> make it difficult to swap out batteries which have degraded.

That's the part that pisses me off the most. They all claim it's for the IP68, but that's bullshit. There's plenty of devices with removable backs & batteries that are IP68.

My BlackBerry bold 9xxx was 10mm thin. the iPhone 17 Pro Max is 8.75. You aren't going to notice the 1.3mm of difference, and my BlackBerry had a user replaceable battery, no tools required just pop off the back cover.

The BlackBerry was also about 100 grams lighter.

The non-user removable batteries and unibody designs are purely for planned obsolescence, nothing else.