Why didn Apple make the iPhone battery easily user-accessible?
Neither Apple nor AT&T/Cingular have made any statements on this topic. However, it is again an engineering decision, as with the iPod. On the iPod, the decision wasn’t made for “planned obsolescense”, to force people into buying new iPods, or to make people buy “overpriced” batteries, as there are numerous ways to replace the battery from many sources, including Apple, for as little as $20. In the case of the iPod, it was an engineering decision, allowing them to make the device smaller, thinner, and lighter than competitive devices, and not covered with access doors, by eliminating traditional mechanisms and internal design required for “user-accessible” battery access.
