Definitely a huge deal. I'd be curious to see who's first to market with a new design that includes a replaceable battery.
Well.... The way I read the text of the mandate is that water resistant / IP rated devices are excluded from that mandate...
So if they just make the iPhone IP67 (they are already IP68 which is more stringent) rated and survivable with 1000 charges at 80% capacity, they don't have to make it removable. That is almost certainly the path they will take.
So don't believe everything you read on the internet at face value...
Maintaining 80% after 1000 charges sounds difficult… or impossible.
Impossible. Both on life alone and charge cycles, the performance will degrage in 3-5 years (or less if a lot of high-speed to 100% charge cycles are used. Consumer replaceable batteries make sense; however, the packing will increase phone weight, size, manufacturing cost, and battery time.
As an old-timer, we used to have a spare battery charger/pack and regularly carried the spare. Is this better than the current cycle? Maybe this is another regulation with unintended negative consequences.
That would really be stupid as there is no ties between having a phone IP67 rated or better and the fact that the battery can be changed. I believe there is/was phones that had both the IP rating and a user replaceable battery, so they should not make this distinction in there new mandate.
Apple ALREADY certifies >80% capacity after 1000 charges. TODAY on iPhone 15 and later.
Whether it can do it or not is arguable... But still.
Too late, that is the way it was written and approved.
LFE (LiFePO) Lithium Iron Phosphate after 10k charge cycles will still hold 80% of charge. My latest Ecoflow whole house stack has these batteries. Just installed the Delta Pro Ultra last month.
My iPhone 15 is down to 85% after 340 charges. Not gonna make it to 1000 charges.
To me, that indicates a problem. Perhaps Optimized Battery Charging is disabled?
FWIW, my iPhone is 89% after 600 cycles. The projection is ~82% after 1000 cycles.
Using smart charging. My wife just replaced the battery in her iPhone 15. Was down to 80% after 500 charges.
They're already on it.
The mandates were enacted in 2023 to be effective in 2027. I'm sure they've been on it for quite some time.
