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I was looking forward to finally be able to easily switch out (i)Phone batteries again - after 20 years - but turns out the lobbyists managed to get a loophole

I was looking forward to finally be able to easily switch out (i)Phone batteries again - after 20 years - but turns out the lobbyists managed to get a loophole in the law - exempting Apple & Co from making their phones more repairable / longer live-able. > If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt

AshamedCaptain 6mo ago
Yes, this is the most non-story I have ever seen on this topic. I do not know of any manufacturer who does not claim this, verifiable or otherwise; and even if they can't claim it, all they have to do is one minor purely-software capacity adjustment, which they will gladly do before they will even consider offering removable batteries. What a disappointment.
- close04 6mo ago
  Apple has no chance to claim their batteries can have 80% capacity after 1000 cycles seeing how they never achieved this so far. Lying about it puts them in a world of mass recalls and fraud investigations.
  - less_less 6mo ago
    I'm pretty the spec sheet claimed 1000 cycles when I bought my iPhone 17. They do claim it at least for iPhone 15 "under ideal conditions": https://support.apple.com/en-us/101575 https://support.apple.com/en-us/101575
    - close04 6mo ago
      VW engine specs said some things about emissions. It’s fine to have unrealistic specs if there are no consequences. The f there’s a law about it they’re far more exposed to people catching a lie or at least an unrealistic estimate.
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    Depends on how "cycle" is defined - I'm sure they can finagle it so "any charge added to the battery" counts as a cycle. As a datapoint my iPhone reports 522 cycles and 89% max - from march 2024. I do use the "limit charging to 80%" feature which I suspect may become mandatory before 2027 ...
    - john_strinlai 6mo ago
      >Depends on how "cycle" is defined - I'm sure they can finagle it so "any charge added to the battery" counts as a cycle. the definition of a battery cycle is very well established. there isnt really any room to finagle it.
    - close04 6mo ago
      I don’t think “a cycle” is up for redefining. I hope these terms are defined in the law. But that supports my assumption that realistically the batteries don’t last 1000 cycles even when charged conservatively. The last 9% will go faster than the first 11%, the battery already has lower capacity and needs to be charged even more often. On the other hand if I only get to 1000 cycles by charging up to 80% then I’m not getting 100% of the battery, am I? Dieselgate was caught by some dudes with an emissions measuring device. It’s not that extreme to get a number of iPhone batteries, test them to 1000 cycles and see if statistically they still retain 80% capacity. If they don’t Apple could be looking at replacing everyone’s batteries.
      - bombcar 6mo ago
        The obvious solution is underrating - just like a 1 TB SSD actually has more than 1TB of "raw storage" available internally. What is a 100% battery today will be sold as an 80% capacity tomorrow, with 20% "overage" available for wear.
        close04 6mo ago
        That’s fine as long as the battery ends up having 80% real capacity after 1000 cycles and maybe Apple is also transparent about how. A bigger issue which I don’t know if the law covers is with the other battery specs. An 80% battery that can’t handle any spikes (low power mode) is useless.
  - vaginaphobic 6mo ago
    [dead]
kjkjadksj 6mo ago
No shot at all apple batteries can last 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity. Probably can’t even do 300 in my experience. Sounds like an easy lawsuit.
- zitterbewegung 6mo ago
  A battery that can support 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity would be a literal brick. For an example the Vision Pro's battery has extreme over-provisioning and limit how long it would last. (note I know it is removable but that isn't the point).
  - gf000 6mo ago
    Well, this just incentivized a new battery tech then, what's the problem?
- lsxr 6mo ago
  No doubt they will redefine maximum battery capacity to a figure that does achieve 80% over 1000 cycles. If you under-declare maximum capacity then there is a lot of headroom for actual degradation before you start to show degradation to the user.
  - cptskippy 6mo ago
    This is what they should have been doing all along. My Pixel tells me that charging above 80% is bad for battery longevity and I should set a charge limit. Well then maybe 80% should be the new 100% and the advertised capacity should be the 80%.
    - Aachen 6mo ago
      This balancing act is already happening. If you modify the battery controller, you can totally continue charging beyond the voltage that the phone considers to be 100%. It also increases the risk of damaging the battery (https://www.acebattery.com/blogs/what-will-happen-when-a-lithium-battery-is-overcharged https://www.acebattery.com/blogs/what-will-happen-when-a-lit...). What they define as 100% is already some point on a damage probability curve, and charging to anything below that point will further decrease the amount of battery stress (for li-ion batteries and similar technologies) Fwiw, based on tests I've seen recently such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj4LMlGr4og https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj4LMlGr4og, I think limiting to 80% is overblown, but somewhere in the 90%s could be a sweet spot that gives you several hours' longer battery life than with 80% but still has a much reduced chance of significant degradation. I don't understand why they didn't make this configurable
t0mas88 6mo ago
My iPhone 14 is 1081 days old, charged every night, battery capacity is reported as 81%. So in Apple's own measurements this is possible. I guess there is some built in spare capacity, but that may still qualify for the exemption?
- 3form 6mo ago
  If you charge every night from say 50%, that's not a full cycle.
- Filligree 6mo ago
  The exemption is about ensuring customers get what they paid for. It shouldn’t care how the manufacturer achieves that; driving the batteries less hard is an obvious tactic, and actually also makes them safer to use.
- Aachen 6mo ago
  My experience with an Apple battery saying ~81% longevity remaining is that it'll die when it still reports half full and you open a demanding webpage It's a genuinely hard problem to measure battery capacity with existing smartphone hardware, also because it's a matter of opinion how much to factor in the peak load capacity (how do you count the bottom 40%, where it can't handle peak draw anymore? Should one include half of it because the phone is still usable but in a degraded state?), so I'm not faulting Apple here at all. They choose to display this estimate and it's better than nothing / better than most manufacturers. Just that you can't take it at face value, even if you charged your phone from 0% to 100% for >=1000 days
nonethewiser 6mo ago
Seems entirely reasonable. Embedded batteries have a lot of advantages. Cheaper, higher battery capacity, water proof, smaller, stronger. I think this will largely just make the mid to low tier android market in the EU shittier.
- tempest_ 6mo ago
  Citation needed. All of those can be achieved with replaceable batteries.
  - pastel8739 6mo ago
    Citation needed. It seems pretty clear that a mechanism to allow a user to access a battery will increase complexity, making all the other properties harder to achieve.
    - dismalaf 6mo ago
      It'll increase the size of the case by a small amount but a battery cell is a battery cell... Rip open an old device and you'll see.
    - realusername 6mo ago
      Fairphone managed to do it, I'm sure companies with more budget than them can figure it out.
      - jhasse 6mo ago
        Not water proof and definitely big for its capacity.
        realusername 6mo ago
        Yes, hence why I'm sure companies with 100x the budget can do better.
    - anonymars 6mo ago
throw0101d 6mo ago
> If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt Is there a definition for a cycle? 80->85%? 33->72? 22-83? 87->96? Would each of these be a "cycle"?
- galdauts 6mo ago
  A battery cycle is a full discharge/charge cycle (100 -> 0 -> 100). Going from 70% to 20% and then charging back to 70% is half a cycle.
theginger 6mo ago
What proportion of devices would need to meet this 80% rule? 50%? 90%? 99%? Could make a huge difference
MSFT_Edging 6mo ago
I recently did a battery replacement on an iphone mini 13 with some success and some failure. I absolutely killed the screen without cracking it. A little too much pulling with the ifixit reverse clamp. Had i gone a little slower, it would have been a very easy repair.
adolph 6mo ago
> the lobbyists managed to get a loophole in the law - exempting Apple & Co But Apple batteries are already user replaceable? I've replaced my own and batteries come with kits that have all the tools and disposable glue strips and seals.
- PunchyHamster 6mo ago
  That is not "user replaceable" by any reasonable definition.
  - adolph 6mo ago
    I suppose what is "reasonable" might be different for different people. I already had pentalob bits although a fresh spudger is always welcome. But these are not exotic tools. The "glue" under the battery was a bit like "command strips" commonly used to hang things from walls. It is interesting to think about the range of physical tool usage that is within a reasonable expectation. Is owning and being able to operate an implement to open and replace a battery in a simple watch like the Casio F91W reasonable?
    - PunchyHamster 6mo ago
      the watch have no glue keeping battery in. I do think "turn few screws" is reasonable level of replacement. As long as it is some ISO standard fastener like torx not vendor specific one. We should not require someone to stock increasing variety of screwdrivers based on manufacturers again wanting to make it more annoying
cruffle_duffle 6mo ago
“ If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt” I mean isn’t that an okay exemption? If the intent is to drive devices to be less disposable and more sustainable… if it incentivizes all mobile phone manufacturers to improve battery longevity, I’d say that’s a win. I wouldn’t even call it a loophole. The entire purpose of the legislation could be that clause
0x1ceb00da 6mo ago
It's like saying you were looking forward to shooting and killing an invader but unfortunately no one invaded your house and that made you sad.
pezezin 6mo ago
I read the same comment several times and I don't know where you guys got that idea, but it is wrong. This is the actual text of the law, nowhere does it mentions 1000 cycles: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A02023R1542-20250731 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

AshamedCaptain 6mo ago

Yes, this is the most non-story I have ever seen on this topic. I do not know of any manufacturer who does not claim this, verifiable or otherwise; and even if they can't claim it, all they have to do is one minor purely-software capacity adjustment, which they will gladly do before they will even consider offering removable batteries. What a disappointment.

close04 6mo ago
Apple has no chance to claim their batteries can have 80% capacity after 1000 cycles seeing how they never achieved this so far. Lying about it puts them in a world of mass recalls and fraud investigations.
- less_less 6mo ago
  I'm pretty the spec sheet claimed 1000 cycles when I bought my iPhone 17. They do claim it at least for iPhone 15 "under ideal conditions": https://support.apple.com/en-us/101575 https://support.apple.com/en-us/101575
  - close04 6mo ago
    VW engine specs said some things about emissions. It’s fine to have unrealistic specs if there are no consequences. The f there’s a law about it they’re far more exposed to people catching a lie or at least an unrealistic estimate.
- bombcar 6mo ago
  Depends on how "cycle" is defined - I'm sure they can finagle it so "any charge added to the battery" counts as a cycle. As a datapoint my iPhone reports 522 cycles and 89% max - from march 2024. I do use the "limit charging to 80%" feature which I suspect may become mandatory before 2027 ...
  - john_strinlai 6mo ago
    >Depends on how "cycle" is defined - I'm sure they can finagle it so "any charge added to the battery" counts as a cycle. the definition of a battery cycle is very well established. there isnt really any room to finagle it.
  - close04 6mo ago
    I don’t think “a cycle” is up for redefining. I hope these terms are defined in the law. But that supports my assumption that realistically the batteries don’t last 1000 cycles even when charged conservatively. The last 9% will go faster than the first 11%, the battery already has lower capacity and needs to be charged even more often. On the other hand if I only get to 1000 cycles by charging up to 80% then I’m not getting 100% of the battery, am I? Dieselgate was caught by some dudes with an emissions measuring device. It’s not that extreme to get a number of iPhone batteries, test them to 1000 cycles and see if statistically they still retain 80% capacity. If they don’t Apple could be looking at replacing everyone’s batteries.
    - bombcar 6mo ago
      The obvious solution is underrating - just like a 1 TB SSD actually has more than 1TB of "raw storage" available internally. What is a 100% battery today will be sold as an 80% capacity tomorrow, with 20% "overage" available for wear.
      - close04 6mo ago
        That’s fine as long as the battery ends up having 80% real capacity after 1000 cycles and maybe Apple is also transparent about how. A bigger issue which I don’t know if the law covers is with the other battery specs. An 80% battery that can’t handle any spikes (low power mode) is useless.
- vaginaphobic 6mo ago
  [dead]

kjkjadksj 6mo ago

No shot at all apple batteries can last 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity. Probably can’t even do 300 in my experience. Sounds like an easy lawsuit.

zitterbewegung 6mo ago
A battery that can support 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity would be a literal brick. For an example the Vision Pro's battery has extreme over-provisioning and limit how long it would last. (note I know it is removable but that isn't the point).
- gf000 6mo ago
  Well, this just incentivized a new battery tech then, what's the problem?
lsxr 6mo ago
No doubt they will redefine maximum battery capacity to a figure that does achieve 80% over 1000 cycles. If you under-declare maximum capacity then there is a lot of headroom for actual degradation before you start to show degradation to the user.
- cptskippy 6mo ago
  This is what they should have been doing all along. My Pixel tells me that charging above 80% is bad for battery longevity and I should set a charge limit. Well then maybe 80% should be the new 100% and the advertised capacity should be the 80%.
  - Aachen 6mo ago
    This balancing act is already happening. If you modify the battery controller, you can totally continue charging beyond the voltage that the phone considers to be 100%. It also increases the risk of damaging the battery (https://www.acebattery.com/blogs/what-will-happen-when-a-lithium-battery-is-overcharged https://www.acebattery.com/blogs/what-will-happen-when-a-lit...). What they define as 100% is already some point on a damage probability curve, and charging to anything below that point will further decrease the amount of battery stress (for li-ion batteries and similar technologies) Fwiw, based on tests I've seen recently such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj4LMlGr4og https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj4LMlGr4og, I think limiting to 80% is overblown, but somewhere in the 90%s could be a sweet spot that gives you several hours' longer battery life than with 80% but still has a much reduced chance of significant degradation. I don't understand why they didn't make this configurable

t0mas88 6mo ago

My iPhone 14 is 1081 days old, charged every night, battery capacity is reported as 81%. So in Apple's own measurements this is possible. I guess there is some built in spare capacity, but that may still qualify for the exemption?

3form 6mo ago
If you charge every night from say 50%, that's not a full cycle.
Filligree 6mo ago
The exemption is about ensuring customers get what they paid for. It shouldn’t care how the manufacturer achieves that; driving the batteries less hard is an obvious tactic, and actually also makes them safer to use.
Aachen 6mo ago
My experience with an Apple battery saying ~81% longevity remaining is that it'll die when it still reports half full and you open a demanding webpage It's a genuinely hard problem to measure battery capacity with existing smartphone hardware, also because it's a matter of opinion how much to factor in the peak load capacity (how do you count the bottom 40%, where it can't handle peak draw anymore? Should one include half of it because the phone is still usable but in a degraded state?), so I'm not faulting Apple here at all. They choose to display this estimate and it's better than nothing / better than most manufacturers. Just that you can't take it at face value, even if you charged your phone from 0% to 100% for >=1000 days

nonethewiser 6mo ago

Seems entirely reasonable. Embedded batteries have a lot of advantages. Cheaper, higher battery capacity, water proof, smaller, stronger. I think this will largely just make the mid to low tier android market in the EU shittier.

tempest_ 6mo ago
Citation needed. All of those can be achieved with replaceable batteries.
- pastel8739 6mo ago
  Citation needed. It seems pretty clear that a mechanism to allow a user to access a battery will increase complexity, making all the other properties harder to achieve.
  - dismalaf 6mo ago
    It'll increase the size of the case by a small amount but a battery cell is a battery cell... Rip open an old device and you'll see.
  - realusername 6mo ago
    Fairphone managed to do it, I'm sure companies with more budget than them can figure it out.
    - jhasse 6mo ago
      Not water proof and definitely big for its capacity.
      - realusername 6mo ago
        Yes, hence why I'm sure companies with 100x the budget can do better.
  - anonymars 6mo ago

throw0101d 6mo ago

> If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt Is there a definition for a cycle? 80->85%? 33->72? 22-83? 87->96? Would each of these be a "cycle"?

galdauts 6mo ago
A battery cycle is a full discharge/charge cycle (100 -> 0 -> 100). Going from 70% to 20% and then charging back to 70% is half a cycle.

theginger 6mo ago

What proportion of devices would need to meet this 80% rule? 50%? 90%? 99%? Could make a huge difference

MSFT_Edging 6mo ago

I recently did a battery replacement on an iphone mini 13 with some success and some failure. I absolutely killed the screen without cracking it. A little too much pulling with the ifixit reverse clamp. Had i gone a little slower, it would have been a very easy repair.

adolph 6mo ago

> the lobbyists managed to get a loophole in the law - exempting Apple & Co But Apple batteries are already user replaceable? I've replaced my own and batteries come with kits that have all the tools and disposable glue strips and seals.

PunchyHamster 6mo ago
That is not "user replaceable" by any reasonable definition.
- adolph 6mo ago
  I suppose what is "reasonable" might be different for different people. I already had pentalob bits although a fresh spudger is always welcome. But these are not exotic tools. The "glue" under the battery was a bit like "command strips" commonly used to hang things from walls. It is interesting to think about the range of physical tool usage that is within a reasonable expectation. Is owning and being able to operate an implement to open and replace a battery in a simple watch like the Casio F91W reasonable?
  - PunchyHamster 6mo ago
    the watch have no glue keeping battery in. I do think "turn few screws" is reasonable level of replacement. As long as it is some ISO standard fastener like torx not vendor specific one. We should not require someone to stock increasing variety of screwdrivers based on manufacturers again wanting to make it more annoying

cruffle_duffle 6mo ago

“ If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt” I mean isn’t that an okay exemption? If the intent is to drive devices to be less disposable and more sustainable… if it incentivizes all mobile phone manufacturers to improve battery longevity, I’d say that’s a win. I wouldn’t even call it a loophole. The entire purpose of the legislation could be that clause

0x1ceb00da 6mo ago

It's like saying you were looking forward to shooting and killing an invader but unfortunately no one invaded your house and that made you sad.

pezezin 6mo ago

I read the same comment several times and I don't know where you guys got that idea, but it is wrong. This is the actual text of the law, nowhere does it mentions 1000 cycles: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A02023R1542-20250731 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...