It’s a solution for both, and I think superior for both.
You would be wrong.
Now, we can dismiss the problem with worn out batteries, as you can replace the battery no problem. World is full of repair shops that will do that for you in 60 minutes or so, solving that problem for years to come. Optimizing for that problem is pointless. So we are left with batteries that run out in the middle of the day. How would a loose battery be better than a powerbank?
With a powerbank, you can recharge any device you might have. Loose battery only works for that one device. And it’s way easier to recharge a powerbank. Plug it in to a wall-outlet, or plug it in to your laptop, done. How do you charge a loose battery? You put it in your phone and then plug the phone to a charger. Well, now you have one charged battery and one empty battery. So you need to take out the just charged battery from the phone, put in the empty battery and the plug the phone back in.
Power banks are perhaps more versatile, but definitely not more convenient. You have to carry a larger battery and cable or get a power bank that does wireless charging at a mind numbingly slow rate. I mean by the time you figure it out you need power your phone is probably at 20% so the last thing you want is slow charging.
Why would that be an issue? You don’t need to charge the phone to 100%, you just need enough power to get you by.
Before smart phones, there were batteries that just snapped on the back of your phone and you can quickly pop another on within a fraction of a second.
Do not cite deep magic to me. For I was there when it was written.
Making phones like that waterproof would be very difficult. And those batteries were never a snug fit. They would always wiggle a bit. While it wasn’t a big deal back then, people would think it’s crude and stupid these days.
And those kinds of batteries would have less capacity when compared to built-in batteries. You would need to have user-friendly connectors, latches, covers and the like. Those add size and weight. So either you make the battery physically bigger to get same capacity, or you make the battery as big as internal battery and lose capacity.
And let’s face it, something like
This basically is a replaceable battery that you want. True, you don’t replace the battery, you charge it. So if you see that you are down to 10% or so, plug that thing in the phone and carry out your day. It might be a slowish charge, but it is a charge. Why would you need to charge the phone fast? And you can use your phone while that thing is on it. I fail to see what does an actual battery replacement offer that is not solved by that kind of solution.
Also, charging stands so you can just pop multiple batteries in to charge. That level of convenience would be outstanding, but I don’t see it happening.
So a separate charger just to charge batteries? Instead of one charger that can charge several different devices? And if your next device has different kind of battery, the charger will not work anymore. Yeah, that sounds really convenient. And why multiple batteries? People don’t go through that many batteries through the day.
Ironically, I have a charging stand in my nightstand. It has three Qi-chargers, Apple Watch charger and USB-A and -C outlets. With that one charger I can charge every device I have, all the way from Apple Watch or AirPods, to a MacBook.
The choice you have today is either buy a large phone if you want all day battery life or carry around a separate power bank if you want to use a smaller phone.
For most users, a fully charged iPhone will last through the day no problem. Some people might fall a bit short. Plug the phone to a charger for 15 minutes in the middle of the day, that should give enough juice to carry through the day. And we have tons of opportunities for incremental charging through the day. You drive to the grocery store? Plug in the phone in the car. You work in an office? Put a charger at your workdesk. Or hell, get a MagSafe powerbank, like the one I linked earlier.
You are making this in to a huge problem that has no solution besides replaceable batteries. It’s not, and there are tons of solutions out there. None of which include user fiddling with replaceable batteries.
And why is it so inconvenient to carry a powerbank around, whereas carrying a separate loose battery is not?
I think this is one reason why small phones don’t sell today because no one wants to carry around a power bank and cord just to keep their phone going all day.
Or people just want as big of a screen as they can get.
