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I do not necessarily disagree about the fact that batteries should be easily replaceable. On the other hand, I do not think that Apple's motivation was pure gre

by Pamar 8y ago

I do not necessarily disagree about the fact that batteries should be easily replaceable. On the other hand, I do not think that Apple's motivation was pure greed: if you make the battery an easily replaceable part you also need to encase it in a shell, and make it robust enough that even untrained users can safely handle these. This means that you have to make it bigger (externally) sacrificing actual internal volume. A softer shell (that will be reached only by qualified personnel who will later properly dispose of the old battery) give you a slightly longer battery life. So they decided that (battery life+markup in handling replacements+making sure only certified batteries will be used) > (user convenience) which I think is not such a stupid idea: outside HN maybe not everyone is willing to grab the closest screwdriver when having to deal with their phones...

pariahHN 8y ago
The Galaxy S5 (and previous models) has a removable back (just needs a fingernail) that gives access to the battery (which also requires only a fingernail). These batteries are not so incredibly hazardous that they need a shell - I've opened up other devices with bonded batteries and their battery packs are not so much easier to damage that an "untrained user" is at risk of severe injury. The battery cells are designed to be fairly robust - punctured a Kindle battery during a screen repair (friends roommate came home drunk, bumped into the table while I was picking away at the glue) and there was a very brief tiny poof of smoke and nothing else. If the battery hadn't been glued, that situation would have been impossible. I also don't recall seeing any news articles back in the days of near universal user swappable batteries about widespread incidences of users being injured by swapping phone batteries. It's also less likely you will damage a battery if you just have to undo a couple screws instead of sitting there with a heat gun, from a repair tech perspective - but I've only seen batteries held down by screws in unibody laptops.
- lloeki 8y ago
  > It's also less likely you will damage a battery if you just have to undo a couple screws Which is exactly how you change an iPhone battery. They're not glued, and even have pull tabs. I don't get where the myth about iPhone batteries being hard to replace comes from (probably conflating the situation with MacBooks). https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975#s182883 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975#s182...
collyw 8y ago
Plenty of other manufacturers manage a decent replaceable battery, I don't see why Apple can't.
- archagon 8y ago
  Other manufacturers tend to also have way bigger phones.
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Are you sure? The differences between say Samsung J3 and iPhone 6 are negligible (iPhone 8 is even slightly fatter). About 1.5mm thickness and that mostly because plastics have to be thick to survive falls and not because of removable battery. If it were made partly of steel it could be a match. The size is different (J3 is bigger) and materials are a bit better in the iPhone... But we're comparing a budget phone with a flagship here. Oh, and the battery is also bigger.
AstralStorm 8y ago
You do not need a shell. A pouch of sufficient strength is good enough. The tricky part is getting it to make contact consistently and to not worsen the cooling too much.

by Pamar 8y ago

pariahHN 8y ago

The Galaxy S5 (and previous models) has a removable back (just needs a fingernail) that gives access to the battery (which also requires only a fingernail). These batteries are not so incredibly hazardous that they need a shell - I've opened up other devices with bonded batteries and their battery packs are not so much easier to damage that an "untrained user" is at risk of severe injury. The battery cells are designed to be fairly robust - punctured a Kindle battery during a screen repair (friends roommate came home drunk, bumped into the table while I was picking away at the glue) and there was a very brief tiny poof of smoke and nothing else. If the battery hadn't been glued, that situation would have been impossible. I also don't recall seeing any news articles back in the days of near universal user swappable batteries about widespread incidences of users being injured by swapping phone batteries. It's also less likely you will damage a battery if you just have to undo a couple screws instead of sitting there with a heat gun, from a repair tech perspective - but I've only seen batteries held down by screws in unibody laptops.

lloeki 8y ago
> It's also less likely you will damage a battery if you just have to undo a couple screws Which is exactly how you change an iPhone battery. They're not glued, and even have pull tabs. I don't get where the myth about iPhone batteries being hard to replace comes from (probably conflating the situation with MacBooks). https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975#s182883 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975#s182...

collyw 8y ago

Plenty of other manufacturers manage a decent replaceable battery, I don't see why Apple can't.

archagon 8y ago
Other manufacturers tend to also have way bigger phones.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Are you sure? The differences between say Samsung J3 and iPhone 6 are negligible (iPhone 8 is even slightly fatter). About 1.5mm thickness and that mostly because plastics have to be thick to survive falls and not because of removable battery. If it were made partly of steel it could be a match. The size is different (J3 is bigger) and materials are a bit better in the iPhone... But we're comparing a budget phone with a flagship here. Oh, and the battery is also bigger.

AstralStorm 8y ago

You do not need a shell. A pouch of sufficient strength is good enough. The tricky part is getting it to make contact consistently and to not worsen the cooling too much.