[manigandham]

None of that is true. The battery cells are the rectangular black pouches. They can be glued in, placed in with a ribbon cable, put inside a plastic outer casing, or any other variation; but the batteries themselves are exactly the same form and function.

Given the hard metal body construction with screw fasteners, there's no reason for gluing the battery packs themselves.

[mbesto]

> but the batteries themselves are exactly the same form and function.

They are exactly not the same form:

https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/vlCsffdOoZSTCyJy.med...

https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/btDJQp5CYXdILTOO.med...

One is a big brick and the other is a set of 4 pouches carefully laid out to let connectors route to various parts of the motherboard. That is precisely NOT the exact same form.

Look at how intricate the battery replacement is for the newest MBPro:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+2...

There are various terminals that weave in and out of the batteries. That simply is not possible to maintain the same weight and thickness by just carving out one big removal brick as in the previous generation of the MBPro.

[manigandham]

These battery cells have the same physical structure. They can be shaped however is needed, whether it's one big block or several little ones connected by wires.

The same capacity requires roughly the same weight and thickness, although several smaller cells will mean more packaging material and less collective capacity, but obviously allows for more flexible placement within the chassis.

However, none of this requires gluing the battery to the system. That was the topic here. Why would you think using glue instead of just letting the back plate hold the batteries in place makes such a big difference?

[mbesto]

> roughly the same weight and thickness

Are we looking at the same picture? They are 100% not the same thickness. They certainly could have the same mass, but thats precisely my point - if you want an easily removable battery you sacrifice other features (thickness for example).

> although several smaller cells will mean more packaging material and less collective capacity

Are you saying batteries didn't get more efficient (more capacity by size) over a 10 year timespan? Now I think you're just gaslighting me...

> However, none of this requires gluing the battery to the system.

I guess you didn't look at the link that shows the 1,282 step process required to even get to the point where the glue is removed.

> That was the topic here.

It wasn't. The glue is a red herring. The topic is about the ability to easily remove the battery - the glue being the part that you thought was impossible to do. That's not what makes it hard to provide a removable battery - it's the design of the overall hardware system. The hardware engineers (one of my good friends is an Apple hardware engineer btw) explicitly chose to design the batteries in such a way that trades off thickness and weight of the hardware with an easily removable battery.

[manigandham]

> "The glue is a red herring."

No, it's the entire point.

Nobody is asking to go back to the older "easily removable" designs with dedicated battery compartments. The problem isn't the design of the batteries being multiple smaller cells spread around but rather that they are glued to the chassis. This makes them harder to remove than if they weren't.

To be extremely clear, take a 2021 Macbook and just don't glue the batteries inside to the casing. That's it, that's all there is to it.

[sudosysgen]

You misunderstood their comment. Batteries of the same capacity at the same chemistry require the same thickness. So glue vs tabs has no impact on thickness. You don't need to change battery geometry for it to be removable.

It also doesn't take 1282 steps to get to the point you have to remove the battery. It takes 11 steps, most of which are just unplugging connectors. The 20 other steps are related to removing the adhesive, so unplugging and protecting stuff you wouldn't otherwise need to.