[bigfishrunning]

Because people will buy that phone and keep it much longer. When phones had replaceable batteries, they needed replaced after a couple of years because they were terrible. I'm now on a several year old pixel phone that I'm happy with, but eventually the battery will wear out and I'll have to replace it. Google likes it that way.

[wallst07]

I have a few IOS devices, you know what prevents me from using them?

It's not the battery, its the lack of OS updates. I can't install new certificates, or get access to app stores. They're useless.

In fact, the lack of a replacement battery has never prevented me from keeping something working, only software or physical damage.

[eru]

Battery tech has gotten a lot better every year over the last hundred years.

[brewdad]

I think OP meant the phone was going to be replaced in three years tops, so no one cared much about battery longevity. Nowadays, the battery can be the constraint for practical phone life, since few consumers can replace one themselves and by the time they pay someone else to do it, may as well trade it in and let Verizon subsidize a new one.

Having an easily swappable battery returns some power to the user.

[eru]

Phones with swappable batteries are already legal to buy.

[ben_w]

It was legal to buy a car that had a seatbelt before the seatbelt became mandatory.

Or phones with USB-C.

I suspect this will be a good thing to force, but I don't know for sure.

[eru]

> It was legal to buy a car that had a seatbelt before the seatbelt became mandatory.

Yes, making seatbelts mandatory was also a weird decision.

[defrost]

Weird in what way?

As an example of public policy it had significant impact on death, injury, medical costs, etc.

Road Traffic Accidents before and after Seatbelt Legislation-Study in a District General Hospital (1990)

  Injuries among samples of car accident cases attending the Accident & Emergency (A & E) department of a District General Hospital (DGH) in the year before and after the introduction of seat belt legislation were classified applying the Abbreviated Injury Scale using information recorded in the patient case notes.

  Those who died or did not attend an A & E department were not included in the sampling frame.

  The number of those who escaped injury increased by 40% and those with mild and moderate injuries decreased by 35% after seatbelt legislation. There was a significant reduction in soft tissue injuries to the head. Only whiplash injuries to the neck showed a significant increase.

~ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/014107689008300207

( ^ One of many before/after studies that highlight difference made by seatbelt legislation )

[ajuc]

Saving hundreds of thousands of lives was a weird decision?

[watwut]

Their still go down after two-three years. Needing to charge twice a day is literal reason why I ever change the phone - otherwise I could use 10 years old one.

[nick486]

You don't have to replace the phone. You can go to some repair shop and get the battery replaced. It will be several times cheaper than a new phone.

Very few people do that. I don't. Because a) general software enshittification makes me need a more powerful decice anyway, and, more importantly, b) people are just happy to have an excuse to get the the new shiny.

[bigfishrunning]

Every time a small device like a cell phone or watch or camera or etc gets opened and worked on, they never come back the same. Waterproof seals get broken, parts get misaligned, heat doesn't sink properly, etc. You can extend the life of these devices with repairs sometimes, but they tend to limp along.

[choo-t]

> You don't have to replace the phone. You can go to some repair shop and get the battery replaced. It will be several times cheaper than a new phone.

Still way more expensive than swapping a battery pack, and this mean leaving your phone to a stranger for a few hours or maybe a day if the shop is really busy. Anything that add friction to changing battery will help sell new phone.

[deaux]

I do it.

> a) general software enshittification makes me need a more powerful decice anyway

You don't, this is nothing but an excuse for

> b) people are just happy to have an excuse to get the the new shiny.

[nick486]

Nah, sorry, enshittification is not "just an excuse". My current 2020 phone(xperia 5-ii - I wanted that sd slot&jack) is noticeably slower than when I got it, even though the battery is holding up decently(it basically needs to last a day, and it usually does). Software shops seem to get focused on testing their stuff on "modern" devices. It looks like, once your device starts to slip out of that "testing pool", things get increasingly buggy until it eventually makes general use enough of a pain to require replacement.

I think last couple years' improvements to battery tech made software take over batteries as the bigger contributor to device obsolescence.

So this change, while welcome, is a bit late.

[kakacik]

I have 4+ years old S22 Ultra and there is absolutely nothing slowed down. I didn't install any crap semi-random apps just for the lolz, its basically static set of features with maybe 2 new apps per year added as it keeps doing more and more like ebanking or work auth. It doesn't even have Snapdragon processor, just their own Exynos and its simply fine.

It keeps getting all updates and will keep for few more years.

Camera results massively improved cca 2 years ago with some update so that they are cca on same level as current ones. Plus I still has 10x physical zoom which trumps all current models, iphone pro max including since we still can't bypass physical limits of optics.

Really, 0 reasons to update and battery capacity is the only upcoming issue - still fine now but I feel the decrease a bit. If I could swap it easily myself without paying some phone shop to do it, that's a massive advantage.

[TeMPOraL]

There's flash degradation that's unfortunately a factor, too. If not for that and thermal problems (which I learned were common in this model), I'd probably be still using my S22.

(OTOH, I upgraded to a foldable, and don't want to ever use a regular candybar phone ever again.)

[preisschild]

I have been using the Pixel series for years and after a year of use the battery capacity is noticeable worse for me.

I'd just like to pay 100-300EUR to replace the battery with a brand new one but the device should still be IP68 water-"proof".