So what? That doesn’t prevent changing the batteries. I have done it myself, and Apple will do it too, as in fact do many third parties.

At minimum when a device opens up and swapping the battery takes 10 seconds near everyone does it themselves. As difficulty increases the propensity of users able to afford to do so trends towards zero. Imagine if a battery costs $200 and requires $100 in labor. If the cost at purchase is 400 and the value at end of warranty is $200 zero people will ever make use of this service and every device becomes trash after the battery wears out.

Artificially inflating cost of parts can trivially be used to enforce planned obsolescence.

> Artificially inflating cost of parts can trivially be used to enforce planned obsolescence.

It could, but nobody has presented any evidence that Apple is doing this, and their business strategy is openly stated to involve increasing the lifetime of their devices, so that they can deliver services to more users, so this is just innuendo.

> nobody has presented any evidence that Apple is doing this

Simply compare the cost of official Apple service and corrsponding third-party service.

That is not evidence of anything. There are many reasons that third party service is cheaper that have nothing to do with some conspiracy by Apple.

AFAIK the price difference is so huge that no reasonable explanation (except the "conspiracy", i.e., greed) is possible.

I’d be curious to see your statistics on the price differences. Do you have a link?

Here are some reasonable explanations for how third parties cut costs without resort to a conspiracy:

1. Less warranty on repairs.

2. Lower cost substitute parts.

3. Lower quality control,

4. Less training for staff.

5. Lower profit margins, leading to unsustainable businesses.