Comment by twilo
1 day ago
If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt from this, which is exactly what Apple implemented a few years ago.
Low cost phones will be most affected.
1 day ago
If a battery can do 1000 cycles and remain above 80% capacity it is exempt from this, which is exactly what Apple implemented a few years ago.
Low cost phones will be most affected.
This is not correct. There is no exemption for Apple devices
You seem to referencing from a older exemption for self serviceability if your smartphone can do 1,000 cycles and retain 80% battery. Specifically - B 1.1 (1) (c) (ii) (b) . Here is the link - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
Article 11 of the new regulation (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...) covers exemptions but nothing to do with 1,000 cycles or Apple as far as i can see.
Your link says otherwise. From the Article 11 link, ANNEX II, A.1.1.(5):
(a) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for replacement of the display assembly and of parts referred to in point 1(a), with the exception of the battery or batteries, meets the following criteria: [...]
[...]
(c) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for battery replacement:
(i) meets the following criteria:
— fasteners shall be resupplied or reusable;
- the process for replacement shall be feasible with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools;
— the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out in a use environment;
— the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out by a layman.
(ii) or, as an alternative to point (i), ensure that:
— the process for battery replacement meets the criteria set out in (a);
— after 500 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 83 % of the rated capacity;
— the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles, and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;
— the device is at least dust tight and protected against immersion in water up to one meter depth for a minimum of 30 minutes.
---
So manufacturers must make the battery replaceable, or meet all the conditions from (a) for replacing non-battery components, and meet the 1000 cycle / 80% capacity requirement.
There is no Article 11 in the second link i mistakenly linked the same link twice . Here is the correct link https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1542/oj/eng
So if it weren't for that exemption, would iPhone batteries qualify? You can do it with regular tools and a YouTube tutorial, but it's not easy.
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> This is not correct. There is no exemption for Apple devices
It was not said that Apple was exempted. What was said is that Apple complied with the exemption rules.
It was not said explicitly but it was a straightforward implication. The replier then pointed out the exemption rule is outdated therefore the implied consequence is wrong and the original line of reasoning was misinformation, and thus would be the greater error. Humans
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> covers exemptions but nothing to do with 1,000 cycles or Apple as far as i can see.
It appears what you're looking for is in B(5)(c)(ii).
> (c) From 20 June 2025, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall ensure that the process for battery replacement:
> (i) meets the following criteria:
> — fasteners shall be resupplied or reusable;
> — the process for replacement shall be feasible with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools;
> — the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out in a use environment;
> — the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out by a layman.
> (ii) or, as an alternative to point (i), ensure that
> — the process for battery replacement meets the criteria set out in (a);
> — after 500 full charge cycles the battery must have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 83 % of the rated capacity;
> — the battery endurance in cycles achieves a minimum of 1 000 full charge cycles, and after 1 000 full charge cycles the battery must, in addition, have in a fully charged state, a remaining capacity of at least 80 % of the rated capacity;
> — the device is at least dust tight and protected against immersion in water up to one meter depth for a minimum of 30 minutes.
the mistake was in using the same link twice. It is the same URL. There is no Article 11 in the that link.
You and other poster could have just web searched and corrected me, Here is the the actual link https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1542/oj/eng
Jinx! Owe me a coke.
1 reply →
Cannot edit this now Here is the actual link to new regulations https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1542/oj/eng
P.S. I had posted same link twice.
> B 1.1 (1) (c) (ii) (b)
Written by the sub-sub-sub subcommittee…
Europe will fall to the Russians, if the Russians can ever find it under all the piles of disused regulations.
I was wondering about that. I lost my iPhone 13 mini the other day, did the find my phone beep thing and got a distant beep from my washing machine which was on wash cycle.
Surprisingly the phone was fine and works fine after a brief rinse under the tap. It must be hard to combine that sort of water resistance with easy user changing.
Don't fall for the 'glue cuz of protection' myth - there are and had been water-resistant phones way before Apple started glueing to avoid customers doing their own repairs and them losing out on new sales.
Which phones? I ask as someone that's had to replace multiple phones after a trip through the washing machine.
Modern phone water resistance is incredible. I've even seen people literally swim with their phones and not even question if it was a bad idea.
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I've seen rumors that Apple started waterproofing phones after Chinese criminal groups started farming parts on AppleCare by dumping the mainboard into buckets of Shenzhen seawater to deny electronic serial number readout. Your logic board can't be so dead from normal use that not even its PMIC respond to commands if it's waterproof.
I've also had iPhone dying from gasket leaks, the circumferential double sided tape seal dries out after a while.
Re the repairs, I can get the battery swapped on the 13 mini for £49 which isn't that bad. (iSmash, not Apple).
Also important to note that post is 1 datapoint. My "waterproof" phone fell in the bath for about 2 seconds and broke...
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And they weren't bulky tactical phones that looked like the smartphone equivalent of Humvees?
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Putting the battery outside the water insulation zone might work for that, it's a sealed pouch anyway.
Conformal coating is a little more expensive than gasketing, but it works much, much better under pressure. Motorola does this.
Third parties offer new iphone batteries so it's clearly replaceable commercially
This could be "fixed" right now by a software update that limits the maximum charge level to 80% of capacity. However, this comes at the cost of how many minutes of runtime your phone can operate.
So manufactures might just responds to this by making your phone heavier with a bigger battery that is being under utilized.
Honestly we should define 80% as the new "100%" on such batteries and label "charging to full" as "overcharging".
Psychologically, people understand charging a battery to "125%" (or whatever) a lot better: Do it when you really need to but if you do it all the time it wears down the battery a lot faster.
The Samsung phone I use these days has a "Protect Battery" mode that can be toggled (both manually and with automatic user-defined routines). It limits maximum charge to 85%. For those who want it: That's the ~same thing, without the psychological trick.
It also has some other settings that relate to smart charging that I don't fully understand (mostly because it's kind of inscrutable).
But the idea, AFAICT, is that it works with a person who charges their phone on a fairly regular schedule (they sleep at about the same time every night with plugged in all night).
The battery meanders up to 85% or something and holds there. Shortly before the person normally wakes up, it starts coming the rest of the way up to 100%. And then they wake up, unplug the phone, and it begins to discharge.
This helps to minimize the duration of being at a high state-of-charge, which is also a big factor in long-term battery longevity.
It's a tidy set of tradeoffs, I think.
Nice idea. I think the reason it's not communicated as such is that then companies would be expected to advertise time on battery when charged to 100%, not 125%.
Yes and yes.
I recently investigated large portable power banks (Jackery, etc.) and like that there are options to charge faster with a battery life tradeoff. Let people make their own informed choices.
This sounds great. I would've loved to have set my phone to charge up to only 60% or 80% of its design capacity to reduce wear. I do this on my laptop.
It has been on iPhones for quite some while, but on androids even longer. Before that it was in the form of some smart charging scheme that it would only finish charging until the moment it thought you would unplug it.
It makes a bit of a difference, but not dramatically: https://youtu.be/kLS5Cg_yNdM?t=3m26
In that experiment, it’s also unclear if the 30% lower limit or the 80% upper limit is more important. I suspect the former.
I charge my s25 to 80%. Previous phone (pixel) was also limited to 80%, but radio stopped working after 2 years so I had to buy a new phone.
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Battery capacity of smartphones seems to double every ~8 years. The design space is adding more battery capacity, reducing battery life, or using less power.
Samsung phones let you limit them to 80% charge. I've had this enabled since I got my current phone.
As do iPhones. I expect all flagship phones these days have the same ability.
On Pixels too.
And what about if 4 years they says that they have dettected a problem in your battery? A new battery should fix that but now you cannot do it properly because it could do 1000 cycles.
This same thing happened to Pixels 6a after 500 cycles.
Then don’t buy a phone from a company with a piss poor record of customer service.
Just looking in maps, there are three Apple Stores within a 45 minute drive from where I live in central Florida.
The situation is worse in my hometown in South GA admittedly, you have to drive 70 miles for same day service for an authorized repair place - mostly Best Buy.
> Then don’t buy a phone from a company with a piss poor record of customer service.
That is not an argument.
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Apple has now a great record of customer service?
The goal should be reducing e-waste, and honestly this seems reasonable.
I’d rather get the additional structural rigidity, compactness, and weatherproofing that comes from the tight construction and then pay $99 to have Apple professionally install a new battery for me in 3-4 years. Forcing everyone’s iPhone to take all of the tradeoffs of replaceable batteries so some people can save $50 to replace their own battery isn’t a good deal.
I wouldn’t be surprised if forcing all phones to have easily replaceable batteries would result in a net increase in e-waste due to the additional failure modes introduced. Even if batteries were easily replaceable I think most iPhone users would have Apple do it for them anyway.
I’ve also replaced some iPhone batteries myself and it’s really not that bad if you are familiar with taking modern electronics apart. Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.
> Forcing everyone’s iPhone to take all of the tradeoffs of replaceable batteries so some people can save $50 to replace their own battery isn’t a good deal.
This sounds like the exact opposite of real life. Every battery ages to the point of uselessness, not every phone gets to take a dive. It's not a stretch to say most phones never see more than some rain or a spilled drink. But the worst part of every discussion on this topic is this false (uninformed) dichotomy that water resistance and easily replaceable battery are mutually exclusive.
> and then pay $99 to have Apple professionally install a new battery for me in 3-4 years
In 3-4 years yes, but how about in 10-15 years? Apple will refuse to take your money then.
> Apple will send you the entire toolkit if you want complete with a return label.
Which is malicious compliance. They should allow the friendly neighborhood repair shop to purchase a toolkit so you can choose who does the repairs for you.
> Apple will refuse to take your money then.
They still offer battery service for iPhone 6.
> They should allow the friendly neighborhood repair shop to purchase a toolkit
They do. My friendly neighborhood repair shop a couple miles away has the same tools and parts Apple uses themselves at their Store.
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Apple offers replacement batteries for an 11 year old phone, now -- past performance is no guarantee but they're already way, way ahead of the pack and there's no sign they're going to stop repairing old phones.
Will we even have a compatible wireless standards in 15 years?
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Where did you see this? Can't see that in the article or a quick search on the rules PDF.
What if they don't? What if there are manufacturer errors? What if they burn your battery with updates along the way?
> What if there are manufacturer errors?
Typically that's subject to some sort of recall or remediation through a service centre?
I wonder if this is part of why Apple is behind most competitors in terms of fast charging. Would almost make marketing sense to come out and say it at this point.
Are they behind? AFAIK the Pixel and the iPhone both typically charge in the ~25W range but can support up to ~45W.
> Low cost phones will be most affected.
Not really. Take a 4000 mAh rated cell, advertise it as "rated for 3500 mAh" and that's it.
Isn't this pretty much what Nothing are doing? At least one of their phones has a different battery rating in India than elsewhere, despite containing the same hardware.
Isn't like most of the new phones claim at least 1000 cycles?
Funnily enough I've had a "low cost phone" with replaceable batteries (the "old school way")
So it does not seem a big deal
1000 cycles is barely 3 years, that's far too low a number
1 Cycle is discharging from 100-0 and charging from 0-100, regardless of how many times the phone is charged, so for a user that averages 50% battery drain each day, 1000 cycles would actually be ~6 years. I have no idea what the actual average is, but I'm betting that 1000 cycles is at least 4 years for the average user and possibly significantly longer.
Cycles to fixed capacity loss vs. depth of discharge is basically a straight line in a log-log plot. The advantage of shallower cycles is exponential.
Cycles are not days. My 7 month-old phone is currently sitting at 55 cycles. At that rate it would take me ~10 years to reach 1000 cycles.
It isn't quite that linear in practice but realistically it will still be at least 5+ years.
My phone is from December 2023, so 28 months and is at 842 cycles (and 85% max capacity). So, about 33 months at this rate.
6-7 years for me on the current phone, double on the previous one. 7 years is a good limit.
Wish they'd have implemented it before the iPhone 14 Pro launched. I'm at 624 cycles right now and my phone's gone below 80% fucking ages ago.
My battery’s at 70%, I could replace it for $50, but I consider it a feature to get me off my goddamn phone more.
> The regulation states that batteries must be removable using ‘commercially available’ tools
I’m pretty sure that’s more or less already the case, so…
Apple’s replacement program is $99 for out of warranty battery replacement
Not really. The "estimated cost" on Apple.com is 139€ to 199€ depending on which company I take it.
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Is 1000 cycles above 80% even possible without gimping the device like apple does with all its hardware?