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"Impossibly thin" is right in line with Patrick McGee's "Apple in China" who argues that the main reason for Apple's designs is to keep imitators at bay by intr
by creer 1y ago
"Impossibly thin" is right in line with Patrick McGee's "Apple in China" who argues that the main reason for Apple's designs is to keep imitators at bay by introducing manufacturing challenges that only they can meet. Indeed impossible at the time of release. One generation after the other. He estimates this gains them about 6 months of headway. Tough world.
(Yes, to be fair, there is more to this new phone than just "impossibly thin".)
- thinkingtoilet 1y agoIs anyone buying an iPhone because it's slightly thinner than other phones? I've never heard anyone say the width of the phone was their reason for picking an iPhone, or any phone for that matter.
- baby 1y agoTrend is towards screen real estate now, with folding phones
- burnt_toast 1y agoMy sample size is small but the usual reason I hear from non-technical individuals is that they want the best camera possible.
- 9rx 1y agoIts unlikely anyone is buying a phone because of how thin it is (within reason), but it is quite likely that they are more likely to learn about a new phone available to buy if it is "impossibly" thin. Advertising is important — even for recognized names like Apple.
- bsimpson 1y agoMy dad had his phone stolen a couple months ago. He bought a used one of Craigslist to replace it. I'm curious if the new shinies will make him want to upgrade. If it was just iPhone 14, revision 4, I doubt he would care.
- lisbbb 1y agoIn a month we'll get the inevitable slew of stories about bent and broken iPhone Airs as sure as water is wet. I really don't care how thick my phone is, I care that when I drop it, it's not automatically broken. I generally like and buy Apple stuff, but yeah, I'm weary as hell. I don't do subscriptions and I don't like the tech bros--agree 100% with the rant on here about how crappy everything has become--"enshitification."
- School-Cotton 1y agoThere are certainly people buying iPhones essentially for fashion/status-symbol reasons: i.e., because they look visually different from other phones, whether that is because of thinness or anything else. Why else would so many Android devices have copied the FaceID notch so soon after it was released?
- bsimpson 1y agoAre notches popular? The Androids I've seen have used a hole punch camera ever since Andy Rubin's Essential. There's certainly no Dynamic Island.
- otterley 1y agoI don’t think so. But it gives buyers who were already inclined to buy an iPhone another form factor option. Nothing wrong with choice.
- LeafItAlone 1y ago>Is anyone buying an iPhone because it's slightly thinner than other phones? Yes. I have at least two co-workers that have stated (we will see if they follow through) that they are going to move from their current phones (13 Pro and 15 Pro) to the Air because of the thinness.
- icey 1y agoI will buy one of these because I want a phone that doesn't create such a huge bulge in my pants pocket
- crossroadsguy 1y agoPeople who buy iPhones don't need a reason to buy iPhones other than just for the sake of buying iPhones. That's the key to Apple's trillions. Apple would have made this phone 2.75cm thick and there would have longer lines and same people singing paeans of thick phones and how it is going to change the world and solve global warming and eventually bring everlasting peace.
- __marvin_the__ 1y ago> or any phone for that matter. I'm strapping phone to my arms during runs; for me, shaving off those extra grams count. Bought an Infinix specifically for this reason. I didn't specifically look for the thinnest but it came the the most lightweight.
- numpad0 1y agoThinnest smartphone so far is Chinese HONOR Magic V5 folding phone at 4.1mm, though. iPhone Air is thicker by 1.5mm(1/16") at 5.6mm. Thinnest Samsung Galaxy is 5.8mm.
- ksec 1y agoThat was partly true when he was writing the book or doing research, but is no longer true today. China have manage to make phone that is under 5mm, and even stated the only thing that is stopping them getting even thinner is the USB-C port.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- runjake 1y agoThe Samsung S25 Edge, which has already been on the market for a while, seems to be pretty popular. It's 0.16mm thicker than the Air. I've got to admit it was surprisingly pleasant to hold. I even did a low key bend test and it did not bend, but I literally had store security walk up to me and ask me not to do that. https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/galaxy-s25-edge/ https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/galaxy-s25-edge/
- A_D_E_P_T 1y ago0.16mm is roughly the diameter of a strand of human hair. (0.1 to 0.18mm.) In a consumer product, that's basically imperceptible -- and, in all but the most precision-engineered products, it would be within standard manufacturing tolerances. So I suppose there already is a phone with an analogous form factor.
- runjake 1y agoYeah. I got a kick out of looking at the specs and the Edge and the Air had the same exact imperial measurement of 0.22 inches. It just spurred the rage that we still haven't adopted metric in the US -- even after spending a good chunk of the 1970s learning it in school and being promised metric would be the new measurement standard.
- A_D_E_P_T 1y ago> learning it in school In all seriousness everybody still probably needs to learn it in school, because the scientific literature is entirely in metric. Even papers authored by Americans and published by, e.g., the American Chemical Society, all use µg/mg/g/kg and µm/mm/cm/m for their measurements. If you don't have an intuitive understanding of those measurements, you can run into visualization problems.
- isatis 1y agoThe funny part is that in elementary school here in the mid to late 90s, growing up in a rural area, metric was only touched upon for a day at most and until high school chemistry and physics classes, I very rarely had to deal with metric. Which sucked! My math classes kept to U.S. customary system / imperial units for example. (It wasn't even told to me that it was the default for most of the world. It was disappointing to learn later how much resistance to metric there was in the U.S.)
- shuckles 1y agoWhat’s the evidence for which way causality works? Apple solving design problems they care about would inevitably involve solutions only viable at their scale. It’s hard to say whether that’s how they choose their design problems. Their process seems pretty similar to their approach with unibody MacBooks or the original MacBook Air, both of which were introduced long before imitators were their primary competition.
- creer 1y ago> What’s the evidence for which way causality works? One qualifier would be "at scale and profitably." But for more detail, yes, the situation has changed over time and probably the reasoning has changed over time. McGee spends a lot of time on the difficulty for Apple R&D to keep up with Apple design bureau's demands. To the point that Apple execs arrive at decisions that for the sake of internal peace and meeting deadlines, Apple Industrial Design is not to make arbitrary demands (like they used to) and must consider manufacturing realities. Which still leaves Manufacturing struggling at every step to keep up. So - usually - manufacturing is very much pushed to the edge of what's possible by Design. Even though Apple teach China phone manufacturing (again "at scale and profitably"). Design are the ones pushing. Whether Design is really concerned with keeping ahead of competitors... is not explicitely told by Apple people. They do seem to love "impossible". In my recollection, it's more McGee's observations and conclusion. Apple mainland China companies competition has also been a widely varying quantity. In part due to Chinese fashion trends and in part due to Apple political difficulties in China (which come and go). Underlying should be "at scale and profitably": Apple rightly shouldn't care if a few exotic phones come out. That wouldn't matter to their bottom line. They are described as caring when there is a flood of matching phones coming out - and even then with some latency. Overall btw, "Apple in China" is fantastic. With massive amounts of local color and "story viewed from the Apple China people's side". Lots of bits that were missed if you mostly followed Apple from the side of what we see in the US.
- socalgal2 1y agoThis just seems like Apple's reality distortion field in full force. There are already thinner phones. Just like there were thinner laptops than Macbook Air when it was launched but Apple fans in their Apple bubble hadn't heard of them and so bought Apple's propaganda. I say this as someone that owns 2 MacBooks Pros, an Apple TV and an iPhone.
- creer 1y agoAbsolutely, and yes on the Macbook Air! Although the Honor phone mentioned elsewhere calls itself "thinnest at 8.8mm", +/- camera mesa, etc... So at best 8.8mm folded in pocket for a complete phone. Much thicker that an iPhone Air complete phone (and more screen space). But mostly one thing that's difficult for us to evaluate is whether this is "at scale and profitably". On the competitors' side anyway. The Honor seems to be a $2000 phone (higher even than Google's foldable!) - probably before tariffs, not clear. How many will sell? What margin will Honor make on this? Hard to tell although it would be possible to dig the historical numbers.
- waffleiron 1y agoHere in Germany the Honor foldable is 1700 and the air announced as 1200 but 1450 EUR if you want the same 512GB as the Honor.
- askl 1y agoBut on the other hand, apple seems to be the only company unable to get rid of that ugly huge notch. Everyone else improved on that years ago.
- hu3 1y agoit's a feature! /s
- smeeth 1y agoIf your "impossible" designs are manufactured by non-exclusive suppliers it isn't much of a moat.
- gf000 1y agoThe only thing where Apple is consistently ahead of the rest of the industry is the processor.