7 ms·

Nokia has been sold, I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. The market is so small that adding regulation isn't hurting the EU, which

Nokia has been sold, I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. The market is so small that adding regulation isn't hurting the EU, which is why its an easy target compared to the automotive industry.

jacquesm 3y ago
> I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. That's your problem then, don't you think? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_by... Now, whether all of these are actually manufactured locally or not is another matter, but the EU definitely is regulating its own market. As they have been empowered to do so. I'm all for it. And I would love to see standardized battery packs for electric vehicles as well because I think that will be a much bigger issue in the longer term.
- systemtest 3y ago
  > That's your problem then, don't you think? No need to play the man or be belittling. Point still stands that the EU smartphone market is so little that any regulation isn't hurting them. Regulation on car repairability definitely would, hence why you stil need to visit the BMW dealer if you want to change the 12-volt battery or activate your heated seats. The EU will not likely do anything about that.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    It is their market to regulate. And right to repair is very much a part of EU regulations. Without those regulations you'd be in a far worse situation. https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/automotive-industry/technical-harmonisation/access-vehicle-repair-and-maintenance-information_en https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/automotiv... If BMW idiocy gets you upset: don't drive BMW. My car is 25 and I can do just about anything I want on it. Your beef is first and foremost with BMW, and I'm fairly sure that if the EU deems this kind of behavior anti competitive it will be smacked down, even if the participants are all EU based. You seem to want regulation to be perfect, but in light of manufacturer abuses it's a catch-up game. https://www.automotiveworld.com/articles/how-far-will-the-industry-take-subscription-features/ https://www.automotiveworld.com/articles/how-far-will-the-in... Is a good article on the subject, it also helps to see that there is a fine line between what has to be made available and be subscription free and where manufacturers may have some leeway. I agree with you that changing out a battery (which is a pretty common affair) should never require a trip to the stealer.
    - systemtest 3y ago
      It is their market but they don't have any significant participation in it, which is why regulation is easy. There isn't any significant downside to it for them. I don't have beef with BMW, that was just an example. "Don't drive a BMW" is the equivalent of "Don't buy an iPhone" if you care about repairability. It shouldn't be like that.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        You see correlation and infer causation but maybe the better way to see this is to realize that the EU is large, has a ton of work on their plate already and relatively limited budget to work with whereas manufacturers will always just see how far they can stretch it. The number of EU companies affected by EU regulations is far larger than the number of companies from abroad. Your example fails because the same amount of regulation that applies to EU car manufacturers also applies to manufacturers from abroad. The EU is in that sense one of the fairest players. According to your philosophy no amount of regulation on mobile phones would be acceptable because the EU has no big name phone manufacturer any more. But as others have already pointed out this legislation affects far more than just mobile phones so your argument simply fails.
        systemtest 3y ago
        The EU has time to responds to Apple rumours so it appears they have time to crack down on BMW, Mercedes and many other EU brands that limit user repairability.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        So, you want them to target BMW, Mercedes and other EU brands rather than to address all of the car manufacturers in the same way? That's exactly the kind of thing they don't do, and for good reasons. As you can see from the link posted above they do a lot to ensure right to repair, but it isn't perfect. Give it some time.
      - Levitz 3y ago
- poetaster 3y ago
  The wp article does mention gigaset and https://www.shiftphones.com/ https://www.shiftphones.com/ but not Fairphone nor https://www.carbonmobile.com/ https://www.carbonmobile.com/ who as with shift and gigaset are building manufacturing in Germany (mostly north east). Shift has a plant in China and just does finishing in Germany. But that's a given, I believe. Can't source all things in one country. Or?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    If everything that sourced a component or subassembly from China would disappear the world would be a substantially different place.
  - palata 3y ago
    Hmm I can see Fairphone on that Wikipedia article...
hef19898 3y ago
There are regulations around repairability of cars for example. You just don't hear about those on HN. Plus all the safety regulations around aircraft, cars and aon on. Markets in which EU-based companies very much operate in.
poetaster 3y ago
Gigaset is a German company who manufactures and assembles in Germany. https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/smartphones/ https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/smartphones/ A German remarkting firm Volla sells them with their own Android. The swiss company Rephone also rebrands with upgrads the GS5 (6GB RAM instead of 4). All the recent Gigaset phones have replaceable Batteries. I use a GS5 and a Rephone with SailfishOs.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  Oh wow, I remember them from ISDN wireless phone times. All a bit large for me, but cool that they exist and do this :)
poetaster 3y ago
It's also perhaps of interest that one of the few alternative OS efforts is still being led by ex-nokia folk out of Tampere, Finland. Jolla. Much of the Plasma development for mobile is spear headed by devs in Germany (KDE folk). Point being, the heritage of Nokia is not quite dead yet.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I have one and it is a pretty good and solid phone. Not quite a smartphone (it runs Linux) and I very much like it. Absolutely indestructible, cheap and unbelievable battery life (so long I sometimes forget I have to charge it at all).
  - hyperdimension 3y ago
    What model are you talking about? I'd like a portable Linux device. I was born too early for the N900, and it wouldn't get cellular coverage in this day and age even if I were to buy one...
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      N800 tough. They are pretty serious about the 'tough' bit, I'm fairly sure you could use it in hand-to-hand combat and at least the phone would survive.
      - hyperdimension 3y ago
        Thanks, that looks like a pretty nice phone. Even has a microSD card slot and a 3.5mm jack. Also, I didn't know KaiOS was based on Linux. Is it exposed anywhere? Can you get a terminal on it or ssh into it?
        jacquesm 3y ago
        Yes, you can, but I haven't actually used that. The camera is pretty crappy and there are some (minor) UI/UX issues, but overall it is very solid, it's essentially a repackaged 8110 with a focus on battery life and robustness. It has dual SIM capability but if you use that you lose the SD slot. There is also GerdaOS (instead of KaiOS) and you can run Debian on it. When I get my next phone (which could well be years, this one is now 4 years old and still going strong) I plan on running stock linux on it to see what else you can do with it. I paid about 80 euros for it.

jacquesm 3y ago

> I don't know about any EU smartphone brands outside of Fairphone. That's your problem then, don't you think? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_by... Now, whether all of these are actually manufactured locally or not is another matter, but the EU definitely is regulating its own market. As they have been empowered to do so. I'm all for it. And I would love to see standardized battery packs for electric vehicles as well because I think that will be a much bigger issue in the longer term.

systemtest 3y ago
> That's your problem then, don't you think? No need to play the man or be belittling. Point still stands that the EU smartphone market is so little that any regulation isn't hurting them. Regulation on car repairability definitely would, hence why you stil need to visit the BMW dealer if you want to change the 12-volt battery or activate your heated seats. The EU will not likely do anything about that.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  It is their market to regulate. And right to repair is very much a part of EU regulations. Without those regulations you'd be in a far worse situation. https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/automotive-industry/technical-harmonisation/access-vehicle-repair-and-maintenance-information_en https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/automotiv... If BMW idiocy gets you upset: don't drive BMW. My car is 25 and I can do just about anything I want on it. Your beef is first and foremost with BMW, and I'm fairly sure that if the EU deems this kind of behavior anti competitive it will be smacked down, even if the participants are all EU based. You seem to want regulation to be perfect, but in light of manufacturer abuses it's a catch-up game. https://www.automotiveworld.com/articles/how-far-will-the-industry-take-subscription-features/ https://www.automotiveworld.com/articles/how-far-will-the-in... Is a good article on the subject, it also helps to see that there is a fine line between what has to be made available and be subscription free and where manufacturers may have some leeway. I agree with you that changing out a battery (which is a pretty common affair) should never require a trip to the stealer.
  - systemtest 3y ago
    It is their market but they don't have any significant participation in it, which is why regulation is easy. There isn't any significant downside to it for them. I don't have beef with BMW, that was just an example. "Don't drive a BMW" is the equivalent of "Don't buy an iPhone" if you care about repairability. It shouldn't be like that.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      You see correlation and infer causation but maybe the better way to see this is to realize that the EU is large, has a ton of work on their plate already and relatively limited budget to work with whereas manufacturers will always just see how far they can stretch it. The number of EU companies affected by EU regulations is far larger than the number of companies from abroad. Your example fails because the same amount of regulation that applies to EU car manufacturers also applies to manufacturers from abroad. The EU is in that sense one of the fairest players. According to your philosophy no amount of regulation on mobile phones would be acceptable because the EU has no big name phone manufacturer any more. But as others have already pointed out this legislation affects far more than just mobile phones so your argument simply fails.
      - systemtest 3y ago
        The EU has time to responds to Apple rumours so it appears they have time to crack down on BMW, Mercedes and many other EU brands that limit user repairability.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        So, you want them to target BMW, Mercedes and other EU brands rather than to address all of the car manufacturers in the same way? That's exactly the kind of thing they don't do, and for good reasons. As you can see from the link posted above they do a lot to ensure right to repair, but it isn't perfect. Give it some time.
    - Levitz 3y ago
poetaster 3y ago
The wp article does mention gigaset and https://www.shiftphones.com/ https://www.shiftphones.com/ but not Fairphone nor https://www.carbonmobile.com/ https://www.carbonmobile.com/ who as with shift and gigaset are building manufacturing in Germany (mostly north east). Shift has a plant in China and just does finishing in Germany. But that's a given, I believe. Can't source all things in one country. Or?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  If everything that sourced a component or subassembly from China would disappear the world would be a substantially different place.
- palata 3y ago
  Hmm I can see Fairphone on that Wikipedia article...

hef19898 3y ago

There are regulations around repairability of cars for example. You just don't hear about those on HN. Plus all the safety regulations around aircraft, cars and aon on. Markets in which EU-based companies very much operate in.

poetaster 3y ago

Gigaset is a German company who manufactures and assembles in Germany. https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/smartphones/ https://www.gigaset.com/hq_en/smartphones/ A German remarkting firm Volla sells them with their own Android. The swiss company Rephone also rebrands with upgrads the GS5 (6GB RAM instead of 4). All the recent Gigaset phones have replaceable Batteries. I use a GS5 and a Rephone with SailfishOs.

Semaphor 3y ago
Oh wow, I remember them from ISDN wireless phone times. All a bit large for me, but cool that they exist and do this :)

poetaster 3y ago

It's also perhaps of interest that one of the few alternative OS efforts is still being led by ex-nokia folk out of Tampere, Finland. Jolla. Much of the Plasma development for mobile is spear headed by devs in Germany (KDE folk). Point being, the heritage of Nokia is not quite dead yet.

jacquesm 3y ago
I have one and it is a pretty good and solid phone. Not quite a smartphone (it runs Linux) and I very much like it. Absolutely indestructible, cheap and unbelievable battery life (so long I sometimes forget I have to charge it at all).
- hyperdimension 3y ago
  What model are you talking about? I'd like a portable Linux device. I was born too early for the N900, and it wouldn't get cellular coverage in this day and age even if I were to buy one...
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    N800 tough. They are pretty serious about the 'tough' bit, I'm fairly sure you could use it in hand-to-hand combat and at least the phone would survive.
    - hyperdimension 3y ago
      Thanks, that looks like a pretty nice phone. Even has a microSD card slot and a 3.5mm jack. Also, I didn't know KaiOS was based on Linux. Is it exposed anywhere? Can you get a terminal on it or ssh into it?
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Yes, you can, but I haven't actually used that. The camera is pretty crappy and there are some (minor) UI/UX issues, but overall it is very solid, it's essentially a repackaged 8110 with a focus on battery life and robustness. It has dual SIM capability but if you use that you lose the SD slot. There is also GerdaOS (instead of KaiOS) and you can run Debian on it. When I get my next phone (which could well be years, this one is now 4 years old and still going strong) I plan on running stock linux on it to see what else you can do with it. I paid about 80 euros for it.