Regulations approved by the European Council now mandate that companies, including Apple, must ensure that batteries in the iPhone and other products are replaceable by users.
If you change phones every 2 years or less you should have no reason to replace the battery. A lot of people keep phones for much longer (students, retired, low income etc…) and suffer with bad battery life as their phones age. While Apple does replace batteries in store or by mail for a price a lot of people don’t want to deal with that. Also Apple stores are only in larger cities so for some it could mean driving a few hours each way.
Also even if someone swaps phones every 2 years without ever replacing the battery it matters. Unless that phone ends up wasting away in a drawer, it’ll go into the secondary market. An easily replaceable battery in that case should not only benefit the new owner (who get a longer lifespan out of the device), but also the seller, since the used device gains value through this feature.
If you change phones every 2 years or less you should have no reason to replace the battery. A lot of people keep phones for much longer (students, retired, low income etc…) and suffer with bad battery life as their phones age. While Apple does replace batteries in store or by mail for a price a lot of people don’t want to deal with that. Also Apple stores are only in larger cities so for some it could mean driving a few hours each way.
Also even if someone swaps phones every 2 years without ever replacing the battery it matters. Unless that phone ends up wasting away in a drawer, it’ll go into the secondary market. An easily replaceable battery in that case should not only benefit the new owner (who get a longer lifespan out of the device), but also the seller, since the used device gains value through this feature.
FWIW I’m not a student, retired or low income and I expect 5+ years from my phone, or I would had I not found out my phone’s bootloader is locked 🙄.