The EU recently laid down the law to smartphone manufacturers; make your batteries easier to replace, or risk breaking the rules. By 2027, all smartphones sold in the European Union are going to require removable or replaceable batteries, increasing their repairability for most users.
There is evidence, however, that Apple isn’t a big fan of the new laws, and it could be unlikely that we’ll see a fully removable battery in the back of future iPhones. No repairable iPhone 15 on the horizon then.
No repairs for you
The wording of the EU’s law has left a lot for smartphone makers to think about and mull over as the 2027 date closes in, but in an interview with ORBIT on Youtube, Apple’s Senior Vice president of Hardware Engineering, John Turnus, has (in more words) said that should batteries be replaceable, people are going to need a safe way to get it done.
Turnus says, in essence, that access is more important for repairability. “Sometimes there can be a bit of conflict between the durability and the repairability. You can make an internal component more repairable by having it discrete and removable, but that actually inherently adds a potential failure point.”
Instead, the dream is to have a phone that never needs to be repaired — which sounds a little like living with your head above the clouds.
iMore’s take
Dropping your iPhone is an inevitability, and as much as we can wrap them in glass screen protectors and protective cases, sometimes a devastating drop or accident happens that leaves your phone needing repair. Repairing an iPhone through Apple, even with Apple Care, is expensive, and going elsewhere often means you won’t get certified parts.
As much as Apple wants to make its devices sealed for more water resistance or batteries unremovable to make them in some way ‘safer’, these are devices that we have purchased — the EU’s new law would make repairing our own phones a whole lot easier, and cheaper, and make for a big leap in being more environmentally friendly as you no longer have to toss a device out when the battery starts going off. While Apple’s reasoning makes some sense, it’s very locked down, very ‘Apple’ — and perhaps it is time for the biggest phone maker in the world to accept that repairability is a net good.
