It must be nice to have leaders that actually do useful things.
For every good thing they do 2 bad things come next. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Curiously as someone who only usually sees the greener side. As a US Citizen, what EU laws would I be shocked to see?
Well… I can cite a few laws. First, the part that protect DRM, second, the law that require search engines to make contract to quote article, third, the interest in policing private communication, and last, a project that isn’t really advanced to infringe net neutrality.
I doubt a US citizen will be shocked about them. But they are likely to dislike them.
(but I tend to see the greener side of “for 1 bad things, 2 good things come next”)
There’s currently a law in the pipeline that would scan all conversations, videos and images sent over social networks as well as chat apps like Whatsapp for illegal material. It would also include backdoors in encryption technologies and possibly banning any services that don’t comply with the scanning, e.g. Signal. Love the EU in principle, but unfortunately it’s often used by national governments to push things like increased surveillance.
Now require manufacturers to provide like 5 years of OS updates so devices aren’t insecure bricks once you get updates.
OR disallow banking apps from blocking custom ROMs/root, so you can just install your own updates ROM without losing updates.
Already a EU regulation.
Huh? Which part?
Five years OS upgrades. I was mistaken though it’s not law yet, just a finished commission proposal, scroll down to the end and look at the annex.
Oh wait that’s actually the same thing that’s promising replaceable batteries.
Oh shit, amazing!
Yes! mandatory usb C and replaceable battery, and i’d like the 3mm headphonr jack to also be a standard 😁
Me too, but that one might be dead for good.
Not for any technical reason afaik. My LG G7 is plenty modern and has a 3.5mm jack. It also has Bluetooth, so it’s not like it’s an either/or choice. It’s just the manufacturers dictating what choices consumers have.
No, it’s easy as shit to smack a little audio DAC in there. It probably means your phone has to be at least as thick as the whole port, but so what? It’s a fashion statement to move to pure wireless really.
I don’t hear about it so much anymore, though, so it seems it was accepted.
Out of the phone vendor fuckery with the connector, battery, micro SD, and headphone 3.5mm, the headphones were always the biggest thing.
Bring it back please EU hear my prayers. Right now I’m listening to music on my iPhone with a half broken dongle that pauses if I jiggle it wrong.
The fucking audacity to remove a quintessential port is typical Apple. Was the same with DVDs, Ethernet, now even USB. Next thing I know there’ll be no more ports, you’ll have to wirelessly (and inefficiently) charge your phone even if you like it or not
I had the battery for my OnePlus 6T replaced, extending the phone lifetime for probably 2 years. It cost me about $100.
Forcing manufacturers to make batteries easily replaceable by the user without special tools and skills seems like it could make phones less lightweight and less waterproof. I would be fine if they just require manufactures to make it available as a reasonably priced service.
Good!
I used to have a phone with a replaceable battery and it was awesome. I would charge the other battery while using the phone all day, carefree. When it was about to die, I’d swap out the battery. It was basically like I had an instant charge of 100% on my phone. Those were good days.
And you used to be able to buy super battery packs too. You could get a pack that would power your phone for days.
Any battery is replaceable if you pry it hard enough
Every component is replaceable ~by buying a new iPhone~
-Apple
Now let’s hope that the batteries aren’t provided in overpriced proprietary formats with a software lock attached to them like Apple’s iPhone screens.
I like replaceable batteries but there is no doubt that the simplified unibody designs have other benefits besides the planned obsolescence companies seek. Battery life or thickeness will certainly take a hit. I feel like having some form of incentives for more repairable phones would work better to bring better, more renuable options without blockingotherr designs
We heard the same things from the laptop industry. But framework proved you can make laptop that’s modular and still thin. And battery density keeps improving so even if it adds 2mm it’ll catch up in a generation or two.
Battery life or thickeness will certainly take a hit.
Modern phones tend to have a big bulge for the camera, so the rest of the phone can be thickened easily without impacting the maximum thickness.
this is true, but usually my hand isn’t gripping the camera bump. A theoretical thicker phone would feel materially different to hold than an even bigger camera bump
I’m fine with internal batteries, but please use some form of standard cell size and connector.
The EU already standarized chargers IIRC.
Yeah, even Apple have to comply
Great news! No point in 5 or 6 years of software updates when the battery gives out after 3 years.
I’ve replaced some “non replaceable” batteries in phones before… Only to find that after about 5 years of medium use the flash storage goes to shit (which causes massive slow downs), the chips begin to desolder themselves, the USB port gets janky and stops charging, etc.
Batteries are a great first step, but damn these $1000+ devices just are not built to last more than 3 years
Yeah, that’s the problem with these things: they’re wasting assets. If you want maximum longevity on your phone, not only do you need replaceable batteries but to purchase the absolute maximum storage so you can benefit from wear leveling on the flash. And even then, it will still slowly degrade over time.
Google tried to build a modular phone and ended up cancelling the project in part because these systems are essentially an SOC surrounded by support hardware. Still, I’d buy a modular phone or at least one that allowed swappable batteries because Android phones are still a beast on battery thanks to all the background services and large, power hungry screens.
Yes I’m thinking next time around to go for a good mid-range. Considering the time that phones actually last, it’s too much to pay for flagship phones.
Not too mention what even is the point of getting a flagship?
The cameras are great on most phones, the specs are good enough for most people’s use case (call, text, social media).
Hell the last few years the consistently best rated phone camera by users has been the Pixel A series of phones. The budget Pixel phones.
The only reason I got my flagship Sony Xperia is because it still had a headphone jack, sd slot, and no notch. It was expensive but everything I wanted. Last phone was an iPhone 6s. I wish there was cheaper options honestly for what I’m looking for but those 3 combinations don’t seem to exist other than Sony.
I feel you on that
I miss the days of sd slots, headphone jacks, and removable batteries.
Phone cameras are pretty good now though and the Xperia has a damn good one
Which makes sense since they were expecting the batteries to poop out earlier
Honestly, they are pretty damn stressed devices though.
If you think about it, they are on 24/7, with active usage at least 4-6 hours a day, exposed to god knows what humidity, unknown low and high temps, dropped every x days. It’s a modern technological miracle that they last as long as they do. Lots of read and writes with photo and video backups.
My 5 year old X died a month back (flash memory failed), I was actually impressed that it lasted that long.
Very true. Amazing technology we take for granted
Good. With this, my next phone might also last 6 years, as my last one did. I’m not so confident with my current phone, as it’s exactly one of these glued shut types where replacing the battery is extremely difficult.
Wouldn’t this affect water resistance? One argument for “sealed” devices is better protection against water/dust/debris.
I’m all for allowing easier replacements and repairs for the consumer (No reason a device should be unusable after a few years due to a battery), but I can see this issue being brought up.
Th Galaxy S5 and the Active versions before it were waterproof and had a removable back to get to the replaceable battery pack.
As an added bonus, the back had a rough, soft plastic surface so you could actually hold onto it without a case.
It was early in wireless charging, but the back could be replaced with one that haf the charging coil.
This is why I got a Fairphone. I was done complaining about the direction of the mobile market and decided to buy a phone which lets me do all of this and has longer support for software and hardware. It’s the best phone I’ve had since the S3.
It only works for me because I like Android, live in Europe and have big enough pockets, though… the thing is a brick.
I though about getting a Fairphone but it really didn’t work for me due to the missing headphone jack.
I’ve got on okay without it but I already had Bluetooth headphones. It was understandably a pretty unpopular move.
I kind of questioned it from their “sustainability” ethos, too. It means more people might throw away working wired earphones and buy much more complicated, expensive Bluetooth ones… which use more resources to make.
Big enough financial pockets, or trouser pockets? :-). One reason I am discouraged from getting a fairphone phone is that I like smaller mobile phone screens.
Haha, trouser pockets! I thought it might come across that way, but that would be a flagship Samsung.
It’s one of the biggest phones I’ve owned and I sometimes wish it were smaller.
longer support for software and hardware
Not to rain on your parade (I love the idea of the Fairphone!), but that’s actually a bit of misadvertising on Fairphone’s part — the SoCs they use are very outdated and near the end of their vender firmware and driver support, meaning they get maybe 2 years of the full support you’d expect when you say a manufacturer “supports” something, and then however many more years of hobbled support. Additionally, they’re just really bad about security.
You’ve got me down a rabbit hole now.
Shorter than expected SoC support is one thing, but the hardware root of trust trusting AOSP test keys which was also stated by GrapheneOS is something else. That’s a total amateurish blunder and the only reason it’s not a complete disaster is you need to boot into EDL mode first to actually flash a recovery. The verified boot is practically useless.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I’m not purchasing another phone from them. Unfortunate, because I liked the removable battery and seemingly long support. Back to the drawing board.
Yeah when I found out about the Fairphone originally I was extremely excited and really wanted one for my next phone, but I use GrapheneOS my pixel right now so I figure I just check why it doesn’t support it and sure enough I found this stuff :(
Thanks for the info. From the perspective of GrapheneOS, verified boot for custom firmware is going to be one of the most important aspects and that wasn’t something I expected from the device. It would be a nice-to-have for longevity as running an unlocked bootloader is an awful idea. The lack of a secure element also won’t help the case. I was aware that “support” might mean “only security patches past two years” which is acceptable to me.
However, I can see your point about fixes from SoC manufacturers as that is a crucial part of these updates. I was aware that the SoC was older but only really thought about performance impacts. In that case, the device will only receive Android platform and kernel fixes?
Maybe I’ll have to think about switching to something else after that point, then. I spent about as much as I wanted to on a phone and it will only be unfortunate that I didn’t get more years out of it. I’ve already been slightly concerned that they’re steering away from their “mission” and selling ordinary earbuds which are unsustainable by their own standards.
I got the king Kong Mini 2. The opposite of a brick (it’s tiny), probably US compatible, and the back literally has screws on it for when you need to change the battery/sim. Also £80
Man I wish the Fairphone had a US version. I totally would have bought one.
Look into the king Kong Mini.
The EU has been good at holding phone manufacturers to account on this kind of thing, glad it’s gone through. I’ve had at least two phones die on me through the battery breaking, it shouldn’t be cheaper to just buy a new phone than get the battery replaced. So much waste.
Hoping us UK folk will see the benefit of this as I imagine it’s less effort to just bring the change about across the board than to be specific about geography.
It will come into effect in the UK also. Like it or lump it, the UK is forced to follow the EU market design. As for legislation being applied in favour of the public interest, I would not count on that until we remove the current government. At most they have 18 months left before an election has to be held.
