[acdha]

I’m assuming you meant “user replaceable”, because that’s really the key thing to understand here. Almost every phone had those, but most of them switched over half a decade. There was a long period where consumers had tons of options with removable batteries, and the market unequivocally rejected them. It’s always a mistake to assume that people drop hundreds of dollars on worse products based on nebulous claims about marketing, so clearly the average phone buyer thought that they were buying a better product. Why?

Removable batteries were useful in two situations: before a phone could last all day, swapping batteries was handy for people who spent a lot of time away from chargers … but most people don’t need that very often, if at all. The other situation is a few years in, when the battery life is starting to be noticeably worse. For that to be a big deal, it has to happen before you want to buy a new phone for other reasons. This is a valid complaint but you only experience it every few years and can fix it by spending the equivalent of a month of phone service and waiting roughly the amount of time it takes you to get lunch.

Now, what did we gain? Using a sealed battery made phones far more durable – people used to joke about dropping their phone and having the battery fly out! – and especially made it easier to make them dust and waterproof. It also made them cheaper, smaller, lighter, and sturdier.

So basically the average buyer gave up benefits they rarely used in exchange for things they noticed literally every time they picked up the phone. The day the iPhone came out, the entire market re-evaluated what they wanted in a phone and almost everyone decided that they didn’t make 18 hour flights with no charging often enough to give up that solid, luxury feel. Just as Google’s software developers made a crash project to copy the iOS UI, the hardware designers saw the lines around the block at Apple Stores and correctly concluded that nobody minded the drawbacks of a sealed battery.

[Dylan16807]

> This is a valid complaint but you only experience it every few years and can fix it by spending the equivalent of a month of phone service and waiting roughly the amount of time it takes you to get lunch.

I don't spend $90-100 on service. So make that three months. With 1/5 or less of the price going to the actual battery.

> people used to joke about dropping their phone and having the battery fly out!

You can solve that with a screw.

> The day the iPhone came out, the entire market re-evaluated what they wanted in a phone and almost everyone decided that they didn’t make 18 hour flights with no charging often enough to give up that solid, luxury feel.

Things have changed a lot since then. Batteries are huge, chips are efficient, and phones are thinner. These days the loss of half a millimeter of battery, or making the phone half a millimeter thicker, would be just fine in a ton of cases.

> cheaper, smaller, lighter, and sturdier

The sliver of thickness is real, but you can keep the same sturdiness, and what kind of price difference do you have in mind? If the phone costs a dollar more but you save more than fifty dollars on battery replacement that's a pretty good deal.

> the hardware designers saw the lines around the block at Apple Stores and correctly concluded that nobody minded the drawbacks of a sealed battery.

Ugh. People liking a product is not an endorsement of every single aspect of that product!

[acdha]

> I don't spend $90-100 on service. So make that three months. With 1/5 or less of the price going to the actual battery.

The cost of the battery is more than that unless you’re buying no-name fire hazards off of Amazon – and even 20 years ago the batteries cost a similar amount, it’s not like competition was keeping the price down – so you’re looking at something like $50-60 dollars in labor. Not cheap, but clearly not something the average person is changing buying decisions over.

> You can solve that with a screw

We can look at the many, many past devices and learn that it’s not that simple. Those fell out over time due to thermal expansion and contraction, complicated waterproofing, cost more, and added weight and volume – especially when done in a way which was durable and felt solid.

Again, my point isn’t that the sealed case is perfect with no drawbacks of any sort but rather that there was an extended period where people had options on the market, and consistently, overwhelmingly picked the sealed phones. That strongly suggests that people value those everyday benefits more than the cost of replacing a battery. Things like waterproofing are a good example: not having to worry about replacing your phone because of rain or a spill has a peace of mind which most people appreciate because they fear an unexpected $500 loss more than possibly saving $50 on batteries every 2-4 years.

[Dylan16807]

> The cost of the battery is more than that unless you’re buying no-name fire hazards off of Amazon

The batteries I looked at through ifixit are $20. No-name goes below $10.

$80 is a significant fraction of a new phone. It definitely affects my purchasing decisions.

> Those fell out over time

I have never heard of this. Do you have a good source?

> and consistently, overwhelmingly picked the sealed phones.

I don't remember high end phones offering much choice in the issue.

> Things like waterproofing are a good example

You can be pretty water-resistant while also having a cover normal people can remove.

Some of the phones rated 9-10 on ifixit have water protection 4 (splashing from any direction for 10 minutes) or 5 (low pressure jets of water).

[acdha]

> The batteries I looked at through ifixit are $20. No-name goes below $10.

The cheapest for my phone is $35, and Apple will do it for $90 or third parties for a bit less. If you’re seeing different numbers for your phone, I’m sure that’s true but don’t think it’s fundamentally changing the cost into a number which changes the average phone buyer’s decision. Again, I’m not saying it’s trivial but that people pay hundreds of dollars upfront and usually thousands over the life of the device. There just don’t seem to be that many people who intend to own the same phone for many years and factor the cost of installing a replacement battery into their decision.

> You can be pretty water-resistant while also having a cover normal people can remove.

Yes, nobody has said otherwise. It’s just more expensive and makes a physically larger device if you are making an equivalently durable device because you need to add screws, seals, etc. and make a mechanically more complex case.

Again, my point is simply that the entire phone market had removable batteries but shifted away over roughly a decade and it’s usually a mistake to look at a durable consumer preference and dismiss it as marketing or some kind of conspiracy. Apple is a single vendor so maybe they’re a lost cause but there have been many Android phone makers and their buyers also followed the same trend despite a vocal minority urging otherwise.

[Dylan16807]

I'm not trying to say that more than half of people care, I'm saying that a lot of people care, but it's a situation where "vote with your wallet" would only work if it was a very strong preference, because the competition for good phones is limited and too many features are bundled together. So millions of people have their desire unmet despite the technology being able to meet it with a small size penalty and at negligible dollar cost.

It's not a conspiracy that manufacturers will all make a choice that saves 50 cents if 99.9% of people that care will suck it up for other reasons. But if two phones were offered with everything else equal except battery replacement, half a millimeter, and $1 on price, I'm confident that a very significant fraction of people would pick the replaceable battery option.