iPhones have had user replaceable batteries for at least 5 years now. Alternatively you can pay about $45 for a third party repair center to do the swap, or you can pay $90 to have it done at an Apple Store. That’s extremely affordable when you’re talking about a $700+ phone. Maybe it’s much more of an issue in the Android phone space, but the only manufacturer directly named in the article was Apple.
And besides, the main reason people value water resistance, is because if you do drop your phone in a lake, you can’t have it affordably repaired, so people pay a premium for phones that are resistant to being damaged in the first place.
I pay a premium for phones that are resistant to being damaged because of the inconvenience of dealing with a damaged phone, regardless of repair cost. Even if I paid for AppleCare, I’m fucked if I drop my phone in the toilet while on work travel in Japan. Yeah, there are Apple stores in Tokyo, but I definitely used my phone as a crutch to navigate the Tokyo metro rail system. If it happened somewhere else, like Nagasaki or Sasebo I’d be double fucked without translation or navigation. Even if I’m just on vacation in a country where I speak the language and know where things are, now I have to stop my travel plans to get a phone fixed, even if the fix is completely free. I’d rather have a device that doesn’t lead to the loss of my personal time over an issue that could have been engineered away, but wasn’t because of some well intentioned but short-sighted legislation, especially when I can already do the thing the legislation is trying to enable me to do.
iPhones have had user replaceable batteries for at least 5 years now. Alternatively you can pay about $45 for a third party repair center to do the swap, or you can pay $90 to have it done at an Apple Store. That’s extremely affordable when you’re talking about a $700+ phone. Maybe it’s much more of an issue in the Android phone space, but the only manufacturer directly named in the article was Apple.
I pay a premium for phones that are resistant to being damaged because of the inconvenience of dealing with a damaged phone, regardless of repair cost. Even if I paid for AppleCare, I’m fucked if I drop my phone in the toilet while on work travel in Japan. Yeah, there are Apple stores in Tokyo, but I definitely used my phone as a crutch to navigate the Tokyo metro rail system. If it happened somewhere else, like Nagasaki or Sasebo I’d be double fucked without translation or navigation. Even if I’m just on vacation in a country where I speak the language and know where things are, now I have to stop my travel plans to get a phone fixed, even if the fix is completely free. I’d rather have a device that doesn’t lead to the loss of my personal time over an issue that could have been engineered away, but wasn’t because of some well intentioned but short-sighted legislation, especially when I can already do the thing the legislation is trying to enable me to do.