> Phones don't have removable batteries mostly because of the desire to make the device as thin as possible. The battery is just a delicate, flexible pouch that can easily be damaged and catch fire if removed from the phone and carried around. To make it safe, you'd need to add a hard shell, which would probably make the device 2 mm thicker or so.

Fairphone 6, recent with replaceable battery: 9.6 mm

Galaxy S5, has a replaceable battery, released _12 years ago_ - battery tech has improved a lot since then: 8.1 mm

iPhone 17 Pro Max: 8.8 mm

iPhone 12 Pro Max: 7.4 mm

We want to make phones as thin as possible so the latest flagship iPhone is 1.4 mm thicker than the one from 5 years ago? A whole 0.8 mm thinner than a recent one with a replaceable battery with maybe 0.1% of the iPhone's R&D budget, and 0.8 mm thicker than one with a replaceable battery made 12 years ago?

You're thinking about "hot swappable" batteries, but the EU is only mandating user-replaceable batteries, which can even require specialized tools.

I don't think there's any requirement to make the batteries themselves safe to throw into a backpack where they might be punctured.

Bullshit. This was the reason the industry gave for why they were removing battery replaceability support. Everybody hated it when it was first introduced, and to this day I only buy phones which have easily accessible ways to put a new battery on when the day comes. Fuck this BS of "people wanted thinner phones".

It’s also very hard to make them resistant to water and dust, I really like that I can wash my iPhone in the sink and don’t have to worry about it getting wet in general. This is a lot harder to achieve with battery doors, especially if they need to be as big as a phone back.