Does it have to be replaceable with no tools?

Ehm, by the end of 2027 or beginning? The closing date is currently 01.01.

@gigab0nus Fwiw I interpreted this as end of 2026/start of 2027 as the closing date suggests, but good to get clarification.

@Predictor any thoughts?

Does the law at all specify software locks on components? Like the stupid “non genuine battery non genuine screen” warnings.

Remember when this was possible without any tools at all?

@cloudprism With a Fairphone, you can still do this. A couple others too, I believe.

@KabirKumar

As I understand the EU requirements, the iPhone 14 already counts for their requirements, since you can replace the battery using a screwdriver and a plunger.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2023-0237_EN.pdf

In order to ensure that portable batteries that were incorporated into appliances are subject to separate collection, treatment and high quality recycling once those appliances become waste, provisions to ensure the removability and replaceability of batteries in such appliances are necessary. Consumer safety should be ensured, in line with Union law and in particular Union safety standards, during the removal of portable batteries from or the replacement of portable batteries in an appliance. A portable battery should be considered to be removable by the end-user when it can be removed with the use of commercially available tools and without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge, or proprietary tools, thermal energy or solvents to disassemble it. Commercially available tools are considered to be tools available on the market to all end-users without the need for them to provide evidence of any proprietary rights and that can be used with no restriction, except health and safety-related restrictions.

See this iFixit post for information on the iPhone 14’s battery: https://www.ifixit.com/News/64865/iphone-14-teardown

The iPhone 14 Feature Apple Didn’t Tell You About | iFixit News

The best feature of the iPhone 14 is one that Apple didn’t tell you about. Turns out this isn’t the iPhone 13S reviewers have been panning—take a look!

@Gabrielle "specialized tools"

@cloudprism “Commercially available tools are considered to be tools available on the market to all end-users without the need for them to provide evidence of any proprietary rights and that can be used with no restriction”

It requires a commercially available screwdriver and a commercially available plunger, so it sounds like it meets the requirements.

@Gabrielle "specialized tools" is an additional requirement to "commercially available tools"

I have never seen a mini smartphone plunger in my life before this, and have no idea how I would find one within 100 miles unless I went to an iFixit

@cloudprism They sell them at Walmart and on Amazon for around $10-$15, which seems pretty well commonly available. I suspect that electronics retailers in Europe also carry them.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple starts including them in boxes in Europe to account for this regulation, but that would be a future phone.

@Gabrielle I'm glad to hear that it is actually a widely available tool, but I still think that a tool that is specialized for this exact purpose can thus be considered a specialized tool

@cloudprism It depends on how they define specialized - I had assumed that that meant that an iPhone couldn’t require an iPhone-specific tool, but they might mean it more broadly.