5 ms·
Batteries have been used as part of planned obsolescence for too long and a whole small business industry of replacing phone batteries has appeared because of i
by PaulKeeble 6mo ago
Batteries have been used as part of planned obsolescence for too long and a whole small business industry of replacing phone batteries has appeared because of it. Next the EU are going to have to address security patches because its another aspect being used to sell new phones.
- thaumasiotes 6mo ago> Batteries have been used as part of planned obsol[esc]ence for too long and a whole small business industry of replacing phone batteries has appeared because of it. Note that early phones had replaceable batteries and it was later phones that dropped that feature. The idea wasn't that making the phone impossible to open would compel people to replace their phone faster; it was that given that people didn't keep their phones long enough to wear out the battery, there was no need to make the battery accessible.
- haritha-j 6mo agoThis might be partially true, but making them inacessible is still a great way approach to planned obsolescence and there's no way this was not part of the motivation. The fact that an entire industry exists to provide replacement batteries is proof of this, as is the fact that Apple offers a £100 battery replacement. They also replace the batteries of all refurbished models they sell, which again wouldn't be necessary if battery life wasn't a concern over the useful life of a phone. Secondly, what you said may have been true in the past, when smartphones were rapidly evolving and upgrade cycles were short, but people are holding on to their devices for longer now, so its possible its becoming a problem again.
- hgoel 6mo agoUpgrade cycles have slowed down in recent years, the improvements are relatively incremental nowadays. Screens, durability, processors, storage sizes, cameras, even battery life are okay-ish and aren't improving quickly enough to justify the same upgrade rate. Foldables are basically the only big innovation in recent years, but are still a little too fragile and expensive. This is also reflected in the increasing support durations from major manufacturers.
- darkwater 6mo agoThat was true 15-20 years ago. Nowadays changing the phone is basically because: 1) battery dying / not lasting enough 2) shattered glasses whose replacement costs 35-40% of the cost of the phone new (for budget/mid-range phones, not everybody has iPhones) distant 3rd) not enough free internal storage
- yangm97 6mo agoUnrelated note but, cheap/midrange phones are a scam, you almost always get better value purchasing a second hand premium one.
- NoGravitas 6mo agoEh, I don't find my Pixel 8 to be notably better in any way that I notice or care about than the Moto G that it replaced, except for the fact that it runs GrapheneOS.
- aembleton 6mo agoHow is buying a midrange phone new a scam? Just because a second hand premium one is better value (assuming you don't place any value on being brand new). You buy it knowing full well that it isn't a premium device but most people don't need a premium device. Are non-premium new cars a scam too?
- garbagewoman 6mo agoHow is it not a scam?
- aembleton 6mo agoIt is clear what you are buying
- infecto 6mo agoBatteries are generally a cheap fix from third party stores. If you wanted to keep the phone why not spend the small dollars and just replace the battery?
- stavros 6mo agoThis was true back when Moore's law was the driver of obsolescence. You bought a new phone every year simply because next year's phone was twice as fast. Now that this doesn't happen, the driver of obsolescence is the battery, which is much less defensible because you can swap it much more easily than "the whole internals of the phone".
- ButlerianJihad 6mo ago[dead]
- detourdog 6mo agoBatteries on early cell phones needed to be replaced multiple times a day. I remember talk time of like 10 minutes on my motorola StarTec.
- Aachen 6mo ago1996, for anyone else wondering Not sure how comparable that is when considering that the devices are also commonly required as ticket on public transport with no offline fallback (going so far as to include animations on the screen so you can't send a screenshot to a friend or print it out -- no, I have no idea why they think you can't send a video to a friend). Having 10 minutes of use time is simply not on the table, and GP was probably not talking about that class of phones (pre-"smart" phone) in the first place
- detourdog 6mo agohttps://support.apple.com/guide/security/express-cards-with-power-reserve-sec90cd29d1f/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/express-cards-with-...
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Aachen 6mo agook? If it dies after 10 minutes and then lets you use a select number of compatible smartcards for another 5, that's not quite the level I think people are talking about here
- detourdog 6mo agoIf running out of power is super critical carrying a power pack is just as simple as replacement battery. It also more generally useful as it can charge lots devices other then phones. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/external-battery-packs/usb-c-portable-chargers-power-banks/pcmcat1706299718467.c?id=pcmcat1706299718467 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/external-battery-packs/usb-c-po...
- m-schuetz 6mo agoNowadays batteries seem to be doing pretty good, though. I've got a galax s20 fe, and the battery is still fine after 5 years.
- Aachen 6mo agoNice! As a heads up, don't be tempted to replace the battery via a third party if the Samsung battery ever stops meeting expectations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47834810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47834810
- wasmitnetzen 6mo agoThe EU already requires 5 years of patches since last year. Motorola thinks they have found a loophole, so there are still some, ahem, patches needed to the law.
- Aachen 6mo agoDo you have more info about this? I recommended Motorola phones to people based on a combination of price, their needs, and expected longevity (at least 5y now with the new update and replacement part requirements). If that's not the case then I want to update my recommendations
- oblio 6mo agohttps://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/news/new-eu-rules-durable-energy-efficient-and-repairable-smartphones-and-tablets-start-applying-2025-06-20_en https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/news/new-eu-rules...
- catlikesshrimp 6mo agomotorolanis not mentioned there
- oblio 6mo agoNo company is mentioned there...
- Aachen 6mo agoI don't see the word loophole on that page. Would there's no way the EU will provide that information so I'm not going to comb through that page looking for, and speculating on, what GP could possibly have meant... Could you be anymore specific about what part of this is the loophole that Motorola allegedly found?
- oblio 6mo ago
- IMTDb 6mo agoI have found out that the main phone providers (Apple, Google, Samsung) have extremely long support period. I really don't get the "planned obsolescence" thing. As an example, in Jan 2026, Apple published iOS 12.5.8 which provides updates for iPhone 5s which released in Sept 2013. That's 12.5 years ago. The equivalent would be to connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086, 512 kb of RAM and expecting an update for your DOS operating system.
- gruez 6mo ago>As an example, in Jan 2026, Apple published iOS 12.5.8 which provides updates for iPhone 5s which released in Sept 2013. That's 12.5 years ago. The equivalent would be to connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086, 512 kb of RAM and expecting an update for your DOS operating system. The updates for ios 12 are all security updates, not feature updates, so your comparison to "connect to the internet using ADSL in Jan 2000 with your IBM PS/2 rocking in intel 8086" doesn't really make sense. The phones stuck on ios 15 are basically unusable because many apps don't support it anymore. At best you can download an older version from a few years ago, but that depends on whether the backend servers were updated. Apps that insist you use the latest version (eg. banking/finance apps) basically unusable.
- brainwad 6mo agoA phone is not unusable because some banking apps don't work on it. It didn't even ship with said apps installed.
- wolvoleo 6mo ago> Next the EU are going to have to address security patches because its another aspect being used to sell new phones. They already are. 5 years of updates is now the legal minimum in the EU. https://www.osnews.com/story/142500/new-eu-rules-mandate-five-years-of-os-updates-for-smartphones-and-tablets/ https://www.osnews.com/story/142500/new-eu-rules-mandate-fiv...
- tombert 6mo agoI dunno, my wife has has the same iPhone 11 Pro Max since 2020. She had to get the battery replaced once at an Apple store, which I believe cost $99, and it took like thirty minutes and it wasn't that hard. I'll admit it's a little annoying that I have to pay a hundred bucks to get the battery replaced, but the phone is otherwise fine and still gets updates, so I don't know that I buy that it's "planned obsolescence".
- johanyc 6mo agoIt's planned obsolescence through price. Your wife paid >50% of the phone's value just to replace the battery. Many people won't think that's worth it. It could have been a $30 user replaceable battery.
- bitmasher9 6mo agoOr she spent 7% of the purchase price of a new device to defer requiring to upgrade for another 3 years. $100 is worth it, but you can get a good discount by going to that one mall kiosk instead of the Apple Store.
- Alpha3031 6mo ago> you can get a good discount by going to that one mall kiosk instead of the Apple Store. Apple actively impeded third-party repair shops though. Oregon had to outlaw parts pairing for them to change that practice.
- johanyc 6mo ago> I don't know that I buy that it's "planned obsolescence". I'm responding to this. It might be worth it for your wife. But if for a lot of people, paying $100 to revive a 6 year old phone is a bad deal, then it's planned obsolescence
- AdrianB1 6mo agoImagine you can order a battery from Apple for $20 and you swap it in 1 minute: less money, less time, user satisfaction++.