The European Union is looking to mandate removable batteries for cell phones, Cult of Mac reports. This comes on the heels of a previous EU mandate for all smartphones to adopt USB-C, making the upcoming iPhone 15 the first to support this port. Most current Androids have already made the switch to USB-C for several years now.
Prior to smartphones, cell phones had easily replaceable batteries. This meant that once a phone could no longer hold a charge, replacing it with a new battery could extend the life of a device. iPhones, with their more precise engineering, made replacing batteries more difficult, especially by consumers.
Even though removable batteries can extend the lifecycle of smartphones, getting ahold of a phone battery for a several years old model can be daunting. Many consumers simply upgrade phones when their phones can no longer hold a charge. This is not to be confused with external battery packs that can top off charge for a phone rather than swap them out.
California and the European Union are both leaders in tech regulation and consumer rights. The size of their markets are such that international firms such as Apple or Google will simply incorporate these regulations into all their products. In a recent Supreme Court decision, California’s right to regulate products (pork, in this case) at the expense of out-of-state producers.
Unlike the USB-C mandate which was strait forward, these regulations on the internal mechanics of smartphones could have unintended side effects. While Apple has already made strides to change its design, too strict regulations could affect performance of future models.
