AFTER THE BELL: My phone needed a new battery, not a new religion

About two months ago, I came to one of those fundamental realisations.I could not go on like this. There had to be a better way. This had to stop ruling my life.Either my phone or its battery had to go.Considering the tribal division between Android users and members of the iCult in my family, this was immediately seized upon as a chance to convert me to their long-held gospel.However, bolstered by my son, who is also not paranoid about Android, I decided to hold fast.I was going to do something I’d never done before; I was going to get a new battery for my phone.A big part of my motivation was to get out of this two-year cycle that I feel I’ve been on since about 2000. For some accounting reason the cellphone networks decided the best way to make money and keep their subscribers was to offer an upgrade every two years.That led to huge innovation in the cellphone industry.And the final outcome of that was the sort of triopoly we have now.You have Apple and their cult, Google’s Android system which is really led by Samsung but supported by a huge variety of brands, and, if you are in mainland China, Huawei’s HarmonyOS [Lindsey: yes, the China flavour of Huawei’s OS is far superior to the EMUI they try to keep alive in Western markets like Mzansi – which is still giving Android 14].I started looking around for repair shops that were “approved” by the people who made my phone.The first one I contacted was happy to change the battery, but wanted to charge a R200 “assessment fee” first. Huh? The battery is buggered. What are you assessing?The absolute deal breaker was that they wanted to keep the phone for two working days while just “assessing it”.Seriously? Is there any human being on Earth who can live without their phone for a whole two days?I gave in and went to the local cheap cellphone shop and asked them. R800 later I started the weekend fresh and optimistic.By Monday morning, I realised my money would have been more productively spent on Dada Morero’s re-election campaign.There was literally no change. And no realistic prospect of getting my money back either.With a weary sigh, I found another “accredited” dealer and got them to do it without the “assessment”.I’m still unconvinced I’ve done the right thing. Perhaps I should have forsaken my tribal loyalty and just made the change to sunny California.But in the process I came to realise just how big and how interesting the cellphone repair market is.There are shops everywhere. Some are part of chains, some are independent, some are very boujee and Sandton and some are cheap, the workers cheerful and the products awful.Yesterday, the Competition Commission published its guidelines on “Repair, Service and Maintenance Aftermarkets”.It says this was after “industry participants have highlighted concerns regarding access to spare parts, repair information, diagnostic tools, software and technical support required to undertake repairs on appliances and electronic devices”.You can imagine how this happens.If you’re managing the Californian cult it’s not in your interest to design your phones to be repaired. And if they do need to be fixed, you want to be able to do it yourself and make sure no one else can.This is exactly what happened with cars not so long ago.Established brands (the original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs in the trade) tied you in when you bought a car. If someone sneezed on the bonnet while wearing the wrong brand of overall you would find that your warranty or motor plan or something else important and expensive had suddenly been voided.It was, deliberately, incredibly anti-competitive.While I don’t always agree with the Competition Commission I have to applaud them for this. None of us should feel that we have to swap our phones every two years just because we can’t get them back to how they were when we bought them.And this huge industry of people who will repair your phone need all the help they can get.We should never be replacing things like this so often; it’s just an awful waste.I do have a nasty thought about how this will play out though.I don’t think those Californians are in it for charity. They want to lock you into their ecosystem and make it very, very difficult for you to leave.So their next step might well be to design the phone from the start to make it difficult to fix.They might dress it up on the surface, claim that they will replace a unit if it doesn’t last long enough or something, but they want to do anything they can to extract as much money from you as they can for as long as they can.I know which side I’m on in this fight. I’m against the waste and the people who lock you in.But.I’m not convinced my new battery is shaping up.And if it doesn’t I might have to change my belief system, sip the gospel and move to California. DM