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How do you get ever thinner phones without the tooling designed to dismantle it? It's no different in other industries. Small and compact requires special too

How do you get ever thinner phones without the tooling designed to dismantle it? It's no different in other industries. Small and compact requires special tools. You (and I) being willing to compromise on size to have better ability to repair the device doesn't represent the market at all. These complex engineered systems are going to continue to trend towards costly tools for repair. In a similar way, ICs are also impossible to repair compared to decades ago when you could lift out a faulty memory chip and replace it. It's far more important for companies like apple to accept 3rd party replacements and provide access to parts than worry about the speciality tools required unless they're there to be difficult. It certainly doesn't appear to be the case here. A repair shop would buy these tools, because otherwise they risk damaging the ($1k) phone trying to save a few bucks. Phones are going to be too complex for reliable home repair. I also don't repair my compressor in the AC, nor do I repair the wingdings in my vacuum cleaner. I just replace the part. I think the compromise here is fine, they're not plastic welded, they're sealed with adhesive.

makeitdouble 4y ago
> How do you get ever thinner phones without the tooling designed to dismantle it? This all issue made me think about the SIM tray: the SIM card contacts could also be sealed and recessed between the battery and the motherboard, and you’d go to an Apple Store to change the card whenever you need it. But you don’t, no one would accept having to get a phone serviced every time a SIM change is needed, even if some people never ever change it after purchase. So it’s designed in a way that you just push a thin bar in it and it pops out, you put your card, push it back, and your phone is still thin and waterproof. I genuinely think Apple could come up with a similarily elegant solution if they were making way more money by having easy to repair phones than having people give up and buy new phones instead.

makeitdouble 4y ago

> How do you get ever thinner phones without the tooling designed to dismantle it? This all issue made me think about the SIM tray: the SIM card contacts could also be sealed and recessed between the battery and the motherboard, and you’d go to an Apple Store to change the card whenever you need it. But you don’t, no one would accept having to get a phone serviced every time a SIM change is needed, even if some people never ever change it after purchase. So it’s designed in a way that you just push a thin bar in it and it pops out, you put your card, push it back, and your phone is still thin and waterproof. I genuinely think Apple could come up with a similarily elegant solution if they were making way more money by having easy to repair phones than having people give up and buy new phones instead.