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I feel sad that we need to educate and demand 'The Right to Repair'. Yesterday, I accidentally noticed that my iPad Air 2 which I 've been using as a external

I feel sad that we need to educate and demand 'The Right to Repair'. Yesterday, I accidentally noticed that my iPad Air 2 which I 've been using as a external display for ~ a year has its battery bulged and even pushed out the display[1]. If I hadn't noticed this, It could have ended really bad. But now I have to wait for the heat gun to arrive to remove the battery for safely discarding it, as Apple has made it really hard to change batteries. I don't intend to replace the battery, as I think any device with battery and without charging pass-through feature is a potential fire hazard when using for any application which involves charging constantly. I have removed other such devices (incl. iPhone) preemptively. More over I'm tired of spending money on expensive hardware which I don't own completely. There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable batteries other than planned obsolescence, which are bad for the consumers as well as for the planet. I will vote with my wallet for Fairphone, Pine64 like brands here after. [1]https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1302310594423345152 https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1302310594423345152

supernova87a 6y ago
So, the fact that the battery is glued into the tablet the way it is, is part of why it was at a certain $ price and had the form factor it did. Would you buy an iPad that cost say $100 more, and was twice as thick, so that you could repair it? I don't know, but that's not for me to mandate. If people are willing to buy what is being offered, why put a requirement that they build something different, by law? Let people/companies build what they think people will want, and have the market decide whether it survives. Nothing is stopping you from offering that product.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  Companies don't want to offer that product because then you wouldn't have to replace it as often. For example, point me to the iPad with the replaceable battery. How can the market decide if the product isn't available? More people would buy it, but then they wouldn't have to buy it as often, so the overall number of sales would go down, so companies stop offering that. In theory in a competitive market you would then expect someone to defect and gain that business, but that doesn't work in highly concentrated markets. Apple and Samsung together have more than 70% of the US market. So you can either have right to repair, or you can do some trust busting. Or both.
  - donor20 6y ago
    It's much easier to do battery replacements on apple products then almost any of their competitors. Seriously - you can go in and just pay them to do it. It's something like $99 for parts and labor all included for ipads. What other tablet provider even offers this as a service? I'm serious - can you provide some names and examples with this level of convience? I ask because my parents used an ipad for something like 7 years, and it got updates FAR longer than ANY competitor out there, and they got the battery updated. One of the reasons apple gets to charge a premium is BECAUSE their items hold value for so long relative to the competition. Look at used prices for tablets (or phones). Some android phones ship with a 2 year old OS and NEVER get an update. The value of these phones after 2 years is basically zero.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      Well you can pretty much take products made by anyone else to any town repair shop (in UK) and have it replaced for far less than £80 (~$100). That Apple repair probably costs them a tenner, and they're presumably primarily bringing you in to market new products to you. Apple offer battery repair as part of their anti-competitive practices - they legally hassle other companies who offer repairs, because they want to make it hard and costly to drive the idea of disposability and sell more new products.
      - donor20 6y ago
        Can you name a single one of these tablet makers that you can go into any town repair shop to get repaired?
        pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        Apple and Samsung are both repaired at the "phone shop" I used to pass on my way to work (I don't work in town now). Can't imagine a MS Surface, or a LG/Huawei/whatever device is much different if they can get an aftermarket battery.
        6y ago
- donor20 6y ago
  Economies of scale normally mean to sell variants that people want (thicker / more modular / easier to repair) the price may be substantially higher. You've got to generate a full supply chain, from design, mfg, qualification, qc, parts, diagnoses / repair / maint etc. Just sell version with normal sim cards (old complaint). Then it was I'll never buy an apple product if it doesn't have a headphone jack. Then it was I think the move in progress to get away from nano sims to things like esims. I know galaxy and others have been making fun of apple for not having a headphone jack (I'm one of the folks who really misses it because it worked great for making music / audio pass thru stuff with low latency). But do I think there is enough demand to justify the headphone jack vs pushing forward with things like airpods? I don't think so - proof should be in the pudding. Either airpods are making apple big bucks or without headphone jacks apple should be crushed by samsung galaxy phones. I've seen a lot of airpods in ears.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    You know you can buy other Bluetooth headphones besides AirPods and iPhones come with lightning headphones.
    - donor20 6y ago
      Sure - but apple has pushed forward and at least in my use cases airpods work really really well. The pairing speed / battery life / distance etc are all very nice. So apple has done something with airpods that the old bluetooth headsets didn't have (yes, I used to use a jabra bluetooth on my old cell phone). So they have done something to dial up the experience? Does my old jabra work as well - no - the audio quality was terrible (and doing bluetooth to my car speakers - also terrible). I can do a facetime audio call with airpods - they sound great. I do a facetime audio call on my cars speaker - it sounds horrible (and the car costs 30K+!)
      - scarface74 6y ago
        I agree. I like my AirPods also. People act as if Apple forces you to buy AirPods. It supports the standard Bluetooth spec as well as it can and added extra features to its own products. The post I was replying to acts as if removal of the headphone jack forces people to buy AirPods. As if I would want to use wired headphones on my watch or AppleTV.
- Arainach 6y ago
  The market is incapable of deciding such things. No one has perfect informations and everyone has a finite amount of attention span. People couldn't even be bothered to think of the long-term cost savings of different light bulbs.
  - hervature 6y ago
    My dad was? Sometimes people would rather pay for not having to think about it. There's a whole industry of tax filing when filing taxes is "easy" for the majority of people.
  - supernova87a 6y ago
    First, I don't agree with your statement that the market / consumers are unable to decide. Second, you should have a real think about where you want regulation to have ability to dictate what people can do. Energy efficiency is an area where people both 1) don't have clear info from manufacturers, and 2) it leaves a mess for others to clean up. Owning something that is designed in a way that causes it to have a lower resale price later is not such an area.
    - Symbiote 6y ago
      > Energy efficiency is an area where people both 1) don't have clear info from manufacturers, and 2) it leaves a mess for others to clean up. Isn't that very similar to repairability? Certainly the second point, and I've never seen a display in a shop give information on how phone batteries might be replaced.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    The market has decided. You just don’t like the decision. The market has the same downsides as direct democracy (tyranny of the majority) but the votes aren’t 1:1 with people.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Only a competitive market with low barriers to entry. That does not apply to electronics (not outside Shenzhen street markets anyway). With high-end hardware, the vendors dictate the trends (based on guessing what they can market the easiest), and customers have little to no voice.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Except it's more like 5% thicker, and BOM cost of a few cents. People are happy to throw their rubbish (trash) on the ground wherever they are, but that's not a sustainable system. Mandating a tiny degree of greater sustainability seems reasonable to me.
- ssivark 6y ago
  Water generated from obsolescence & irreparability is an “externality” for market mechanisms, and therefore needs an alternative approach to fix (Eg: government regulation, recycling taxes, etc) since prices will not reflect that naturally.
- znpy 6y ago
  > Would you buy an iPad that cost say $100 more, and was twice as thick, so that you could repair it? I don't know, but that's not for me to mandate. Ironically, Apple products pioneered the "glue everything, fix nothing" mantra AND costed the $100 more that you're talking about. AFAIK, before the iphone all phones had a swappable battery.
  - sigstoat 6y ago
    > AFAIK, before the iphone all phones had a swappable battery. they also had wildly lower power demands.
cle 6y ago
> There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable batteries other than planned obsolescence Come on, it doesn’t take much effort to think of the benefits of controlling the quality of batteries that are put in the devices. I agree with your sentiment, but it doesn’t help to pretend like there aren’t benefits to supply chain control. Just look at Amazon.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Even genuine batteries fail, if your device can't cope (eg shutdown) with batteries with low current/voltage then it's defective. Then it's a case of testing the battery is providing the right current/voltage and continuing. iPhones at least can cope with defective batteries, by throttling the processor, so presumably other companies can do the same and just not try to hide it from users.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  There is no reason to make that supply chain control mandatory. If I want to risk a third party battery on my phone that’s my business is it not? It’s my phone, it’s my third party battery.
  - 542458 6y ago
    I think the concern is less about “people with DIY skills making informed tradeoffs” and more about “sketchy repair places using poor quality or dangerous batteries”. Then somebody’s phone catches fire on a plane and becomes a PR trainwreck for the phone manufacturer. I also support right to repair, but I think we should be realistic about the objections and concerns the opposition has.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      We've had replaceable batteries for decades prior, and the only time there was a PR nightmare over phones catching fire was when Samsung itself supplied phones with faulty batteries that caught fire . Otherwise i have never come across a story of this happening, so it seems lime a fantasy scenario thats just used as a talking point.
dmarchand90 6y ago
Never heard of the Fairphone before. Seems like a good product, and the price is fairly reasonable for a smartphone. Anyone here have experience with one?
- Woberto 6y ago
  I've seen plenty of good reviews on the r/fairphone subreddit and have been thinking of getting one even though I'm not in Europe, since similar to GP I'm also having issues with a battery that I can't replace without needing a heat gun (Samsung galaxy phone)
graeme 6y ago
Did you leave the ipad plugged in 24/7? FYI, that’s known to cause battery bulging.
- nix23 6y ago
  FYI that should NOT happen.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Battery bulging is a manufacturing defect, nothing more. Apples battery management technology has gotten incredibly advanced over the years, and it charges and discharges the battery if you leave it plugged in.
  - R0b0t1 6y ago
    Cycling the battery as often as is typically done is worse than doing a bypass around the battery. The purpose it serves is reproducibly wearing the battery, trading battery lifetime for a consistent user experience with the gas gauge. (Monitoring voltage is not enough, voltage can drop very quickly at end of battery life.)
  - xxs 6y ago
    All it has to do is keep the battery below 4.2v. I don't see anything advanced in purposely cycling the battery. Li-Ion (li-po) chemsitry has not changed much in the latest years. Alternatively if detecting power for prolonged times (say 24-36+ hours, it can keep the battery at 4v)
  - imtringued 6y ago
    The reality is that most permanent iPad installations put the charger on a timer.
- xxs 6y ago
  >FYI, that’s known to cause battery bulging. That would be a horrid battery charger design, likely keeping the battery overcharged at all times.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable batteries other than planned obsolescence… Sure there is. Battery bays are a source of water intrusion.
- takeda 6y ago
  For the last 10 years that I own smart devices somehow I managed to not cause a water damage in any of them. I also have to mention that Pebble watches exposed to me planned obsolesce. I purchased Pebble Time in 2015. Yes, the battery is also sealed, because the way is water proof (well, they said it is water resistant, but people were swimming with them). After 5 years of use it every day the battery did degrade, but it still lasts longer than Apple Watch. It is so sad that the company went out of business.
  - Bud 6y ago
    There are plenty of original Apple Watches from 2015 still in service. Including mine. I gave it to a friend and he's still using it. Apple did battery service on the unit.
    - takeda 6y ago
      I did not have any service on my unit yet. That's the point. There's a reason why cell phone batteries die after year or two, while batteries in hybrids or EVs can last 10 years.
- gorbachev 6y ago
  Yes, that's the reason everyone seems to be doing it. The other one is making them slimmer. I've yet to take a tablet for a swim myself. I could, maybe, be convinced having waterproofing on phones could be such an important feature that it trumps everything else, but I really doubt it's truly (as opposed to: "wow, cool, I can dive to 20000ft and still take a selfie. Best. Phone. Evar.") important to that many people. The slimness appears to be a good marketing gimmick. And, yes, "pocketability" is important.
jjtheblunt 6y ago
Do you feel like you bought, and thus own, something which you were surprised was designed to maximize integration for minimal size? I mean, it might not be what you want, but doesn't Apple explicitly state that like everywhere?
- dahfizz 6y ago
  Android phones have routinely fit bigger batteries in the same form factor with the same water/dust resistances with much higher reparability. The over reliance on glue does not make apple devices more "integrated", it only makes them harder to repair.
  - veilrap 6y ago
    I'll happily pick something that is harder to break, even if that means it's harder to repair. Other people may have other priorities, and that's okay. That doesn't make one choice better than the other.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
brailsafe 6y ago
I believe Apple will just replace the whole device—as wasteful as that is—if you bring it into the Apple Store. @mdryja on Twitter also recommended this. It seems like you have a point, but are being intentionally somewhat obtuse. You obviously put the device to good use for a year, and are now saying you don't want it. Apple also has a process for recycling the devices they replace, which would save you the trouble. Is it that you have no means to get it to them or what's the deal?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
kevindong 6y ago
> There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable batteries other than planned obsolescence Sure there is a reason (thinner devices, easier water resistance, harder for users to damage, etc.). I'm not saying the reasons are necessarily worth the tradeoffs made, but this is not malicious planned obsolescence. The term "planned obsolescence" has become overused in my opinion, mostly in reference to Apple devices.
- grishka 6y ago
  No one asked for their phones, tablets, and laptops to be even thinner, especially at the expense of serviceability. Everyone knows that batteries stop holding charge after a while. General public knows it and engineers know it. But nope, let's build a device that's ridiculously thin and not designed to come apart at all because screws are so not pretty, right? Water resistance is a feature that most people don't need (me included). It's nice to have, sure, but how many people choose one device over another because of it? As for damage resistance, are you sure about that? Modern gadgets are ridiculously fragile for no good reason.
  - noahtallen 6y ago
    A few counterpoints: - A thinner device is likely lighter as well, which people do want. And, people do like the things they own to look good, which subjectively can include “thinness” - Water resistance is very nice for normal use, even if you don’t explicitly want to use your device in wet places. You can use it near the kitchen sink, in the rain, or even in the bath without damaging it. This plays into the next point: - Anecdotally, I think at least iPhones are getting less fragile. I had a lot of problems with earlier iPhones, like bendgate and cracked screens. Not only have I not cracked my screen with recent iPhones, I’ve gotten significantly fewer requests from folks for me to repair their screens. I drop my phone all the time, and it basically refuses to break. And I just use a cheap bumper case. Similar for other folks I know. Along with water resistance (which would come alongside dust resistance), I think devices are pretty sturdy. All of that said, I’m a huge supporter of the right to repair. And I don’t think we have to give up nice designs and even thinness at the cost of repairability. I think if Apple even just changed their stance to be pro-repairability (even selling replacement parts), I’d be happier. I think a heatgun and some torx screwdrivers are cheap enough that it’s not that difficult to teardown an iPhone with some knowledge and practice. My main gripes with repairing iPhones are the lack of quality parts. Buying cheap replacement parts is possible, but they are worse quality, and some things (like Touch ID) don’t work properly. On top of that, I imagine you can still achieve thinness and water resistance with screws rather than glue. So I’m with you there, they could design the products to give us the same features and also be more repairable.
jedimastert 6y ago
If I've learned anything from my time in IT, it's that absolutely nothing is obvious to everyone
samatman 6y ago
Right to repair and user-replaceable batteries have nothing to do with each other whatsoever. This misconception comes up every week on HN. I don't know where it came from, but I wish it would go back there. Right to repair is important! Farmers have been suing John Deere to make it legal to replace the controllers in their tractors with an open-source board, because the company sells tractors with a license that requires farmers to use their 'authorized' repair networks. Car companies get into this same game, and pushback is important: the playing field for repair should be level, when you buy a physical object, you should own it, and so on; all of this is good. Apple has lobbied against this sort of legislation, and shame on them. But from where on Earth do you derive the right to repair your tablet easily and without any specialized tools from this? How does that follow? What right do you have to demand that things be manufactured in a particular way? I don't want my tablet's battery to be user replaceable! not as much as I want it to be thin, and solid, and resistant to splashes. It's great that you want to buy those things. I don't. We should both fight for the right to be legally allowed to repair our gizmos, for the right of third parties to do that work, and even demand that companies which sell a manufactured good also sell the consumable components of that good, for some reasonable period after commencing manufacture. And we should stay out of each other's way on matters of personal preference, such as whether batteries are glued in place or kept in a bay behind a door.
- gramakri 6y ago
  > Car companies get into this same game Maybe I am not getting your point but I have my car repaired many times outside of the dealer (windshield replacement, stereo fixes etc). Are you saying this is illegal? What Apple is doing is something else, no?
  - samatman 6y ago
    > Within the automotive industry, Massachusetts passed the United States' first Motor Vehicle Owners' Right to Repair Act in 2012, which required automobile manufacturers to provide the necessary documents and information to allow anyone to repair their vehicles. While not passed at the federal level, the major automobile trade organizations signed a memorandum to agree to abide by Massachusetts' law in all fifty states starting in the 2018 automotive year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_right_to_repair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_right_to_repair
innagadadavida 6y ago
It looks like your iPad had a defective battery. You can’t expect 100% defect free - at a large scale. I, like many other parents who deal with kids throwing these in tubs and toilets, really like devices for being water resistant. It’s just a trade off you’ll have to make.
enriquto 6y ago
> I feel sad that we need to educate Why? Education is never finished. New people are born every day and they do not know anything. If it was not necessary to educate people on "the right to repair", that would mean that this idea is not useful nor interesting. Now, that would be sad!
m3nu 6y ago
Got a Google Pixel 1 a few months ago. Great hardware and goes for about $50 as "second hand", but actually like new. Very happy with it. Unfortunately Google stopped providing updates in Dec 2019 (just 3 years after first device was sold) and many models by Verizon are locked, so it's impossible to use third-party ROMs. It's disappointing that there are no vendor security updates, even though there are so many devices in active use and being sold. And even worse, Verizon prevents you from using your own ROM. I think there is a case for mandating security updates for at least 3-5 years after the last new device is sold and removing protections, like bootloader locks after that.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  It's hard to believe that we can buy $2000 smartphones which will get security updates for utmost 3 years if lucky. Can we imagine a computer manufacturer pulling this off with a $2000 computer i.e. where we cannot use the operating system of our choice? Although we are getting closer with integration of proprietary hardware without proper Linux driver support and of-course abysmal user-repairability score(don't tell that's it's for water proofing laptops). Smartphones are and should be treated as portable computers. we need international regulations to force smartphone manufacturers to allow installation of any 'operating system of choice', else they are just forced e-junk; This can help address anti-trust issues concerning Appstore/Playstore as well.
  - fomine3 6y ago
    $2000 is outlier product, maybe have some special features like Galaxy Fold so owner won't think it lasts long time.
Moru 6y ago
As for removing the battery to run only on powersupply: Some devices need so much power that the charger can't deliver it fast enough and the device just shuts down. This is when the battery is supposed to take over to provide enough power for the temporary surge. This is more a question for laptops I guess since surfpads and phones are optimised for battery only usage.

supernova87a 6y ago

So, the fact that the battery is glued into the tablet the way it is, is part of why it was at a certain $ price and had the form factor it did. Would you buy an iPad that cost say $100 more, and was twice as thick, so that you could repair it? I don't know, but that's not for me to mandate. If people are willing to buy what is being offered, why put a requirement that they build something different, by law? Let people/companies build what they think people will want, and have the market decide whether it survives. Nothing is stopping you from offering that product.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Companies don't want to offer that product because then you wouldn't have to replace it as often. For example, point me to the iPad with the replaceable battery. How can the market decide if the product isn't available? More people would buy it, but then they wouldn't have to buy it as often, so the overall number of sales would go down, so companies stop offering that. In theory in a competitive market you would then expect someone to defect and gain that business, but that doesn't work in highly concentrated markets. Apple and Samsung together have more than 70% of the US market. So you can either have right to repair, or you can do some trust busting. Or both.
- donor20 6y ago
  It's much easier to do battery replacements on apple products then almost any of their competitors. Seriously - you can go in and just pay them to do it. It's something like $99 for parts and labor all included for ipads. What other tablet provider even offers this as a service? I'm serious - can you provide some names and examples with this level of convience? I ask because my parents used an ipad for something like 7 years, and it got updates FAR longer than ANY competitor out there, and they got the battery updated. One of the reasons apple gets to charge a premium is BECAUSE their items hold value for so long relative to the competition. Look at used prices for tablets (or phones). Some android phones ship with a 2 year old OS and NEVER get an update. The value of these phones after 2 years is basically zero.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Well you can pretty much take products made by anyone else to any town repair shop (in UK) and have it replaced for far less than £80 (~$100). That Apple repair probably costs them a tenner, and they're presumably primarily bringing you in to market new products to you. Apple offer battery repair as part of their anti-competitive practices - they legally hassle other companies who offer repairs, because they want to make it hard and costly to drive the idea of disposability and sell more new products.
    - donor20 6y ago
      Can you name a single one of these tablet makers that you can go into any town repair shop to get repaired?
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        Apple and Samsung are both repaired at the "phone shop" I used to pass on my way to work (I don't work in town now). Can't imagine a MS Surface, or a LG/Huawei/whatever device is much different if they can get an aftermarket battery.
        6y ago
donor20 6y ago
Economies of scale normally mean to sell variants that people want (thicker / more modular / easier to repair) the price may be substantially higher. You've got to generate a full supply chain, from design, mfg, qualification, qc, parts, diagnoses / repair / maint etc. Just sell version with normal sim cards (old complaint). Then it was I'll never buy an apple product if it doesn't have a headphone jack. Then it was I think the move in progress to get away from nano sims to things like esims. I know galaxy and others have been making fun of apple for not having a headphone jack (I'm one of the folks who really misses it because it worked great for making music / audio pass thru stuff with low latency). But do I think there is enough demand to justify the headphone jack vs pushing forward with things like airpods? I don't think so - proof should be in the pudding. Either airpods are making apple big bucks or without headphone jacks apple should be crushed by samsung galaxy phones. I've seen a lot of airpods in ears.
- scarface74 6y ago
  You know you can buy other Bluetooth headphones besides AirPods and iPhones come with lightning headphones.
  - donor20 6y ago
    Sure - but apple has pushed forward and at least in my use cases airpods work really really well. The pairing speed / battery life / distance etc are all very nice. So apple has done something with airpods that the old bluetooth headsets didn't have (yes, I used to use a jabra bluetooth on my old cell phone). So they have done something to dial up the experience? Does my old jabra work as well - no - the audio quality was terrible (and doing bluetooth to my car speakers - also terrible). I can do a facetime audio call with airpods - they sound great. I do a facetime audio call on my cars speaker - it sounds horrible (and the car costs 30K+!)
    - scarface74 6y ago
      I agree. I like my AirPods also. People act as if Apple forces you to buy AirPods. It supports the standard Bluetooth spec as well as it can and added extra features to its own products. The post I was replying to acts as if removal of the headphone jack forces people to buy AirPods. As if I would want to use wired headphones on my watch or AppleTV.
Arainach 6y ago
The market is incapable of deciding such things. No one has perfect informations and everyone has a finite amount of attention span. People couldn't even be bothered to think of the long-term cost savings of different light bulbs.
- hervature 6y ago
  My dad was? Sometimes people would rather pay for not having to think about it. There's a whole industry of tax filing when filing taxes is "easy" for the majority of people.
- supernova87a 6y ago
  First, I don't agree with your statement that the market / consumers are unable to decide. Second, you should have a real think about where you want regulation to have ability to dictate what people can do. Energy efficiency is an area where people both 1) don't have clear info from manufacturers, and 2) it leaves a mess for others to clean up. Owning something that is designed in a way that causes it to have a lower resale price later is not such an area.
  - Symbiote 6y ago
    > Energy efficiency is an area where people both 1) don't have clear info from manufacturers, and 2) it leaves a mess for others to clean up. Isn't that very similar to repairability? Certainly the second point, and I've never seen a display in a shop give information on how phone batteries might be replaced.
- kortilla 6y ago
  The market has decided. You just don’t like the decision. The market has the same downsides as direct democracy (tyranny of the majority) but the votes aren’t 1:1 with people.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Only a competitive market with low barriers to entry. That does not apply to electronics (not outside Shenzhen street markets anyway). With high-end hardware, the vendors dictate the trends (based on guessing what they can market the easiest), and customers have little to no voice.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Except it's more like 5% thicker, and BOM cost of a few cents. People are happy to throw their rubbish (trash) on the ground wherever they are, but that's not a sustainable system. Mandating a tiny degree of greater sustainability seems reasonable to me.
ssivark 6y ago
Water generated from obsolescence & irreparability is an “externality” for market mechanisms, and therefore needs an alternative approach to fix (Eg: government regulation, recycling taxes, etc) since prices will not reflect that naturally.
znpy 6y ago
> Would you buy an iPad that cost say $100 more, and was twice as thick, so that you could repair it? I don't know, but that's not for me to mandate. Ironically, Apple products pioneered the "glue everything, fix nothing" mantra AND costed the $100 more that you're talking about. AFAIK, before the iphone all phones had a swappable battery.
- sigstoat 6y ago
  > AFAIK, before the iphone all phones had a swappable battery. they also had wildly lower power demands.

cle 6y ago

> There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable batteries other than planned obsolescence Come on, it doesn’t take much effort to think of the benefits of controlling the quality of batteries that are put in the devices. I agree with your sentiment, but it doesn’t help to pretend like there aren’t benefits to supply chain control. Just look at Amazon.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Even genuine batteries fail, if your device can't cope (eg shutdown) with batteries with low current/voltage then it's defective. Then it's a case of testing the battery is providing the right current/voltage and continuing. iPhones at least can cope with defective batteries, by throttling the processor, so presumably other companies can do the same and just not try to hide it from users.
arcticbull 6y ago
There is no reason to make that supply chain control mandatory. If I want to risk a third party battery on my phone that’s my business is it not? It’s my phone, it’s my third party battery.
- 542458 6y ago
  I think the concern is less about “people with DIY skills making informed tradeoffs” and more about “sketchy repair places using poor quality or dangerous batteries”. Then somebody’s phone catches fire on a plane and becomes a PR trainwreck for the phone manufacturer. I also support right to repair, but I think we should be realistic about the objections and concerns the opposition has.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    We've had replaceable batteries for decades prior, and the only time there was a PR nightmare over phones catching fire was when Samsung itself supplied phones with faulty batteries that caught fire . Otherwise i have never come across a story of this happening, so it seems lime a fantasy scenario thats just used as a talking point.

dmarchand90 6y ago

Never heard of the Fairphone before. Seems like a good product, and the price is fairly reasonable for a smartphone. Anyone here have experience with one?

Woberto 6y ago
I've seen plenty of good reviews on the r/fairphone subreddit and have been thinking of getting one even though I'm not in Europe, since similar to GP I'm also having issues with a battery that I can't replace without needing a heat gun (Samsung galaxy phone)

graeme 6y ago

Did you leave the ipad plugged in 24/7? FYI, that’s known to cause battery bulging.

nix23 6y ago
FYI that should NOT happen.
arcticbull 6y ago
Battery bulging is a manufacturing defect, nothing more. Apples battery management technology has gotten incredibly advanced over the years, and it charges and discharges the battery if you leave it plugged in.
- R0b0t1 6y ago
  Cycling the battery as often as is typically done is worse than doing a bypass around the battery. The purpose it serves is reproducibly wearing the battery, trading battery lifetime for a consistent user experience with the gas gauge. (Monitoring voltage is not enough, voltage can drop very quickly at end of battery life.)
- xxs 6y ago
  All it has to do is keep the battery below 4.2v. I don't see anything advanced in purposely cycling the battery. Li-Ion (li-po) chemsitry has not changed much in the latest years. Alternatively if detecting power for prolonged times (say 24-36+ hours, it can keep the battery at 4v)
- imtringued 6y ago
  The reality is that most permanent iPad installations put the charger on a timer.
xxs 6y ago
>FYI, that’s known to cause battery bulging. That would be a horrid battery charger design, likely keeping the battery overcharged at all times.

ceejayoz 6y ago

> There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable batteries other than planned obsolescence… Sure there is. Battery bays are a source of water intrusion.

takeda 6y ago
For the last 10 years that I own smart devices somehow I managed to not cause a water damage in any of them. I also have to mention that Pebble watches exposed to me planned obsolesce. I purchased Pebble Time in 2015. Yes, the battery is also sealed, because the way is water proof (well, they said it is water resistant, but people were swimming with them). After 5 years of use it every day the battery did degrade, but it still lasts longer than Apple Watch. It is so sad that the company went out of business.
- Bud 6y ago
  There are plenty of original Apple Watches from 2015 still in service. Including mine. I gave it to a friend and he's still using it. Apple did battery service on the unit.
  - takeda 6y ago
    I did not have any service on my unit yet. That's the point. There's a reason why cell phone batteries die after year or two, while batteries in hybrids or EVs can last 10 years.
gorbachev 6y ago
Yes, that's the reason everyone seems to be doing it. The other one is making them slimmer. I've yet to take a tablet for a swim myself. I could, maybe, be convinced having waterproofing on phones could be such an important feature that it trumps everything else, but I really doubt it's truly (as opposed to: "wow, cool, I can dive to 20000ft and still take a selfie. Best. Phone. Evar.") important to that many people. The slimness appears to be a good marketing gimmick. And, yes, "pocketability" is important.

jjtheblunt 6y ago

Do you feel like you bought, and thus own, something which you were surprised was designed to maximize integration for minimal size? I mean, it might not be what you want, but doesn't Apple explicitly state that like everywhere?

dahfizz 6y ago
Android phones have routinely fit bigger batteries in the same form factor with the same water/dust resistances with much higher reparability. The over reliance on glue does not make apple devices more "integrated", it only makes them harder to repair.
- veilrap 6y ago
  I'll happily pick something that is harder to break, even if that means it's harder to repair. Other people may have other priorities, and that's okay. That doesn't make one choice better than the other.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

brailsafe 6y ago

I believe Apple will just replace the whole device—as wasteful as that is—if you bring it into the Apple Store. @mdryja on Twitter also recommended this. It seems like you have a point, but are being intentionally somewhat obtuse. You obviously put the device to good use for a year, and are now saying you don't want it. Apple also has a process for recycling the devices they replace, which would save you the trouble. Is it that you have no means to get it to them or what's the deal?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

kevindong 6y ago

> There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable batteries other than planned obsolescence Sure there is a reason (thinner devices, easier water resistance, harder for users to damage, etc.). I'm not saying the reasons are necessarily worth the tradeoffs made, but this is not malicious planned obsolescence. The term "planned obsolescence" has become overused in my opinion, mostly in reference to Apple devices.

grishka 6y ago
No one asked for their phones, tablets, and laptops to be even thinner, especially at the expense of serviceability. Everyone knows that batteries stop holding charge after a while. General public knows it and engineers know it. But nope, let's build a device that's ridiculously thin and not designed to come apart at all because screws are so not pretty, right? Water resistance is a feature that most people don't need (me included). It's nice to have, sure, but how many people choose one device over another because of it? As for damage resistance, are you sure about that? Modern gadgets are ridiculously fragile for no good reason.
- noahtallen 6y ago
  A few counterpoints: - A thinner device is likely lighter as well, which people do want. And, people do like the things they own to look good, which subjectively can include “thinness” - Water resistance is very nice for normal use, even if you don’t explicitly want to use your device in wet places. You can use it near the kitchen sink, in the rain, or even in the bath without damaging it. This plays into the next point: - Anecdotally, I think at least iPhones are getting less fragile. I had a lot of problems with earlier iPhones, like bendgate and cracked screens. Not only have I not cracked my screen with recent iPhones, I’ve gotten significantly fewer requests from folks for me to repair their screens. I drop my phone all the time, and it basically refuses to break. And I just use a cheap bumper case. Similar for other folks I know. Along with water resistance (which would come alongside dust resistance), I think devices are pretty sturdy. All of that said, I’m a huge supporter of the right to repair. And I don’t think we have to give up nice designs and even thinness at the cost of repairability. I think if Apple even just changed their stance to be pro-repairability (even selling replacement parts), I’d be happier. I think a heatgun and some torx screwdrivers are cheap enough that it’s not that difficult to teardown an iPhone with some knowledge and practice. My main gripes with repairing iPhones are the lack of quality parts. Buying cheap replacement parts is possible, but they are worse quality, and some things (like Touch ID) don’t work properly. On top of that, I imagine you can still achieve thinness and water resistance with screws rather than glue. So I’m with you there, they could design the products to give us the same features and also be more repairable.

jedimastert 6y ago

If I've learned anything from my time in IT, it's that absolutely nothing is obvious to everyone

samatman 6y ago

Right to repair and user-replaceable batteries have nothing to do with each other whatsoever. This misconception comes up every week on HN. I don't know where it came from, but I wish it would go back there. Right to repair is important! Farmers have been suing John Deere to make it legal to replace the controllers in their tractors with an open-source board, because the company sells tractors with a license that requires farmers to use their 'authorized' repair networks. Car companies get into this same game, and pushback is important: the playing field for repair should be level, when you buy a physical object, you should own it, and so on; all of this is good. Apple has lobbied against this sort of legislation, and shame on them. But from where on Earth do you derive the right to repair your tablet easily and without any specialized tools from this? How does that follow? What right do you have to demand that things be manufactured in a particular way? I don't want my tablet's battery to be user replaceable! not as much as I want it to be thin, and solid, and resistant to splashes. It's great that you want to buy those things. I don't. We should both fight for the right to be legally allowed to repair our gizmos, for the right of third parties to do that work, and even demand that companies which sell a manufactured good also sell the consumable components of that good, for some reasonable period after commencing manufacture. And we should stay out of each other's way on matters of personal preference, such as whether batteries are glued in place or kept in a bay behind a door.

gramakri 6y ago
> Car companies get into this same game Maybe I am not getting your point but I have my car repaired many times outside of the dealer (windshield replacement, stereo fixes etc). Are you saying this is illegal? What Apple is doing is something else, no?
- samatman 6y ago
  > Within the automotive industry, Massachusetts passed the United States' first Motor Vehicle Owners' Right to Repair Act in 2012, which required automobile manufacturers to provide the necessary documents and information to allow anyone to repair their vehicles. While not passed at the federal level, the major automobile trade organizations signed a memorandum to agree to abide by Massachusetts' law in all fifty states starting in the 2018 automotive year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_right_to_repair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_right_to_repair

innagadadavida 6y ago

It looks like your iPad had a defective battery. You can’t expect 100% defect free - at a large scale. I, like many other parents who deal with kids throwing these in tubs and toilets, really like devices for being water resistant. It’s just a trade off you’ll have to make.

enriquto 6y ago

> I feel sad that we need to educate Why? Education is never finished. New people are born every day and they do not know anything. If it was not necessary to educate people on "the right to repair", that would mean that this idea is not useful nor interesting. Now, that would be sad!

m3nu 6y ago

Got a Google Pixel 1 a few months ago. Great hardware and goes for about $50 as "second hand", but actually like new. Very happy with it. Unfortunately Google stopped providing updates in Dec 2019 (just 3 years after first device was sold) and many models by Verizon are locked, so it's impossible to use third-party ROMs. It's disappointing that there are no vendor security updates, even though there are so many devices in active use and being sold. And even worse, Verizon prevents you from using your own ROM. I think there is a case for mandating security updates for at least 3-5 years after the last new device is sold and removing protections, like bootloader locks after that.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
It's hard to believe that we can buy $2000 smartphones which will get security updates for utmost 3 years if lucky. Can we imagine a computer manufacturer pulling this off with a $2000 computer i.e. where we cannot use the operating system of our choice? Although we are getting closer with integration of proprietary hardware without proper Linux driver support and of-course abysmal user-repairability score(don't tell that's it's for water proofing laptops). Smartphones are and should be treated as portable computers. we need international regulations to force smartphone manufacturers to allow installation of any 'operating system of choice', else they are just forced e-junk; This can help address anti-trust issues concerning Appstore/Playstore as well.
- fomine3 6y ago
  $2000 is outlier product, maybe have some special features like Galaxy Fold so owner won't think it lasts long time.

Moru 6y ago

As for removing the battery to run only on powersupply: Some devices need so much power that the charger can't deliver it fast enough and the device just shuts down. This is when the battery is supposed to take over to provide enough power for the temporary surge. This is more a question for laptops I guess since surfpads and phones are optimised for battery only usage.