in the used market to support your hypothesis? Could they be explained by a different hypothesis?
I'm still enjoying my 3-year-old non-iPhone, and intend to keep using it until it stops working entirely, whereas my spouse with an iPhone was already voicing suspicion before this announcement that Apple was intentionally slowing their old iPhone through updates, just to provoke an upgrade. With the announcement, I can't fault the reasoning.
How much of the used market for iPhones are devices that had been traded in (because slowed by Apple due to old battery), refurbished by the mobile phone company (probably just to replace the battery and reset it to factory settings), and then resold to people whose older model refurbished iPhone now needs yet another new battery? That generates an additional sale of an entire old iPhone, whereas other phones would only generate a sale of a replacement battery at that time.
I think you would probably have to look at what mobile phone customers are actually using, right now.
Refurbished by the mobile phone company? That doesn't occur.
The used market for iPhones on Craigslist is actual users. The market is very strong, and so is the resale value of iPhones. There is one (1) explanation for this: iPhones hold their value better because they are more useful for a longer time.
As an aside, iPhones also remain able to run the latest version of iOS for roughly TWICE as long as Android phones.
The fact that iPhones are updated for the longest time and are built well is directly related to why you can get as much as you can when you sell a used iPhone. Apple actually has an incentive to create the longest lasting iPhone because the economics of the iPhone Upgrade Plan and every carrier upgrade plan depends on it.
That iPhones retain their value over time is a testament to the fact that Apple has not been slowing down old iPhones to make you upgrade (this conspiracy theory predates iOS 10.2.1 by many years).
But I don't intend to sell my non-iPhone, ever. It works as well for me now as it did when I first bought it, so why would I? It's the same reason why I'm never going to sell my 2001 Honda Civic.
Have you examined the reasons why iPhone owners sell their older iPhones, and why people buy refurbished used iPhones?
> That iPhones retain their value over time is a testament to the fact that Apple has not been slowing down old iPhones
Not at all. It's a testament that there is a market for old iPhones, that is all. People are possibly buying used iPhones despite them being slowed down.
> Apple actually has an incentive to create the longest lasting iPhone because the economics of the iPhone Upgrade Plan and every carrier upgrade plan depends on it.
Then why don't they? <5 years for an electronic device that hasn't seen any significant upgrades in later models is absurdly short.
The lower depreciation of an iPhone compared to any comparable smartphone is directly correlated to the quality of the iPhone. This isn't new, anyone who buys used cars understands this. More importantly, it's an independent (of Apple) market that is constantly repricing this. And the results have been clear: iPhones retain their value much better than anything else.
Just as we can use the price of iOS zero-day exploits in the black market as a proxy for how secure iOS has become over the years, we can also look at the resale market for iPhones.
> The lower depreciation of an iPhone compared to any comparable smartphone is directly correlated to the quality of the iPhone
That is not true, nor has it ever been for phones or cars. People buy each for all kinds of reasons: status symbols, ideals, etc. iPhones demonstrably do not retain their value as demonstrated by this battery fiasco.
The iPhone already has replaceable batteries. Making them user-replaceable just reduces battery capacity, increases size/weight, all so in 2-3 years you can save about 5% of your purchase cost by replacing the battery yourself.
iPhone users buy iPhones because they wanted the best in class functionality, if they wanted to save money they'd buy a phone with a replaceable battery.
It is replaceable (by Apple, authorized and unauthorized third parties). User replaceable batteries could increase waste by being less reliable overall. I know every TV remote I've owned with a battery door eventually ends up with a rubber band around it, and I think that's pretty much a universal experience.
Also we've had this debate for years already when Apple went to unibody Macbooks. The reliability and battery life only increased because of the better structural integrity and increased room for battery cells.
It is not easily replaceable as with any other phone.
The issue is not creating waste, but wasting one's money on middle-men for replacing one's phone batteries.
>I know every TV remote I've owned with a battery door eventually ends up with a rubber band around it, and I think that's pretty much a universal experience.
You're relating a supposedly personal story to make your spin claims more relatable. Maybe you're like the people in late-night TV commercials who seemingly can't open a can of tomatoes without massive bleeding? ;)