Slashdot Mirror
iPhone Battery Replacement An Unwelcome Surprise
epidemic99 writes "Apple has released what it will cost to replace the battery in the iPhone, and consumers might be a bit put off. Replacement is a tricky ordeal, as the battery is apparently soldered into the device. The service will cost $79, plus $6.95 for shipping, plus an optional $29 'loaner iPhone' rental. A consumer advocacy group sent a letter to Apple complaining that this information was not made public before iPhone's release since the cost of the battery replacement is so high. Even reviewer Harvey Rosenfield, who is usually very kind to Apple, was quoted as saying 'some of them might be waking up now, wondering who they got in bed with.'" Update: 07/06 21:06 GMT by Z : Fixed incorrect attribution of quote to Mossberg.
some of them might be waking up now, wondering who they got in bed with.
What you call a review of the iPhone, I call Tuesday night.
"Some of them might be waking up now," Rosenfield said, "wondering who they got in bed with." I guess this is a new spelling of the name Mossberg that I was previously unfamiliar with.
I can throw as many stones as I wish; my house is made of transparent aluminum.
...of replacing the ipod battery is anyone surprised?
"Some of them might be waking up now," Rosenfield said, "wondering who they got in bed with."
So no, Mossberg did not actually say that. Are even the submitters not reading the articles these days?
A soldered battery means that it will almost NEVER pop out accidentally in your pocket or in your backpack. Thank you Apple for this great innovation!! I'm going to buy an iPhone right now!!!!
They did not make it easy to change the SIM card or the battery in this device. While it is a really cool phone/camera/internet doom-a-flitchy device, I have to wonder what they will do if the battery is found to be defective or something. What is rather funny is that all the main chips in the device seem to be made by samsung for apple.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Oh, wait...
Crow T. Trollbot
I've known that it had a "non-replaceable" battery for months now. It was mentioned in just about every analysis article on the iPhone since it was announced. This program is pretty similar to replacing an iPod battery. So, how is this Apple pulling one over on the consumers.
This reminds me of the Hummer owners who get all pissy about the low gas mileage.
Angleyne: You can't bend that girder - it's unbendable! Bender: Well I don't know anything about lifting, so that ju
That's only 1/6 of the price of the phone and, since it probably accounts for 1/2 of the weight, you're actually coming out ahead. Its all in the maths.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Someone who sells eight hundred dollar phones!
from what I have read the battery will work efficiently through about two years of "normal" usage. two years from now there will be a new iPhone, and given the choice of paying $120 for a new battery (and loaner) versus $500 for the inevitably cooler NEW iPhone, my guess is that most will opt for the new phone. more $ for Apple. i would expect a wave of used iPhones on eBay around the same time. maybe i'll get one then.
I have never replaced a battery in my cell phone, not even the Treo. By the time it starts getting weak (3 years or so) there is something else out that is so much more improved that it becomes a non-issue because I'm buying a new phone. Even better now, since it's all already synced in iTunes, going to the next model will be smooth and straightforward.
People complain that it's 20% of the cost of the phone. If I buy a replacement battery for my RAZR, it's $40, which is more than 20% of the cost of the phone. Yes, I can do it myself, but will I ever? Not likely. The only time I've ever replaced a battery was back when I had a StarTAC phone, and I bought the smaller, thinner battery, because the phone slipped into my pocket.
Apple knows that only 5-8% or so of the people will even want to replace it, so they made it a possibility. People just need something to gripe about I guess.
...why would you kvetch at a $80 + S&H iPhone battery replacement? The battery itself is certainly way more than $20 better.
The benefit the iPhone provides most of us (in geekdom), is that it is a revolutionary way to surf the web on a mobile device. All the mobile devices until today cannot surf with even a modicum of the pleasure you get with the iPhone.
:)
That said, it's overpriced for what it is. And the people buying it up right now are only paving the way for Microsoft and others to fix up their mobile OSes to deliver cheaper devices capable of much of the same things as the iPhone. Only they will have replaceable batteries, cheaper cost (subsidized by the carrier), and 3G.
Apple makes a habit of ensuring that you as a consumer are 'locked in' to their platform. In every way, shape and form. They are turning into yet another Microsoft, from another angle. I am rather alarmed that people don't realize that Apple is no different than Microsoft in that they want market share for their devices, and they want money. There are no lofty goals with Apple, just cute looking devices that have a cult following. I will give them, that their OS is better than Vista. But they had the luxury of being able to dump support for older applications, where MS does not. Their presentation is better than Microsoft but again, Microsoft delivers software with an API that can be written against. Apple is a closed architecture, especially with the iPhone.
When people realize that Apple is no different than Microsoft, they will choose devices and software based upon need and usage requirements, rather than a religious belief to either company. I run a Mac laptop as my only laptop, but my home PC is a dual boot of Ubuntu and Vista. I'm mostly on Vista, admittedly -- but it's for gaming and I love my games
Me personally? I'll be waiting for the next generation iPhone to be released before I make a choice in buying anything. My iPod works fine and I enjoy the 3G speed of my Samsung Blackjack. And hopefully by then, Microsoft has made an answering shot to the iPhone and I'll have the ability to choose the device suited best for me. Slow, deliberate choices are the ones I make after taking time to think about it. If I see another moron carrying the iPhone and using it in a way just to show it off, I am going to smack them.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
On the one hand it's nice to have iPhone professionals replace the battery, rather than risk some backstreet operation with few guarantees that the thing will come back in good working order. On the other hand, why oh why did Apple make this choice in the first place? For someone who travels a lot not having the option to swap in a fresh battery could be a deal killer... especially as airline security now prohibits soldering irons in hand baggage. As someone who is looking for a new phone I'm finding that the iPhone is pretty much perfect - especially if they add in GPS when it comes to the UK. I really can't find anything better. But not being able to swap the battery will probably push me away.
To what Apple answers: Please speak louder. My cash register is making a lot of noise because of all the iPhone I'm selling...
C'mon...the iPhone is a luxury item in the cell phone market. So, here's my daily bad car analogy: if you can't afford to put the right tires on your Porche, maybe you shouldn't have bought a Porche.
I mean, what's next, complaining to Ferrari because they don't advertise the cost of maintenance?
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
It's called obsolescent built in. Apple, just like some other companies, want people to constantly replace their purchases with new super-duper models, and dump the old one in the trash. Even though the old one can be given a new lease of life for a second or third user on a budget. Apple and their locked hardware are the same as closed source vendors like MS. There's nowt that can be done about, and they don't care about users popping out batteries.
Maybe they want to be like vehicle manufacturers and make a nice sum from the after sales service?
Nice cognitive dissonance. I expect the next version will feature poisoned barbs that spring out if you try to open it, so that the battery replacement cost will seem even more reasonable.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
People still think of it as a phone. People are shocked at $40 phone battery prices. Why are you shocked that people are shocked? People think of batteries as easily replaced like the rest of their batteries. Would you be shocked if you bought a TV remote and the battery was $40?
The fact that it's soldered into the device and that it's so expensive isn't surprising to you or me because we visit Slashdot and other sites that reported the iPod battery fiasco. We knew this was coming. Millions of phone buyers did not see this coming.
*pulls the battery out of his macbook and throws it at the OP*
Wow, I figured you were way off with the desolder comment, then I looked up the dissection photos and sure enough they were stupid enough to solder the battery in! WTF were they thinking? Anyone who's owned a phone for more than a year knows you will eventually have to replace the battery, and with the drain that these things go through it's even more certain. Why they didn't use edge contacts like everyone else in the industry I can't even fathom.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Seriously though, I think it's fairly likely that Apple seal their batteries in and slap a high price tag on replacements to encourage people to buy a new model rather than maintain their otherwise functioning device. It's quite cynical really.
If it had no limitations, it *would* fit in my pocket :)
Greed could just as easily push them in the other direction, "We can sell swappable batteries, and then maybe we can sell multiple batteries to each customer. Then, we can re-engineer the iPhone for the next version to use different batteries, so that customers will need to buy new batteries if they get a new iPhone!" That's the sort of scheming most electronics manufacturers would pull.
My guess is that the choice really isn't nefarious at all, but rather a simple design choice. Apple wants people to perceive these things as an atom, an unbreakable unit, a single thing, and not a collection of parts. Therefore they aren't really interested in giving their customers easy access to the innards, and so making the battery easily swappable is just another unnecessary challenge. The iPhone is already packed into a mighty small case, and in order to design it so the battery is right in an accessible place, you might need to shuffle things around. Additionally, you'll need to add a layer of plastic between the battery and the innards so that taking the battery out doesn't expose all the innards. Then you have to figure out how to make it easy to swap batteries without having the batteries pop out on their own.
I'm not saying that it's a challenge that is insurmountable or even hugely difficult for Apple, but it puts more design restrictions on an already hard-to-design unit. If Apple can make the whole unit slightly smaller, slightly more durable, slightly prettier, or slightly more powerful by dropping this restriction for a swappable battery, I think it's a pretty decent trade-off.
And given that it usually takes a couple years or more to for batteries to really die, I doubt Apple is relying on dead batteries to sell more iPhones. Or are you really imagining that the iPhone won't be enough better in 3 years that the upgrade will sell itself?
It's from Apple. When the battery wears out that's your cue to buy the new model.
I really think that it's absurd that Apple chose to make the battery non-user-replaceable. I mean, there's a reason every phone in the history of cell phones has let you replace the battery yourself, it just makes sense. If this is the "revolution" iPhone fanatics have been talking about, count me out.
Here's a suggestion for the complainers : if you believe $87 is terribly overpriced
I think $87 is expensive compared to other battery replacement costs. Who cares if the cost is actual labor and not profit?
The point is Apple doesn't really care about maintenance costs, or maintenance inconvenience. They care about aesthetics. People are pissed off because apples value of aesthetics causes usability problems. Who wants to send in a phone just to replace something as trivial as a battery, which is a component guaranteed to wear out?
I think these concerns are certainly valid, but it doesn't affect me as I'll never buy an overpriced phone with a 2 year expensive plan attached to it anyway.
AccountKiller
When it comes to cell phone batteries, this really isn't all that bad costwise, sure having to send it away sucks, but it cost me just as much for a new battery for my Nokia phone, and I had to put it in myself. It's not like it's just a couple of AAA NiCD batteries in the phones..
I can think of rational reasons that the iPhone is not a good corporate phone, e.g., it needs integration with Exchange. But it won't put Powerpoint on the screen?? I'm sorry, any corporate drone that tried to show me a Powerpoint presentation on a phone would get kicked out of my office.
1. It's not stupid if there's a good reason for it.
2. A standard Razr has a thickness of about 16mm and it doesn't have even half the features or power requirements of the iPhone. The iPhone is only 11.5mm thick and is capable of 10 days of standby time, 24 hours of music playback, 8 hours of talk time, 7 hours of video playback, or 6 hours of web browsing. That's amazingly good for a phone that's only 72% of the thickness of a Razr. The only phone with a somewhat comparable size and feature set is the Slvr, which has terrible battery life.
In short, Apple is fitting that extra battery space in the phone by using simple soldered wires rather than wasting space on a proper battery compartment. Seeing as how the battery is connected by just a couple of wires (it's not like it's surface mounted or anything!) it's quite easy for a professional to replace. So maybe Apple isn't quite as "stupid" as you're making them out to be?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Of course, you could have an HTC Wizard (T-Mobile MDA) that has all of the functions the iPhone does plus soon-to-come (sometime this summer) free calls over WIFI hotspots (and a free WIFI router for your home for signing up) for the same $500, and the replacement batteries aren't soldered in and are only $50.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
High end users typically have high end phones with crappy batteries. Therefore they need to swap batteries/charge batteries frequently. Apple's claiming 8 hours of talk time. Are there people who will go beyond that? Sure. I'll go out on a limb here and say that most people won't.
Could this be because the manufacturer included a crappy battery to begin with? Forcing people to pay more for a bigger battery later? Na, that couldn't possibly be it.
I've owned two other smart phones with outstanding battery life with the included manufacturers battery. A Sony P800 and a Nokia e61. I've never needed to swap the battery on either phone. I've never needed to purchase a spare battery for either phone. And yes there are times when I've been on conference calls 6+ hours a day. End user swap-ability is only required if your device is a power hog and your battery capacity is too small.
I'd say Apple did their homework. They figured that carrying around spare batteries and chargers all the time was not consumer friendly and decided to build a device that easily goes all day.
I'm sure we'll hear first hand fairly quickly if they've succeeded or not, but so far battery life reports have been pretty spot on with what Apple said they would be.
"The avalanch has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote." -Kosh
From http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html, on the bottom of the page:
h tml
"Rechargeable batteries have a limited number of charge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information."
You can then get to this link from the batteries page:http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.
"iPhone Owners. Your one-year warranty includes replacement coverage for a defective battery. You can extend your coverage to two years from the date of your iPhone purchase with the AppleCare Protection Plan for iPhone, which is expected to be available in summer 2007. During the plan's coverage period, Apple will replace the battery if it drops below 50% of its original capacity. If it is out of warranty, Apple offers a battery replacement for $79, plus $6.95 shipping, subject to local tax. Apple disposes of your battery in an environmentally friendly manner."
Do I agree with the policy? No, as I wish I could replace the battery myself. But, it is stated there on the website, even if its buried. If you google "Apple Battery Replacement", the official Apple iPhone battery page comes up ranked seventh.
Did anyone expect otherwise? Honestly, if battery replacement is important in regards to your purchase, you should research it online or ask at the store. But I don't think most people care. If you get AppleCare on the phone (2 Year Warranty), if your battery dies you get a free replacement if it goes below 50% charge. Every other Apple iPod based product has the same policy, and, the iPhone is much more iPod than it is MacBook Pro.
That being said, I understand if someone new to Apple products was upset, since, the majority of mobile phones allow the battery to be replace by the owner. However, with the large amount of iPod users out there, I doubt most will be shocked to find that the battery can't be replaced.
I got my truck a few years back, and after driving it around off road and such, its time to replace the shocks. Every car owner knows that the shocks will have to be replaced eventually, and that some people like to replace theirs before going off roading and again when done, and that driving off road over bigger bumps and hauling heavy stuff wears them out faster, but the brand I bought decided to use special nuts that hold the shocks on tighter, so now Im going to have to go to a service center authorized by the manufacturer to get them replaced at a cost of about 10% the original price of the truck! Why didnt they tell me that the shocks used special nuts before I bought it??!?!? How can they charge me so F'n much to keep using my truck that I already bought?!!? Why cant they just use normal nuts and bolts like everyone else?
BLAH!
1. Do you expect a manufacturer to sit down with you and list line by line everything they did thats "Different" from other manufacturers? Every part they soldered in instead of clipped? How the case is heat-welded instead of screwed together? How the antenna is integrated and cant be replaced and has no way to attach an external one to it without serious modifications? How the software it runs has certain lockouts in place that allow and prevent certain features as they see fit? I bet if you ask about certain qualities, like "how hard is it to change the battery" they will gladly tell you before you buy it. Its not like they are holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy their product. If you dont like the design, dont buy it! If you are concerned about battery life, ASK, and if you dont like the answer, DONT BUY IT!
2. Phone batteries, like shocks on vehicles, tend to last quite a long time these days, as technology has increased their performance to that point. I have actually had my truck for 5 years now without needing to change its shocks, and have had my current cell phone for even longer and am still on the original battery, which can still go a few days without a recharge (not quite the week and a half it did when I first got it, but still). 3. Actually, I would much rather they just soldered my phone's battery in place and have a solid case around the whole phone rather than deal with its tendency to fall off, since the release lever is in a place that your finger tends to hit when pulling the phone out of your pocket, its quite annoying and led me to actually glue over the release. The iPhone was designed with that in mind, instead of having access panels that can fall off, create seams and lines and stuff in the case, they made it sleek and seamless, and knowing the battery will last years before needing replacement, they soldered it in place. I would rather have it soldered than risk a connector coming separated inside there with no easy access to just re-connect it. To de-solder and re-solder the two tabs would take less than a minute if you have any soldering experience.
4. Shocks, like batteries, are not cheap to begin with. This goes even more so for higher-end parts, like the Li-Ion batteries in the iphone, or special heavy-duty off-road shocks on trucks. 10% of the original cost is about right for higher-end OEM shocks (hell, the shock on my mountain bike is well over 30% of the total cost of the bike, and its not the most expensive one out there), including labor and everything, and 15% sounds reasonable to me for the cost of the battery replacement on the iphone, considering they could have just said "F you all, we wont replace any batteries, so when it dies, its dead!".
5. The iPhone is a little different from everything else in the industry, and is the main reason so many people are buying it. Comparing it to a plain old cell-phone just doesnt work.
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Exactly, what makes the iPhone different?
They sacrificed ease of maintenance for battery life, size and robustness. It would have to be thicker to have these things and the same battery life. Contacts add resistance and heat build up. Doors that open increase device size and decrease case strength. They could have made things easier with screws, but even those would require a larger size.
I don't like the non standard battery size game that device makers play, but Apple is not special. They at least will support the device into the future, which will result in a lot fewer devices thrown out.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Why they didn't use edge contacts like everyone else in the industry I can't even fathom.
The reason is simple really, there isn't enough space inside that 'ultra slim' case to accommodate edge contacts that will stay in contact with the phone through all of the bumps, drops, and assorted user abuses. The only way to ensure that the battery contacts never lose contact, causing the power to cycle at seemingly random times, is to solder the battery directly to those contacts. Apple was apparently not willing to sacrifice even a couple of millimeters of extra thickness in order to accommodate a battery connector with wires. They did the same thing with their iPod nano. There appears to be an 'utlra-slim' fetish in the marketplace, but how many people would be willing to sacrifice a few millimeters of slimness for a more user-friendly battery replacement option? Probably more than just a few.
I can't remember exactly how much the extra battery for my windows mobile phone was, but I think it was around $70 or $80, too. The new LiPo batteries aren't cheap. Its not just Apple.
I'm more curious how long before the battery will need replacement. I know the battery in my phone doesn't last nearly as long as it did 6 months ago. I can go maybe 6-8 hours on it now, whereas the very first charge lasted a few days. I wonder if the iPhone battery will degrade similarly.
blog
If you are going to carry a spare battery for your phone in your pocket then you have to buy such a battery. That adds to the cost of the phone you are carrying right now. You also have to have a means to charge that battery. A lot of people would use a cradle that can charge the battery sans phone. In any case they already paid the ~$49 OEM price or less for a cheapy chinese knockoff with exagerated specs.
Now with the Iphone, you have a battery with twice the capacity of the competing smart-phone batteries. Actually if you consider what the phone is actually powering--a fast processor, wifi, and big screen--the battery is likely even larger than twice the capacity. So it's not a cheap battery.
When it dies some day replacing it would be, the equivalent of replacing two of the half-capacity interchangable batteries on your smart phone.
For that $79 seems like a very fair price. In the mean time you have not been hauling around another battery in your pocket and having to fret about keeping it charged.
people are whiners.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This seems like sour grapes for what I have found to be a great product so far. The iPod batteries going all the way back to the first generation are not truly a user replaceable item. You have to spend forty bucks to get OWC to do it. Why such shock and outrage about the iPhone battery!?!
If you looked at the pictures and watched the video Apple released prior to the 29th, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the iPhone is not meant to be pulled apart.
Instead of waiting in line like a tool for four days, people complaining about battery life could have waited two days after release (like I did), futzed around with one before you bought it, and EASILY figured out the battery is not a user replaceable item.
Let's get real... the iPhone is a do-everything device in a form factor nobody expected to be as small as it is. You have to give up something somewhere... in this case, it is the battery... suck it up.
The wires are laid horizontally, and can weave through a space above and to the side of the mainboard too small to solder a proper battery interface onto. I'm not sure what you mean by a secondary capture mechanism. The battery appears to be loose and is held in place by the casing and components surrounding it. Thus Apple saved a lot of space on having no battery compartment, allowing them to use a larger battery. (Looking at the disassembly photos, I'd guess that the battery is taking up as much as 50% of the iPhone's internal spaces.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
About two weeks ago, my 11-month old son found my wife's cel phone, managed to knock off the battery cover, and crawl around playing with it. It took us a week to find it, and in that week, her phone was unstable because the batteries would pop out. Another time with another phone, I dropped it and the cover cracked... used masking tape for a bit, and realized that it was time for a new phone anyway. Number of cel phones where we lost the battery cover in the past 5 years, 2.
The last time I replaced the battery on my phone was my Samsung i330 where I bought the extra-length battery for around $50 to last longer, and it's battery time remained shorter than the iPhone. This was back in 2002 or 2003. Number of batteries I've replaced in the past 5 years, 1.
So given the choice between non-user accessible battery covers, or a slightly more expensive battery replacement in the unlikely event that I need to replace the battery, I think that Apple made the right call.
If you bought an iPhone without being familiar with Apple, and without doing preliminary research, and can't accept this battery replacement policy, you need to understand something: it's entirely your fault. No one forced you to buy the iPhone. Anyone that plops down $670 for a product without doing preliminary research on the company deserves what they get.
For instance, searching for "apple battery life" on google, gives this as the first non-apple result: iPod and iPhone Battery FAQ. This site was updated with information the day of the launch of the iPhone.
Personally, my iPhone keeps on growing on me every day. I feel that it's going to just get better over time. If I hadn't bought one, I would definitely get one of the 2nd gens and I may upgrade to that anyway, and sell my used one on ebay or give it to my sister.
Yeah... and I had to order a very overpriced (and underpowered) replacement power supply for a dead one in an HP Pavilion, on several occasions... and a proprietary Gateway power supply in one of their slim form-factor PCs, and one in an eMachines tower once..... Oh and don't forget the Dells that had what LOOKED like a standard ATX power supply, except with power leads swapped so the motherboard got fried when you used a regular ATX power supply in place of the original. Had one of those too.....
It's funny how "vendor lock-in" is used as though it's a unique reason to avoid Apple products, yet I see examples of it rampant with ALL the major PC vendors.
Truthfully, Apple's replacement battery program for the iPhone doesn't strike me as all that unreasonable. The battery in my Moto Razr v3c wore out after about 8 or 9 months of use, and a good replacement for it cost me over $50 at a local cellphone store. So for an iPhone, I might get a few months more use out of their battery than the really slim and relatively low-capacity Razr batteries, and will have to pay about $29 more than I paid for the Razr's replacement? Big whoop.... Yeah, I know. I have to *send it in* for repair. But Apple should give you a postage-paid mailer for this if it's like everything else they do. So the mail-back part should be pretty easy and painless... and a 1-2 day turn-around? I think we can probably live without a cellphone for 24-48 hours, can't we? If not, then pay the $29 for the loaner iPhone. The total isn't much more than you pay in a month just for the service, right?
Deep-cycling is a killer for all battery chemistries. One of my friends used to deep-cycle his cordless phone and his batteries lasted only about a year each. I convinced him to try putting his phone on the base station each night with his new battery and it is still going strong after more than three years of service. Me, I leave my cell phones plugged in whenever I am home and my NiMH batteries lasted at least three years each while my current Li-ion one is nearly four years old and still going strong.
From all the stuff I read about different battery technologies, keeping cells fully charged whenever possible (without overcharging) is the best way of maximizing a battery's useful lifespan... and it seems this is even more important/effective with lithium batteries.
No, the problem is that almost all cellphones on the market now have user replaceable batteries. That has been the expectation for the average user for at least the past decade. Now along comes the iPhone without an easily user replaceable battery. That's why people who bought it are pissed.
*pulls the battery out of his macbook and throws it at the OP*
Where it *EXPLODES*, killing everyone in the room...
(Or was that the Sony batteries?)
Well the price is cheap for the work that needs to be done.... BUT my Samsung Sync I just Press the ridges on the back. To take off the case grasp the battary and lift. Then I can take the replacement battary (costing guestimate $25-$40) and place it right in there then tack the case and slide it right back in. I am an Apple fan myself. But sometimes it seems that Apple goes a bit far in making their device beuitful. It seems that Jobs hates those ridge lines in the case for iPods and iPhones (I bet he hates them on the laptops too but a lot of people change batterys multible times a day). Just like how he hated Fans on the Apple ]I[ and the G4 Cube. Apple sometimes goes a bit far and offers a major functionality drawback for a marginal gain in user interface.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What's a much bigger deal (to me) is that I can't swap a battery in an emergency... I travel a great deal for work, and there have been occassions where unable to get to a power outlet to recharge.
Since hurricane Katrina, I've kept a spare battery in my overnight bag, as I was stuck in Florida without power and a nearly dead phone. Those times are the ones I depend on my cellphone the most, trying to call my airline (flight canceled, can I rebook?), friends and family (is everyone alright?), rent-a-car companies (can I drive to Jacksonville and get a flight outta there?) all in a small window of time. Not being able to swap in a fresh battery is a major CON for me, and maybe a few more nerds like me.
FWIW - my LG VX9800 plays mp3s, and I purchased spare batteries on eBay for $15 each.
I didn't say that a soldered battery was the best choice, just that it wasn't necessarily a bad choice. I'd also wager you wouldn't enjoy an MP3 player that required 6 AA batteries to run for more than a couple of minutes.
I'd also recommend you check out some of the older handheld VHF radios if you think a two piece iPhone would be a good option. They're rugged, but certainly not user friendly. Granted some of that would be less of a problem with the smaller batteries we have these days, but my point was, there's no need for it, when the market they are trying to reach doesn't give a damn either way.
Would more people be happy if they could change the battery easily? Absolutely. Should Apple try and reach that market? Questionable. If you can change the battery easily, that means someone will produce lower quality after-market batteries. Odds are, Apple would have to eat the cost of any problems caused by those batteries should the phone still be under warranty when said problems occur. This way, Apple reduces their support costs and (my guess is) >90% of their demographic is happy with the final product. Why risk higher cost for a few % of people to be more happy with a product that they essentially like already?
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Get one of those USB battery things and charge the phone off of that. Not exactly difficult, is it? Besides, you'll have to constantly keep swapping batteries to keep that spare from dying.
But hey, I like a phone I can throw around, so I use those $10 prepaid phones and not worry about damaging it.
Well needing your phone to be running is that important to you, it'd be stupid to buy a 1st gen iPhone. A failed battery is only going to be one of many problems that could occur on the road.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
Putting aside for a moment that the edge connecters I've seen are too small to fit in the space provided, what would hold it in contact with the battery at all times? The battery is not secured, so the possibility exists that it could come loose. And since the iPhone is a sealed unit (more or less) you'd need professional repair every time it was loosened.
To prevent that issue, you would need a battery compartment. A battery compartment takes up space and adds expense and complexity to the manufacture. (Not to mention additional heat issues that are not as pressing with a loose battery.) Without a compartment to secure the battery, you get a few more millimeters of battery space here and there. Which can potentially add anywhere from minutes to hours to the battery's life.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
You are correct - see here, it's a battery and the charge controller is on the board. I use similar but smaller Panasonic cells in my hardware, so I definitely know that it's my duty to charge them properly (+3.200V over certain resistor and a diode, etc. etc.)
I seem to remember that LiIon batteries are designed with four levels of safety features. The fourth one is called "Vent With Flame", which does just what the name suggests - and that's a safety feature, to prevent something really bad from happening!
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
If it is this critical to you, why didn't you check it before you purchased the phone? First thing I do when I buy a new phone is open it up and make sure I can service the battery, especially as I get into using more complex 'smart phones' that have higher consumption rates. If I can't replace it, it doesn't meet my needs, so I don't purchase it.