Technology

"Impede the replacement of" and "compatible battery" has a lot of room for interpretation. I hope they're defined explicitly somewhere, or else we're going to find implementations that effectively restrict non-OEM batteries while still adhering to the letter of the law.

For example, all batteries lacking a cryptographically-verified "certification" handshake could have safety restrictions such as:

• Limited maximum amperage draw, achieved by under-clocking the SoC and sleeping performance cores.

• Lower thermal limits while charging the device, meaning fast charging may be limited or preemptively disabled to ensure that the battery does not exceed an upper threshold of you-might-want-to-put-it-in-the-fridge degrees.

• Disabling wireless charging capabilities, just in case magnetic induction affects the uncertified battery full of unknown and officially-untested components.

• A pop-up warning the user every time the device is plugged into or unplugged from a charger.

All of that would technically meet the condition insofar that it's neither impeding the physical replacement nor rendering the device inoperable, but it would still effectively make the phone useless unless you pay for a (possibly-overpriced) OEM part.

If they explicitly defined "Impede the replacement of" as "prevent replacement of or significantly alter user experience as a result of replacing," and "compatible battery" as "electrically-compatible battery" all those cases would be covered.

Might be a bit of cynical take, but I don't have too much faith in the spirit of the law being adhered to when profits are part of the equation.