SnickersMagoo

avon b7 said:

This would be a good move. Glue and sealants aren't truly necessary today. They never really were.

Far more devices will require a battery replacement than will require repair from sitting in water for a few seconds.

Splash resistance is all that is needed and that doesn't require the same kind of engineering although waterproofing nano coatings have been available for years for phone components anyway.

If Apple felt an external battery inside a phone case was acceptable from a design and usage perspective, then a couple of millimetres is not going to be an issue in that sense.

It will also put an end to having to remove the screen to get at the battery which is a potential breakage point.

The external battery case option could even be taken to an extreme and made the sole main power option, allowing for ultra thin phones with no onboard main battery power and allowing users to choose from different power capacities, charging speeds and physical sizes/weights.