The people who need this feature should go buy one of the phone models with replaceable batteries.

Reading the comments here, it's obvious that the replaceable battery fans can't even agree on what they want. One commenter wants the back covered in tens of screws for waterproofing. Other commenters want the battery quickly replaceable so they can do hot swaps without missing a beat. Some people are sharing links to phones that have replaceable batteries and getting responses from people saying they'd never buy that phone because it's too big, too ugly, or other reasons.

This is an impossible debate because one side has convinced themselves that it's possible to have their cake and eat it, too: They believe that removable batteries can be implemented without any tradeoffs and the only reason they're not removable is so the phones are forced to become e-waste, which requires you to ignore all of the low cost battery replacement services available.

I use a lot of rechargeable AAA and AA batteries. They have lower voltage than alkaline batteries (by design apparently), which is not normally an issue, but sometimes is a deal breaker. E.g. my thermostat did not like lower voltage AA batteries and shut down prematurely a number of times.

There's challenges adopting standardized rechargeable batteries, e.g. trying to recharge alkaline batteries risks fire/explosion (and you know that will happen far too often given the number of people out there), but if we have had standard battery sizes, voltages, and capacities for rechargeable batteries, things would be so much better.

I have a magnetic wireless power bank that I put on my phone and I can continue using it as normal.

But you can plug in the battery pack and keep working…

Nobody needs to do that with a mobile phone.

External battery banks are a better reducer of e-waste as they'll work for all devices and not just the one cell phone.

> You seem to have completely missed the primary point of all this, which is to reducew ewaste.

Everyone acting like iPhones and mainstream Android phones become e-waste after 3 years is just making specious arguments.

Why does the average phone user know more about phone batteries and replacing them than all of these commenters acting like iPhones are becoming e-waste after a couple years?

I think I know more people with 4-6 year old iPhones than with an iPhone 17.

Apple stores will replace the battery for you for a very reasonable fee and the phone will carry on for many years more. This is a common thing to do and you can find battery replacement services for popular Android phones too.

These don't dangle or impede your use:

https://www.anker.com/products/a1665-5k-ultra-slim-qi2-power...

My powerbrick connects to the back of my phone. Form factor wise it's pretty close to my extra large StarTac removable battery that I would carry around.

There's tons of MagSafe battery packs for iPhones. They charge the phone continuously. There's no need to let the phone drop to zero before attaching the battery pack. There's also cases with integral batteries. I assume there's Android equivalents for various phones.

I'd say these are more convenient than extra swappable batteries. They have integral charge controllers and charge via USB. There's no need to charge them in the phone or have to buy some extra external battery charger.