Detective Dipstick

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...

The European Union already forced Apple to abandon its proprietary charging port and adopt USB-C across its entire iPhone lineup. It just did something bigger. A new EU mandate requires every smartphone sold in Europe including Apple devices to feature a battery that can be replaced by the user without specialist tools, without voiding a warranty, and without sending the device to a manufacturer approved service center. Batteries must maintain a minimum capacity threshold after a set number of charge cycles and replacement parts must remain available for up to ten years after a model goes on sale.

The consumer electronics industry built its current business model around batteries that degrade, cannot be replaced at home, and create a natural upgrade cycle every two to three years. The EU just legislated that model out of existence in the world's largest regulatory market.

Apple, Samsung, and every other manufacturer now faces a choice between redesigning their devices for the European market or accepting that their current hardware architecture is no longer legally sellable there.

She spent over 30 years doing this. For 30 years she didn’t work outside the home. She didn’t know the terms of their lease. She didn’t have the passwords to “their” bank account(s), “their” assets.

He left her when she was in her fifties.

He said that he needed time to reflect and moved out of their house, but told her to focus on getting their last kid through high school (still homeschooled!) and he would take care of everything.

She reached out to the landlord months later asking where the lease renewal was only to find out it wasn’t getting renewed. Because her husband hadn’t paid the rent in OVER NINE MONTHS. The whole time he was promising her he was still taking care of her.

She and her sixteen year old youngest son found out they had to move out of their house with 3 weeks’ notice. She didn’t have a job or work experience or a degree or any idea how to get these things in 3 weeks. She didn’t own her own car. If she had not had friends to take her in, she and her son would have been literally out on the street.

It ruined that friendship, too. It’s a lot to ask someone to put you up indefinitely while you try to put your life together. She burned a lot of bridges taking what anyone would or could give because she had no other choice.

She did, eventually, hard years later, get on her feet again. But it will always be hard and she will never be where she could have been in life if she’d done things differently.