[kolinko]

With cameras you don't care about every mm of width, nor about how resistant it is to falls. With phones you do.

I, for one, don't welcome that change. I'd be ok with paying someone a bit extra to replace the battery. I mean, I'd be ok if I had a battery die in my phone in the last 10 years, which I don't remember it did.

[tredre3]

Just to be clear replaceable doesn't mean removable/hot-swappable in this context. There doesn't have to be a battery compartment, the battery can still be glued in place. The phone can still be sealed.

Manufacturers only have to make it possible for users to open and close the phone to replace the battery without damage, using common tools.

[kennywinker]

Personally I’m confused why people say they want a thinner phone while carrying a phone that’s keeps getting larger every model.

When was the last time you kept a phone longer than 2-3 years? That’d explain why you haven’t had one die.

Assuming you do get a new phone regularly, easy battery replacement will probably help the resale value of your own a fair bit - the labour cost of a battery replacement is priced into most older phones on the second hand market.

[ghshephard]

My average time on a smartphone is now at 4 years, feels like it's going to 5 pretty soon. [Last upgrade was for USB-C. Next upgrade will be for on-device LLM. It's wild how approximately 0% of what Apple has done outside of the USB-C connector has mattered to me in the last 10+ years - low-light photography is probably the only other thing that comes to mind. ]

I've had two battery replacements since 2015. One of them was required, the other was mostly optional (battery had dropped to 90% on my iPhone - which was probably sufficient).

USB-C - that was an awesome requirement that it was unclear whether Apple was ever going to do.

User Replaceable Battery? Zero desire, particularly if it reduces water resistance on the device. Dozens of things I've wanted from a phone - being able to replace the battery has never even entered my mind as something I wanted.

[kennywinker]

Your cycle is 4 years, and you’ve had two phone batteries replaced in 11 years? That’s 2/2.75 phones.

Ok, one was optional, and let’s round up to 3. So 1/3 of your phones. Kinda sounds like you would benefit from replaceable batteries.

Regardless, those 4-5 year old phones likely went to ewaste immediately or soon after you were done with them because the cost of replacing the battery was less than their resale value after 4-5 years.

That’s a pattern our planet literally can’t handle. Wars over digging up minerals using slave labour then putting them in phones for 3-5 years just to send them to have children get chemical burns stripping the metals out of them.

My last computer lasted me 11 years, with two battery replacements along the way. My phone should do the same, just as easily.

[BobbyTables2]

What really annoys me is Apple EOLed the iPhone 8 and then came out with a virtually identical SE version. Of course they soon discontinued the SE too…

Maybe they updated the CPU slightly but screen and camera were identical.

I would have kept my iPhone 8 if they kept updating the software. Yet somehow they can manage update the SE software despite looking the same as the iPhone 8…

I know there is a cost and overhead toward supporting old platforms. But for the premium on these devices and the level of waste generated, manufacturers can still do better…

I’d prefer no new features and only security updates… perhaps I’m weird.

[zuhsetaqi]

The SE got a 2 Generation newer CPU. The iPhone 8 lost software support the same day all other devices with an A11 lost it.

> Yet somehow they can manage update the SE software despite looking the same as the iPhone 8...

Are you seriuos? What does the look of a phone have to do with how long it is supported?

[BobbyTables2]

Look doesn’t matter but they seem to be supporting exactly the same feature set as before.

They aren’t trying to support all the flashy stuff done on newer models… Hence, it seems like they could have easily made it work on the older models but chose higher profits instead.

[kennywinker]

Not weird. The last few os updates have made my phone laggy and slow. I want security updates, i don’t want new features that kill my battery life and usability.

[jychang]

The iPhone SE (2020) cpu is like twice as fast as the iPhone 8 cpu, lol.

[neves]

Note that your 2 best features were usb-c and replacement batteries. Both were government mandated against unethical behavior of Apple.

That's what governments are for.

[rootusrootus]

Apple had been switching their various iOS devices to USB-C for several years before the EU decided to mandate it, so I don't know how you can assert that them switching the iPhone to USB-C was because they were forced to. It looks more like the EU just had lucky timing and told them to do something they were already doing.

[svnt]

I am curious where you got this impression?

Apple fought it the whole way, commissioned studies to show it was a bad idea, etc etc. This after they had a decade prior been subject to the same thing with micro USB and skirted that agreement by shipping more unnecessary cables.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/02/02/what-the-eu-manda...

[rootusrootus]

The sensible thing for them to do is fight regulation, even if their underlying strategy is going towards a compatible goal. They do not want to set a precedent that they can be bullied into changing their product roadmap based on the whims of government.

> subject to the same thing with micro USB

And thank goodness for that! Micro USB is a disaster, they did their customers a favor. When I was still rocking Android phones back then, I kept a box of Micro USB cables on hand because I was having to toss them so often.

[kennywinker]

Laptops, the ipads. Phones and airpods came after the eu law. Debatable, but it seems to me like they consider the ipad in the same class as a laptop, so it got grouped with those. Otherwise why did it take 5 years between the first ipad with usb-c and the first iphone?

[rootusrootus]

The iPhone had by far the biggest ecosystem of Lightning accessories, the biggest base of users with Lightning cords. It was a foregone conclusion that a bunch of people were going to be angry about losing their Lightning accessories and having to buy new cords, and another bunch of people were going to be happy to switch their last non-USB-C device over. Apple needed to find the crossover point where the latter would outnumber the former.

[unlikelytomato]

I very much miss the ability to never use my phone on a charging cable. Just swap the battery on an external charger and go. 5 seconds to charge to full. It was freeing and simple

[hattmall]

I always wanted an internal battery of like 1 minute, so I could hot swap batteries. Then the battery capacity would be largely irrelevant. What would be cool is to have a large case that could charge the battery multiple times like with ear buds. The magnetic wireless charging blocks that just stick on the back of the phone are pretty fair compromise though.

[usefulcat]

I've had the same phone for over 6 years now (iPhone 11). It's a bit slower now, but I suspect that's more to do with software changes than anything else. In particular the battery is still in pretty good shape.

[saintfire]

Sort of a funny example since "batterygate" centered on degraded iPhone batteries in which Apple argued the best possible move is to throttle phones so they don't shutdown unexpectedly.

Most people would argue the best outcome is spending <100$ and 1 min of your time to have your phone restored to like-new speed.

[virtualritz]

Not sure what replacable has to do with thickness.

When I bought my first smartpone, a Moto G (1st gen) it was as flat as any phone most people carried around at the time (2014, I think). And the battery was replaceable.

I think also Samsung phones had replaceable batteries then. And this was the case for a few years after. Until it wasn't.

Devices didn't suddenly get thin when batteries were glued in. Why would they?

[petterroea]

The Samsung S5 was very thin. Too thin imo. And it had a replaceable battery

[stodor89]

My grandma is still daily driving my ancient Galaxy S5 Neo. When someone says thinness is opposed to removable battery, or water resistance, or headphone jack, or durability, or SD card... I always think of it.

[gnabgib]

I'm not sure about too thin (although I switched to the qi-charging back after a year), the replacements /where/ thinner.. but lost the IR blaster, replaceable battery, eventually μSD housing, eventually headphone jack.

[petterroea]

I don't know, it just felt flimsy. But in almost a "flimsy meaning it can handle a beating" way. It sure did.

I did ruin the water protection on mine pretty quickly though, because the back panel was made of plastic and was... flimsy. It basically became a fidget toy.

When thinking of how flagship phone producers are going to keep making sexy phones that also keep their watertightness, my biggest worry is repeated stress from any removable component becoming a fidget toy

[jpollock]

A replaceable battery needs protection. One in the device gets protection from the device.

[virtualritz]

The replaceable battery is still inside the case. How is it more protected because "glue"?

I also replaced glued batteries in phones following ifixit instructions a few times (using a hair dryer/heat gun).

They didn't have any less or more "protection" than the replaceable ones. They looked exactly the same apart from the connectors ofc.

Please substantiate your claim. Until then I call it BS.

[spaqin]

We've had thin smartphones with replaceable batteries 15 years ago. That was the standard. Galaxy S5 was the last one in that series, and it's not looking too different from today. It was even IP rated for water!

Batteries also don't really die, but you get shorter and shorter life. When a device that barely could make it through 2 days of use now survives for less than one, an "upgrade" seems nicer than it really would've been if you could just swap the battery.

[pnw]

The S5 was IP67 rated but only if the USB port flap was sealed. Modern phones like the S24 and iPhones are IP68 rated without covers.

As someone who spends a lot of time outdoors in the rain, giving up superior IP68 water resistance for a replaceable battery that I'll never replace will be a downgrade for me.

[t_sawyer]

GoPros are IP68 rated without a housing and have removable batteries. This is not an impossible task.

Phone makers do not want you to be able to replace batteries easily because it will extend the life of a phone. End of story.

[kennywinker]

Do you toss it in the trash when you’re done? Pop it in a drawer to rot? Ewaste will bury us all, conflict minerals and all. Replaceable batteries are a net good for humanity, and i personally believe that the smart people at phone companies can solve the problem of waterproofing even with replaceable batteries

[pnw]

I trade the phone in for the new model as God and Steve Jobs intended.

[kennywinker]

Right. So ewaste.

[pnw]

No. Apple refurbishes and reuses the majority of trade-in phones. They recycle a small fraction. None of it ends up in landfills. In my case, they aren't paying me hundreds of dollars for my old phone to throw it in a landfill.

[fsckboy]

in another comment you just said "When was the last time you kept a phone longer than 2-3 years?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47834195#47842655

how do you square that position with your stance here on e-waste as it applies to other people who are apparently ruining the planet?

[kennywinker]

What? I think you misunderstood…

The comment above mine you linked to said they never had battery problems. I was saying they probably don’t keep their phones long enough to encounter battery problems. I wasn’t suggesting that’s a good thing - just that it’s very common. And if you need me to defend my position with action: I’m 5 years in on this phone and planning to do a diy battery swap soon to keep it running a little longer.

[silversmith]

IP_7 means it's ok with water immersion for up to 30 minutes, down to 1m. You can go swimming with an IP_7 rated device.

IP_8 is "more than 1m, more than 30min water immersion" rating.

"outdoors in the rain" needs IP_5 rating if you want to be safe. You do not need a dive watch to go out in rain.

Even non-waterproof devices are not exactly made of sugar. My first iphone was a 3gs. I want running with the device in an armband. My rain precautions were plugging in 3.5mm earphones, and pointing the charge port downwards. Regularly got caught in rain with it, and the device was completely fine two years later when I sold it.

[numpad0]

Ports develop rust if exposed to elements. This applies to USB-C ports too. That's why all seriously rugged phones has flaps for every ports with all-plastic enclosures over metal frames(not all waterproof equipment are seawater rated; they have to be specifically designed and tested to be resistant to galvanic corrosion if the water to be submerged in is not deionized or at least potable).

Urban rainproof phones like S24 and iPhone aren't actually intended to be left drenched in mud or seawater, so they don't have to be equipped to be resistant against pieces of soil or soaked driftwood jammed in the charge port.

[ssl-3]

That's true. More-modern phones can be IP-rated without a cover for the USB port like the S5 required.

That doesn't mean that a modern phone of vaguely S5 shape, with an S5-esque battery door, can't be fitted with a more modern USB port, though. Does it?

They seem like very unrelated things.

(Those modern ports, by the way? They're pretty slick when they work right. They detect moisture and turn off the bit of normally-externally-available power to help prevent galvanic corrosion.)

[andrelaszlo]

"...that I'll never replace", I mean you will replace the whole phone, including the battery? (Unless this is your last phone, in which case you won't be affected anyway :P)

[numpad0]

Most digital cameras above mid ranges are made of painted Magnesium alloy material for both weight and durability. Only cosmetic parts are made of Aluminum and plastics. They don't talk much about those because all the remaining companies in the market are from one same country that don't speak English that isn't China, and there is no differentiation to be made in that area.

[rythie]

Both of those things are also important in cameras, there is even sites that compare the size such as https://camerasize.com/. Cameras have got smaller in recent years and it makes the size makes a big difference to whether you take it with you on not or fits in your pocket or not for compact cameras. Ricoh’s gr4 camera is 0.5mm thinner than the previous model (gr3). Cameras are essentially smaller than they would be otherwise because they have replaceable batteries. People who need at more power usually use several batteries rather than use a bigger camera with more capacity.

Cameras also need to withstand drops for similar reasons to phones, it’s in you hand and you could drop it, also tripods can fall over, car mounts fall off etc.

[thrownthatway]

> care about every mm of width

I think you mean thickness?

Extra width is sold as a feature.

I don’t understand the obsession with reducing thickness.

Why is a thinner phone more desirable than a thicken one?

[drw85]

I don't think it is more desirable, the iPhone Air has reportedly sold way below expectations.

[bityard]

I don't care about every mm of width, and don't understand those that do. A phone up to 3/4" fits into any pocket that a 1/4" one does.

I had multiple android phones with replaceable batteries and many were no thicker than modern phones, especially once you've added the protective case.

[piskov]

The main issue of paying someone to teplace the battery is procuring the battery in the first place.

For example, good luck finding good apple batteries in regions where there is no official apple service.

Most Chinese parts are inferior: for example rates for max 500 cycles instead of 1000

[kennywinker]

Just to clarify something: afaik official apple batteries are “chinese” in origin.

[piskov]

Sure, but that doesn’t mean every chinese battery is the same.

For some reason there are no 3rd-party batteries of the same quality as Apple’s. And Apple doesn’t distribute them freely to other countries.

[kennywinker]

You can just say “aftermarket” or “knockoff” or even “3rd party”. They all get the same point across and don’t rely on an outdated stereotype about chinese manufacturing.

[piskov]

Stereotypes are not fiction.

Become a nation that cherishes quality and this will change.

Noone forced them to produce junk, manufacturing prowess nonwithstanding