Many people would be happy with a larger phone, if it meant you could access it a little easier to repair it — or replace the battery, which most people wouldn’t consider a “repair” — yourself.
"Many people would be happy with a larger phone, if it meant you could access it a little easier to repair it — or replace the battery, which most people wouldn’t consider a “repair” — yourself."
Apple did just that, and you're still not happy. They made the new iphones larger with a bigger battery. They now sell you the parts directly so you can repair it yourself.
They have made it as easy as they can to repair, while still having the device sealed and waterproof.
They literally have done what you are complaining about right now.
The HN crowd, sure, but the general population?
I don't think they consider repairability and battery replacement, let alone put it above the device "looking good".
I am pretty curious to know if this is true or not. The general HN or r/hardware crowds would be for sure, but I dont actually think the general public would find it a compelling "feature". Most people would probably buy the replacement battery directly from Apple anyway, and if theyre going to do that, I imagine most will just have them replace it too. Plus degradation is fairly minimal now imo, especially within the ~3 year span the average person keeps their phone. I think most people would just prefer to upgrade at that point.
Not to say I dont support user replaceable batteries (I think all phones should have them), I just dont think it actually matters at all to the average user.
Would it have to become a foot long clown phone to have a removable battery?
https://www.apple.com/iphone-13-pro/specs/
Also the new iphones are waterproof, your old phone was not.
There are ways to protect devices from water without making the whole things unserviceable.
What exactly is your complaint? That they are not as easy to service as your old flip phone? The modern iPhone has more computational power and technology packed into it than a full size desktop computer from 3 years ago. Modern phones are so much more than just a phone and will never be as easy to service as your old flip phone. No tech company will ever satisfy your complaint if that is what you truly desire.
As for waterproofing I have never in my entire life ruined a phone by dropping it into water. I would still prefer removable batteries. It is a good trade-off in my opinion.
I am willing to concede that my opinions might not reflect those of the general public.
Waterproofing is more important to me than a removable battery. Apple will replace the battery for $69 when it is time. And they will still be providing software updates for it in 6 years.
How much is a replacement battery for your non-waterproof phone? How long will it receive software updates? Will you buy a new one when they stop updating it?
I’m honestly curious… has this ever been proven? It’s decent -and common assertion/speculation.
But I’m curious if there has ever been a high level ex engineer, or court document, or something that just states clearly “yes, a primary/convincing motivation to move to internal batteries was because of increased lock in revenue”?
It's a design decision to use proprietary batteries that are difficult to change by consumers and can't be easily manufactured by third parties. Batteries aren't expensive enough to warrant that kind of service charge.