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> We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary. I dropped my iPhone 5 on a tile floor rec

by Cushman 14y ago

> We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary. I dropped my iPhone 5 on a tile floor recently. Looked fine apart from a small scuff on the bevel, but the home button wasn't working. Desperately hoping it was a software problem, I powered off the phone— and then noticed that not only was it not a software problem, but the screen and all of the attached internals had actually popped out of the case and were protruding from one long edge by like half a centimeter. Don't ask me how I missed that on a first inspection. I carefully pressed everything back into place, turned on the phone, and it's been working fine ever since. But yeah... I could deal with some more glue.

jlgreco 14y ago
I don't know, it kind of sounds like without glue a lot of the kinetic energy from the fall was dropped into popping the phone apart. Were it not able to fail in a reversible fashion like that, there is a chance it could have broken in a worse way. It has always seemed to me that phones with removable batteries that go flying when the phone gets dropped are likely inherently more robust for that reason. Crumple-zones for phones.
- Cushman 14y ago
  Yeah, I started wondering about that immediately after posting. Not curious enough to try it again, though :)
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  You don't have to use an epoxy that dries as hard as cement. Many glues are springy, which could absorb shock without having to come apart.
FireBeyond 14y ago
> We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary. And yet when they tore down an iPhone with its glued battery, nary a mention was mentioned of the inconvenience...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- sp332 14y ago
  From the iPhone 5 teardown: "The battery comes out with a bit of prying once the front panel is removed." And there are no warnings that you shouldn't remove the battery and that to replace the battery you will need a whole new back assembly. And I guess that's ignoring the fact that phones are expected to be hard to take apart whereas iFixit complained loudly about the non-repairability of the iMac. http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544+Teardown/11936/1 http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544...
- vvhn 14y ago
  >And yet when they tore down an iPhone with its glued battery, nary a mention was mentioned of the inconvenience.. A huge stink was made with the Retina Macbook Pros http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/opinion-apple-retina-displa/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/opinion-apple-retina-... http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/v2h57/im_the_ifixit_guy_who_took_apart_the_new_retina/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/v2h57/im_the_ifixit_gu... Also, on HN http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4115942 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4115942
joseph_cooney 14y ago
A friend of mine had a large internal component come loose in his iPhone 5. AFAIK he hadn't dropped it or anything either (there were no marks on the outside, and he wasn't fessing up to anything). You could move the phone and feel and hear the internal component moving a few cm inside the body. It was very odd.

by Cushman 14y ago

jlgreco 14y ago

I don't know, it kind of sounds like without glue a lot of the kinetic energy from the fall was dropped into popping the phone apart. Were it not able to fail in a reversible fashion like that, there is a chance it could have broken in a worse way. It has always seemed to me that phones with removable batteries that go flying when the phone gets dropped are likely inherently more robust for that reason. Crumple-zones for phones.

Cushman 14y ago
Yeah, I started wondering about that immediately after posting. Not curious enough to try it again, though :)
sliverstorm 14y ago
You don't have to use an epoxy that dries as hard as cement. Many glues are springy, which could absorb shock without having to come apart.

FireBeyond 14y ago

> We don't understand the point of heavily-glued batteries. This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary. And yet when they tore down an iPhone with its glued battery, nary a mention was mentioned of the inconvenience...

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
sp332 14y ago
From the iPhone 5 teardown: "The battery comes out with a bit of prying once the front panel is removed." And there are no warnings that you shouldn't remove the battery and that to replace the battery you will need a whole new back assembly. And I guess that's ignoring the fact that phones are expected to be hard to take apart whereas iFixit complained loudly about the non-repairability of the iMac. http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544+Teardown/11936/1 http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544...
vvhn 14y ago
>And yet when they tore down an iPhone with its glued battery, nary a mention was mentioned of the inconvenience.. A huge stink was made with the Retina Macbook Pros http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/opinion-apple-retina-displa/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/opinion-apple-retina-... http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/v2h57/im_the_ifixit_guy_who_took_apart_the_new_retina/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/v2h57/im_the_ifixit_gu... Also, on HN http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4115942 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4115942

joseph_cooney 14y ago

A friend of mine had a large internal component come loose in his iPhone 5. AFAIK he hadn't dropped it or anything either (there were no marks on the outside, and he wasn't fessing up to anything). You could move the phone and feel and hear the internal component moving a few cm inside the body. It was very odd.