Ominbus tech thread

[Dr Strangelove]

Ten months from now, all devices sold within the European Union must have batteries that are easily replaceable by the average user.

This law even includes Apple, which has already begun designing its phones to have replaceable batteries.

Apple quietly doubled iPhone battery cycle life in 2023, from 500 to 1,000, and almost nobody understood why.

They were paying the compliance cost two years before the law existed, to permanently exempt themselves from the user-replaceable battery rule everyone now thinks is coming for them.

The actual EU regulation, Article 11 of 2023/1542 in force Feb 18, 2027, has an exemption baked in. If your battery hits 80% capacity at 1,000 charge cycles plus an IP-rated waterproofing standard, you skip the user-replaceable requirement entirely.

iPhone 14 spec: 500 cycles. iPhone 15 onward: 1,000 cycles. Apple printed the new number in their own spec sheet 18 months before any other major manufacturer caught on. Right to Repair Europe published a public lament in February 2025 calling the exemption a huge opportunity missed because it swallowed the consumer rule for any phone built well enough.

The math on the other side is brutal. A $150 Android with a 500-cycle battery cannot meet 1,000 cycles without a redesign that adds thickness, kills IP68, and lifts BOM cost roughly $20-40. On a $150 device that is the entire margin. Computerworld called it the end of cheap Android.

So the picture in this tweet is upside down. Ursula von der Leyen wrote a law where iPhone keeps its sealed glass sandwich and the Tecno Spark gets killed. Apple saw it coming in 2022 and shipped the workaround in 2023.

The real rule of EU tech regulation: the exemptions are the law. Read those before you read the headline.

[Dr Strangelove]

The global smartphone market is facing a historic decline:

Global smartphone shipments are set to fall -13% YoY in 2026, or -160 million units, to ~1.1 billion, according to IDC.

This marks a sharp drop from a +2% growth in 2025 and +6% in 2024.

The decline is being driven by an unprecedented memory chip shortage that is inflating component costs across the industry.

As a result, smartphone makers are discontinuing unprofitable entry-level models and pushing consumers toward higher-priced devices.

Last year, ~170 million smartphones shipped for under $100, a segment currently uneconomical to maintain.

The shortage is expected to persist into mid-2027, and even when supply returns, memory prices are unlikely to fall back to 2025 levels.

The days of cheap smartphones are over.

[al_keda]

The days of cheap smartphones are over.

If you want the best and shiniest.

I haven't bought a new phone in 20 years. In fact, I still have my Blackberry Z30, and it still works fine for what I need. I just keep it around because it has the software to run the radio built in. No extra app.

My current phone is a Motorola I got 3 years old. I always buy 'late' and unlocked so that I can remove all the crapware that eats the battery.

[Dr Strangelove]

JUST IN: Tim Cook did not build the world’s greatest technology company. He built the world’s greatest chokepoint. And he just formalized his exit from the booth into a job description that says the booth is all that remains.

On April 20, Apple announced Cook will step down as CEO effective September 1. John Ternus, hardware engineer, 25 years at Apple, takes the seat. Cook becomes Executive Chairman with one stated focus: “engaging with policymakers around the world.” Read that title carefully. It is not honorary. It is operational. Cook’s value to Apple was never the product. It was the tollgate and the political access that protected the toll.

The tollgate: 2.5 billion devices funneling every developer on earth through a single store that extracts 30% on passage. FY2025 services revenue hit $109 billion at margins above 75%. Cook did not invent the iPhone. He turned Jobs’ product into a customs border and the ecosystem into a sovereign tariff zone.

The political access: Trump revealed it April 21. Cook called at the beginning of his first term with a problem “only I, as President, could fix.” Over five years, “3 or 4 BIG HELPS.” Translation: $500 billion in US investment pledges exchanged for exemptions from 145% China tariffs. Cook converted deference into billions through a channel no successor can inherit. That is why his new title is not honorary. It is “Executive Chairman for policymaker engagement.” The channel is the job.

Now read what happened in the seventeen days before the announcement. On April 3, Apple filed a Supreme Court petition arguing its commission is justified by the security its ecosystem provides. On April 6, the Ninth Circuit granted a stay. On April 11, a fake Ledger Live app that sailed through Apple’s review process drained $9.5 million from over fifty victims on the Mac App Store. The security premise that justifies the toll was publicly disproved on Apple’s own platform the same week the Supreme Court was asked to validate it.

One year earlier, in April 2025, the European Commission fined Apple 500 million euros for anti-steering violations and explicitly dismissed the security defense, finding Apple “failed to show why the app developer’s own website would be less secure.” Two courts. Two continents. Both dismantling the legal architecture that protects the extraction rate. And the security argument underpinning both cases was refuted in real time by a phishing app that Apple approved.

Ternus inherits the hardware. He does not inherit the toll or the channel. The courts are lowering the rate. The EU is opening the gate. The security justification is collapsing under the weight of Apple’s own review failures. And Cook’s new title exists because the only remaining asset that cannot be transferred to a hardware engineer is a personal relationship with a sitting president.

This is why the timing is structural. Cook saw the same calendar. Courts on two continents lowering the rate. A fake app disproving the security premise on his own store. A Supreme Court petition now carrying the weight of a $9.5 million counterexample filed by reality itself.

The greatest chokepoint operator in corporate history is not retiring. He is converting himself from the operator into the lobbyist, because the operation now requires lobbying more than operating. When the tollkeeper’s most valuable skill becomes arguing the toll should still exist, the road has already been rerouted.

open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

[Dr Strangelove]

[al_keda]

[Dr Strangelove]

The Myth of the 'Lone Genius': The speaker challenges the narrative that modern tech giants were built solely by visionary entrepreneurs, pointing out that foundational technologies (like GPS, the internet, and touchscreens) were heavily funded by public money (2:18-4:15).
The Attention Economy: The product of modern tech is not the device itself, but the user's attention. Algorithmic design, notifications, and autoplay features are intentionally engineered to prevent deep, sustained thought (4:28-5:12).
Cognitive Decline: Citing neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, the video notes that Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to underperform their parents on cognitive measures, a decline that maps closely to the widespread introduction of screens in classrooms around 2010 (8:20-9:12).
Historical Parallels: The speaker draws parallels between current digital consumption and historical cycles of distraction, such as the Roman bread and circuses and the velocity of misinformation during the Weimar Republic, suggesting that society thrives when it protects space for sustained, complex thought (10:32-12:48).
The Power of Books: The speaker advocates for reading as an act of resistance. By returning to books—which are not subscription-based and require active imagination—we can rebuild the cognitive muscles for observation and deduction, much like Sherlock Holmes (16:00-19:24).
The Call to Action:
To counter the erosion of focus, the speaker encourages viewers to deliberately incorporate 'analog' activities into their lives. On this World Book Day, the core message is to prioritize tools that serve our learning and growth rather than those designed simply to occupy our time