they'll still block access to the battery in the US.

Repairability has never been an Apple thing.

I've replaced the keyboard on a Macbook, I swear there were 40 screw in that thing, and I'm not exaggerating for effect or anything. About every 2 keys it was screwed to the case from the bottom.

I've also done an iphone battery a couple times for friends, it's a nightmare, but now pretty much all phones are difficult. I have to do the batteries on my Razr soon and I'm not looking forward to it.

This was a thing with Samsung from the beginning all the way to the S7. The rational after that was the waterproof rating but I have a Zebra TC27 at work that's IP rated WITH ad repalcable battery. So it's easy to do, just cost more than not doing it and for Apple it's a revenue stream replacing batteries.

Oh, yeah, that usbc change was so positive

They keep flip flopping between hero and villain. I'm getting a headache.

The Galaxy S5 was water resistant and had a replaceable battery. The main reason they stopped was that Apple was doing glass/metal phones without replaceable anything that still sold like pancakes, so Samsung moved to glass-back phones with the S6 and the rest of the OEMs eventually followed suit.

That is what gaskets are designed to do. Admittedly I haven't read the regulations, but they could even go as far as making the gasket "single use". Meaning the battery is user replaceable, but not meant to be constantly swapped. Removing the back cover could require replacing the gasket and using a specific torque value and sequence on the screws the same way you would on any other gasket interface meant to keep dust and liquids in or out.

They could also potentially start waterproofing the circuit boards themselves with conformal coating the way they do with mission critical hardware that needs to still function even if there is some amount of water ingress. I'm not saying I'd be happy with that solution, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

Could they potentially leave the innards of the device water proof while the battery itself is not sealed?

We will see bug this regilation has already real impact today. The new Neo from Apple is surprisinglx modular and its battery easy to replace with nothing more than s screw driver. Previous laptops were horrendous in this regard. Of course, that is only because Apple found its love for repairability and is not already preparing for the above regulation. Turns out also modern phone batteries can be easily replaceable. You'll see in a year.