Well, if every manufacturer is doing it, there are probably good reasons for it. I doubt they've all gone mad at the same time.
Another interesting aspect in electronics is that things like memory can run faster if you solder it down -- connectors eat into your signal margin.
Just imagine the chaos if the technique that Apple and everyone else uses to marry the SOC and RAM is outlawed because it's less repairable than the way it used to be done?
I'm a fan of repairability, and low prices, high reliability, and high performance. It's not a one-dimensional problem.
Apple being the magnitude that it is now, cannot afford to make choices to attract folks like me with their 'reimagined' and 'breakthrough' innovations (?!).
This opens up an interesting segment for products that can afford to make design choices/offerings orthogonal to Apple.
Can you imagine a phone with 3000 mAh removable battery, an external memory card support for upto 128 Gb, a proper 3.5mm headphone jack and a proper rectangle screen capable of > 500ppi under 5 inches to fit your palm ? Let me sweeten the deal and price it at about $499 USD for this 'dated' tech.
Now, look around and tell me there isn't a market for this phone.
India manufacturers will be the next to look for, unless Apple changed gears.
> And the S6 doesn't have a removable battery, so what does that tell you about how Samsung felt about the engineering compromises they had to make with the S5 and all the rubber grommet-ing around its removable battery?
And I haven't bought a Samsung (or other mobile phone) since the S5, so what does that tell you about the quality of the recent mobile phone offerings?
So I think the new tech can be a pain in the ass for regular users to repair. Their authorized shops have all the tools to do so. I bet the unauthorized shops have all the same tools required too.
I always buy the max storage iPhone, and every time I fill up maybe a third of it - after years of use.
The vast majority of people really don't care about this.
Apple's solution is to go sync those gigs on Apple's cloud and keep paying a monthly fee for it.
No thanks.
I paid Apple for making choices for me and building products for my wants and needs. Now, its made for the 'vast majority'.
I know more people like me and I see a niche market emerging that I hope someone addresses.
It's like an extra $150. Stretched out over 24 monthly payments. Big whoop.
> Apple's solution is to go sync those gigs on Apple's cloud and keep paying a monthly fee for it.
This is exactly what I do. Totally worth it.
> You can't swap it and if the phone dies, you've probably lost everything or it's going to cost you dear to get that data out.
You can download and back up your cloud data onto physical drives. All of my photos and music are stored on multiple redundant drives. And because it's also on the cloud, when I get a new phone all of my data is available instantly. It's seamless.
> I know more people like me and I see a niche market emerging that I hope someone addresses.
I see commercials for Android phones with SD card slots, so it's already being addressed.
No. Why then? Lock-in, that's why.
Like someone else on this thread rightly said, Impracticality is the feature here and clearly intentional.
Apple may have gained customers like yourself. They sure have lost customers like me.
And to the best of my knowledge, the main reason wasn't lock-in or planned obsolescence: it was Steve Jobs' desire for as little as possible to get in the way of the aesthetic and design of the iPhone.
Sure, you may find that to be a dumb reason, but it's a far cry from the cartoon villain a lot of people seem to enjoy making Apple out to be, rubbing its hands together with a cackling laugh as it sits on its mountain of money. (...Well, the mountain of money part is true, actually.)
If you are willing to make it a bit thicker than current phones...about 10% thicker than the original iPhone, you could use 5 NiMH AA batteries [1].
3000 mAh is about what the iPhone XS Max has. If you can get by with around 1900 mAh (about what an iPhone 7 has) you could get that down to 3 AA batteries, or 7 AAAs.
For people who are already using a lot of AA and AAA rechargeable batteries, this gives them a phone that easily fits right in, and as a bonus in an emergency you can use non-rechargeable batteries that you can buy from any convenience store.
[1] 3000 mAh x 3.7 V = 11100 mWh. 11000 mWh / (2000 mAh x 1.1 V / NiMH AA) = 5 NiMH AA.
So, no. There is no market for this phone.
If no one is making the products you'd want them to make, it's probably because no one is buying them, after all.
Contacts/calendar/email can easily be synced to a new device and all the big utility apps are on both phone OSs.
With closing off everything they have more control and can cut out third party competition. It looks like they are successful with IBM's Micro Channel architecture strategy of the 80s.
User upgradeable, no planned obsolescence
Solid aluminum with regular screws—not screws designed to screw you and prevent user servicing, repairs or experimentation [0]
[0] https://puri.sm/learn/why-purism-computers-are-better-than-p...
Popularity is not strongly correlated with "sensible and good"