6 ms·

Because people will buy that phone and keep it much longer. When phones had replaceable batteries, they needed replaced after a couple of years because they wer

Because people will buy that phone and keep it much longer. When phones had replaceable batteries, they needed replaced after a couple of years because they were terrible. I'm now on a several year old pixel phone that I'm happy with, but eventually the battery will wear out and I'll have to replace it. Google likes it that way.

eru 6mo ago
Battery tech has gotten a lot better every year over the last hundred years.
- brewdad 6mo ago
  I think OP meant the phone was going to be replaced in three years tops, so no one cared much about battery longevity. Nowadays, the battery can be the constraint for practical phone life, since few consumers can replace one themselves and by the time they pay someone else to do it, may as well trade it in and let Verizon subsidize a new one. Having an easily swappable battery returns some power to the user.
  - eru 6mo ago
    Phones with swappable batteries are already legal to buy.
    - ben_w 6mo ago
      It was legal to buy a car that had a seatbelt before the seatbelt became mandatory. Or phones with USB-C. I suspect this will be a good thing to force, but I don't know for sure.
      - eru 6mo ago
        > It was legal to buy a car that had a seatbelt before the seatbelt became mandatory. Yes, making seatbelts mandatory was also a weird decision.
        defrost 6mo ago
        Weird in what way? As an example of public policy it had significant impact on death, injury, medical costs, etc. Road Traffic Accidents before and after Seatbelt Legislation-Study in a District General Hospital (1990) Injuries among samples of car accident cases attending the Accident & Emergency (A & E) department of a District General Hospital (DGH) in the year before and after the introduction of seat belt legislation were classified applying the Abbreviated Injury Scale using information recorded in the patient case notes. Those who died or did not attend an A & E department were not included in the sampling frame. The number of those who escaped injury increased by 40% and those with mild and moderate injuries decreased by 35% after seatbelt legislation. There was a significant reduction in soft tissue injuries to the head. Only whiplash injuries to the neck showed a significant increase. ~ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/014107689008300207 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/014107689008300207 ( ^ One of many before/after studies that highlight difference made by seatbelt legislation )
        eru 6mo ago
        Oh, seatbelts are great, and I wouldn't want to ride a car without one. However people who don't want to wear seatbelts generally only endanger themselves. So why force them against their will?
        defrost 6mo ago
        Also their families (the kids normalise no seatbelts and spend their childhood with no seatbelts), also first responders (???!!!) In reality, the worse an accident is (deaths, injuries) the longer and more difficult the clean up process is .. increasing the time that normal traffic flow is impacted and increasing the danger to all those attending who are exposed to potential (and common place) cascading disasters. The deaths and injuries impact the local health response services - raising costs, demand for resources, and impacting triage decisions (fewer injured non seatbelt wearing idiots to look after, more free resources to devote to other patients).
        6mo ago
- watwut 6mo ago
  Their still go down after two-three years. Needing to charge twice a day is literal reason why I ever change the phone - otherwise I could use 10 years old one.
nick486 6mo ago
You don't have to replace the phone. You can go to some repair shop and get the battery replaced. It will be several times cheaper than a new phone. Very few people do that. I don't. Because a) general software enshittification makes me need a more powerful decice anyway, and, more importantly, b) people are just happy to have an excuse to get the the new shiny.
- deaux 6mo ago
  I do it. > a) general software enshittification makes me need a more powerful decice anyway You don't, this is nothing but an excuse for > b) people are just happy to have an excuse to get the the new shiny.
  - nick486 6mo ago
    Nah, sorry, enshittification is not "just an excuse". My current 2020 phone(xperia 5-ii - I wanted that sd slot&jack) is noticeably slower than when I got it, even though the battery is holding up decently(it basically needs to last a day, and it usually does). Software shops seem to get focused on testing their stuff on "modern" devices. It looks like, once your device starts to slip out of that "testing pool", things get increasingly buggy until it eventually makes general use enough of a pain to require replacement. I think last couple years' improvements to battery tech made software take over batteries as the bigger contributor to device obsolescence. So this change, while welcome, is a bit late.
    - kakacik 6mo ago
      I have 4+ years old S22 Ultra and there is absolutely nothing slowed down. I didn't install any crap semi-random apps just for the lolz, its basically static set of features with maybe 2 new apps per year added as it keeps doing more and more like ebanking or work auth. It doesn't even have Snapdragon processor, just their own Exynos and its simply fine. It keeps getting all updates and will keep for few more years. Camera results massively improved cca 2 years ago with some update so that they are cca on same level as current ones. Plus I still has 10x physical zoom which trumps all current models, iphone pro max including since we still can't bypass physical limits of optics. Really, 0 reasons to update and battery capacity is the only upcoming issue - still fine now but I feel the decrease a bit. If I could swap it easily myself without paying some phone shop to do it, that's a massive advantage.
theodric 6mo ago
[dead]
wallst07 6mo ago
I have a few IOS devices, you know what prevents me from using them? It's not the battery, its the lack of OS updates. I can't install new certificates, or get access to app stores. They're useless. In fact, the lack of a replacement battery has never prevented me from keeping something working, only software or physical damage.
preisschild 6mo ago
I have been using the Pixel series for years and after a year of use the battery capacity is noticeable worse for me. I'd just like to pay 100-300EUR to replace the battery with a brand new one but the device should still be IP68 water-"proof".

eru 6mo ago

Battery tech has gotten a lot better every year over the last hundred years.

brewdad 6mo ago
I think OP meant the phone was going to be replaced in three years tops, so no one cared much about battery longevity. Nowadays, the battery can be the constraint for practical phone life, since few consumers can replace one themselves and by the time they pay someone else to do it, may as well trade it in and let Verizon subsidize a new one. Having an easily swappable battery returns some power to the user.
- eru 6mo ago
  Phones with swappable batteries are already legal to buy.
  - ben_w 6mo ago
    It was legal to buy a car that had a seatbelt before the seatbelt became mandatory. Or phones with USB-C. I suspect this will be a good thing to force, but I don't know for sure.
    - eru 6mo ago
      > It was legal to buy a car that had a seatbelt before the seatbelt became mandatory. Yes, making seatbelts mandatory was also a weird decision.
      - defrost 6mo ago
        Weird in what way? As an example of public policy it had significant impact on death, injury, medical costs, etc. Road Traffic Accidents before and after Seatbelt Legislation-Study in a District General Hospital (1990) Injuries among samples of car accident cases attending the Accident & Emergency (A & E) department of a District General Hospital (DGH) in the year before and after the introduction of seat belt legislation were classified applying the Abbreviated Injury Scale using information recorded in the patient case notes. Those who died or did not attend an A & E department were not included in the sampling frame. The number of those who escaped injury increased by 40% and those with mild and moderate injuries decreased by 35% after seatbelt legislation. There was a significant reduction in soft tissue injuries to the head. Only whiplash injuries to the neck showed a significant increase. ~ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/014107689008300207 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/014107689008300207 ( ^ One of many before/after studies that highlight difference made by seatbelt legislation )
        eru 6mo ago
        Oh, seatbelts are great, and I wouldn't want to ride a car without one. However people who don't want to wear seatbelts generally only endanger themselves. So why force them against their will?
        defrost 6mo ago
        Also their families (the kids normalise no seatbelts and spend their childhood with no seatbelts), also first responders (???!!!) In reality, the worse an accident is (deaths, injuries) the longer and more difficult the clean up process is .. increasing the time that normal traffic flow is impacted and increasing the danger to all those attending who are exposed to potential (and common place) cascading disasters. The deaths and injuries impact the local health response services - raising costs, demand for resources, and impacting triage decisions (fewer injured non seatbelt wearing idiots to look after, more free resources to devote to other patients).
        6mo ago
watwut 6mo ago
Their still go down after two-three years. Needing to charge twice a day is literal reason why I ever change the phone - otherwise I could use 10 years old one.

nick486 6mo ago

You don't have to replace the phone. You can go to some repair shop and get the battery replaced. It will be several times cheaper than a new phone. Very few people do that. I don't. Because a) general software enshittification makes me need a more powerful decice anyway, and, more importantly, b) people are just happy to have an excuse to get the the new shiny.

deaux 6mo ago
I do it. > a) general software enshittification makes me need a more powerful decice anyway You don't, this is nothing but an excuse for > b) people are just happy to have an excuse to get the the new shiny.
- nick486 6mo ago
  Nah, sorry, enshittification is not "just an excuse". My current 2020 phone(xperia 5-ii - I wanted that sd slot&jack) is noticeably slower than when I got it, even though the battery is holding up decently(it basically needs to last a day, and it usually does). Software shops seem to get focused on testing their stuff on "modern" devices. It looks like, once your device starts to slip out of that "testing pool", things get increasingly buggy until it eventually makes general use enough of a pain to require replacement. I think last couple years' improvements to battery tech made software take over batteries as the bigger contributor to device obsolescence. So this change, while welcome, is a bit late.
  - kakacik 6mo ago
    I have 4+ years old S22 Ultra and there is absolutely nothing slowed down. I didn't install any crap semi-random apps just for the lolz, its basically static set of features with maybe 2 new apps per year added as it keeps doing more and more like ebanking or work auth. It doesn't even have Snapdragon processor, just their own Exynos and its simply fine. It keeps getting all updates and will keep for few more years. Camera results massively improved cca 2 years ago with some update so that they are cca on same level as current ones. Plus I still has 10x physical zoom which trumps all current models, iphone pro max including since we still can't bypass physical limits of optics. Really, 0 reasons to update and battery capacity is the only upcoming issue - still fine now but I feel the decrease a bit. If I could swap it easily myself without paying some phone shop to do it, that's a massive advantage.

theodric 6mo ago

[dead]

wallst07 6mo ago

I have a few IOS devices, you know what prevents me from using them? It's not the battery, its the lack of OS updates. I can't install new certificates, or get access to app stores. They're useless. In fact, the lack of a replacement battery has never prevented me from keeping something working, only software or physical damage.

preisschild 6mo ago

I have been using the Pixel series for years and after a year of use the battery capacity is noticeable worse for me. I'd just like to pay 100-300EUR to replace the battery with a brand new one but the device should still be IP68 water-"proof".