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twiloyesterday at 1:56 PM19 repliesview on HN

If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt from this, which is exactly what Apple implemented a few years ago.

Low cost phones will be most affected.


Replies

manqueryesterday at 7:37 PM

This is not correct. There is no exemption for Apple devices

You seem to referencing from a older exemption for self serviceability if your smartphone can do 1,000 cycles and retain 80% battery. Specifically - B 1.1 (1) (c) (ii) (b) . Here is the link - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Article 11 of the new regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...) covers exemptions but nothing to do with 1,000 cycles or Apple as far as i can see.

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tim333yesterday at 2:19 PM

I was wondering about that. I lost my iPhone 13 mini the other day, did the find my phone beep thing and got a distant beep from my washing machine which was on wash cycle.

Surprisingly the phone was fine and works fine after a brief rinse under the tap. It must be hard to combine that sort of water resistance with easy user changing.

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proeeyesterday at 3:59 PM

This could be "fixed" right now by a software update that limits the maximum charge level to 80% of capacity. However, this comes at the cost of how many minutes of runtime your phone can operate.

So manufactures might just responds to this by making your phone heavier with a bigger battery that is being under utilized.

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Bad_CRCyesterday at 2:38 PM

And what about if 4 years they says that they have dettected a problem in your battery? A new battery should fix that but now you cannot do it properly because it could do 1000 cycles.

This same thing happened to Pixels 6a after 500 cycles.

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Aurornisyesterday at 4:13 PM

The goal should be reducing e-waste, and honestly this seems reasonable.

I’d rather get the additional structural rigidity, compactness, and weatherproofing that comes from the tight construction and then pay $99 to have Apple professionally install a new battery for me in 3-4 years. Forcing everyone’s iPhone to take all of the tradeoffs of replaceable batteries so some people can save $50 to replace their own battery isn’t a good deal.

I wouldn’t be surprised if forcing all phones to have easily replaceable batteries would result in a net increase in e-waste due to the additional failure modes introduced. Even if batteries were easily replaceable I think most iPhone users would have Apple do it for them anyway.

I’ve also replaced some iPhone batteries myself and it’s really not that bad if you are familiar with taking modern electronics apart. Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.

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george_perezyesterday at 5:09 PM

Where did you see this? Can't see that in the article or a quick search on the rules PDF.

loremiumyesterday at 3:12 PM

What if they don't? What if there are manufacturer errors? What if they burn your battery with updates along the way?

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mzmzmzmyesterday at 4:20 PM

I wonder if this is part of why Apple is behind most competitors in terms of fast charging. Would almost make marketing sense to come out and say it at this point.

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mschuster91yesterday at 1:58 PM

> Low cost phones will be most affected.

Not really. Take a 4000 mAh rated cell, advertise it as "rated for 3500 mAh" and that's it.

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HunOLyesterday at 3:26 PM

Isn't like most of the new phones claim at least 1000 cycles?

raverbashingyesterday at 2:01 PM

Funnily enough I've had a "low cost phone" with replaceable batteries (the "old school way")

So it does not seem a big deal

iso1631yesterday at 6:11 PM

1000 cycles is barely 3 years, that's far too low a number

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Hamukoyesterday at 2:14 PM

Wish they'd have implemented it before the iPhone 14 Pro launched. I'm at 624 cycles right now and my phone's gone below 80% fucking ages ago.

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cyberdickyesterday at 4:22 PM

[flagged]

oybngyesterday at 3:44 PM

Is 1000 cycles above 80% even possible without gimping the device like apple does with all its hardware?