It's Sad That Apple Will Never Make This Amazing Universal Battery

Apple has designed a modular battery that can be swapped between devices, and of course, it is a typically slick Apple idea.

There is currently no Apple device that has a user-removable battery. You can sometimes get to them with the right tools (iPhone, Mac), and sometimes not (Air Pods Pro). But Apple’s new patent introduces a modular, standardized battery that could be swapped between devices, and would offer the usual integrated Apple experience. It’s a great idea, but as a product, it’s sadly likely to remain as a patent that stops anybody else from making it.

“Swappable batteries have the potential to improve the lifespan of electronic gadgets. The fact that customers would not have to replace their complete device simply because the battery is no longer able to hold a charge is another way in which this might help reduce the amount of electronic waste,” Vikas Kaushik, a technology expert and the CEO of TechAhead, told Lifewire via email.

Power Move

It might seem counterintuitive, but the major downside of non-swappable batteries is not convenience. In fact, in some ways, a removable battery like we used to have in laptops was less convenient. It’s easier, after all, to just hook up a USB-C battery pack when your battery runs low, instead of powering down the laptop, switching batteries, and powering it up again.

It’s also easier to recharge a USB-C battery pack—you just plug it in. Whereas a laptop battery needed to either be in the computer (requiring another swap), or you had to buy a proprietary charging dock. Plus, a USB-C battery pack can be used with just about anything, not just the computer it’s designed for.

No, the major downside of the non-removable battery is the lack of repairability. With those old laptops and phones, you could easily swap in a new battery when the old one died. Now, you have to know how to remove your iPhone’s screen, and most of its guts, to even get to its dying battery.

Sadly, Apple’s patent doesn’t give us the best of both worlds, which would be USB-C charging, with an easily-replaceable battery. But it does offer an interesting alternative.

Modular Batteries

Apple’s design puts a rechargeable battery “core” (like the bare batteries you find inside modern gadgets) inside a battery “shell.” This shell is your battery pack, and you slide it into a slot in the side of your phone, mouse, keyboard, or iMac. Yes, iMac. In this scenario, you can just pop a battery into a slot on the side of your computer—like an oversized SD card—and charge it. Then, you can use it to power mobile devices (like a phone) and peripherals (like a mouse).

The idea is to standardize batteries, just like we have already standardized USB-C as a charging method. Imagine a world where you could buy a standard-sized battery off the shelf, and use it in any device. Wait a second. Don’t we already have that?

It would also be possible to agree on a standard-sized li-ion battery pack and use that, but then you wouldn’t get any of the fancy extras that Apple has planned. Extras like a wireless connection so you can see the battery status on your iPhone, like you can view your AirPods’ battery levels on your phone today.

So what would be the advantage here for the user? Well, that depends. If it means that you never have to open up your phone to get to its battery, then that’s a massive improvement. A dead battery might be the main reason people throw out a perfectly good phone and buy a new one.

And perhaps it could provide a less wasteful alternative to Qi, aka “wireless” charging, which loses up to 30 percent of the electricity used during charging as heat and is pretty unreliable to boot.

“I’ve found wired charging more reliable and efficient than wireless Qi-style charging. Qi-style charging may be convenient, but wired charging ensures faster, more stable power transference. Wired chargers are therefore ideal for professionals on the go all day,” George Nicholson, founder of Juno Telecoms, told Lifewire via email.

On the other hand, phones, mice, and Macs all have very different battery needs, and the requirement for that proprietary “shell” means less space for the actual battery, reducing its capacity. This is a big deal for Apple because integrated, non-swappable batteries are one thing that makes it possible for Macs, iPads, and iPhones to be so thin.

“I highly doubt Apple will adopt user-swappable batteries in this day and age. Integrated, non-removable batteries tend to fit better within the design aesthetics of Apple devices,” says Nicholson.

We’re all for experimental thinking when it comes to batteries, but this patent, sadly, doesn’t seem to offer much that we can’t do better already.