The EU is requiring phones sold in the region from February 2027 to have batteries that are easily replaceable without specialized tools — but Apple's iPhones may not need to comply because they already meet a durability standard (1,000 charge cycles at 80% capacity) that exempts devices from the removable battery requirement. Apple has hit this standard since the iPhone 15, and Google Pixel 10 Pro also qualifies, though Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and Nothing Phone 4a Pro exceed it with 1,200 and 1,400 cycles respectively. The framing slightly undersells what the exemption actually is — it's not a special carve-out for Apple, but a performance-based exception any manufacturer can qualify for by proving their battery degrades slowly enough.