6 ms·

> the stated motivation for this design is to reduce electrical waste. The best way to do that in the short term is to ensure devices are more repairable Right

• DanBC 13y ago
  > > the stated motivation for this design is to reduce electrical waste. The best way to do that in the short term is to ensure devices are more repairable > (if there were demand, which I think is the biggest problem here: there's just no demand for this from the majority of consumers) I'm old enough to remember people treating their phone less carefully towards the end of the contract, so that they "had the excuse" to upgrade to a better phone when they got a ew contract, and not just keep the same phone on a cheaper contract. So, repairability is good, but WEEE is also important. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic_Equipment_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electroni...) Luckily phones contain comparatively large amounts of gold so they're desirable for recyclers. It'd be great if all the other rare earth minerals etc could be recycled too. It's great that there's a lot of aluminium cases being used, if that's creating a market for recycled aluminum. Not so great if new ore is being mined for it.
  • snogglethorpe 13y ago
    Do iPhones represent a significant use of aluminum? You'd think that pedestrian everyday uses like beer cans would use many many orders of magnitude more aluminum...
• telephonetemp 13y ago
  Could you standardize how screens are connected?
  • Kliment 13y ago
    The actual communications protocol is already standardized, so it's more a matter of connectors and form factor.
• JoelSutherland 13y ago
  Plus encasing every component in its own plastic capsule with high quality metal interconnects won't exactly save materials.
• mxfh 13y ago
  A replaceable battery, SD card and easily replaceable screens were all features of phones available more than 5 years ago, yet these features disappeared because the iPhone showed that most consumers don't value those features over a sleek integrated lifestyle product. Besides all points mentioned already, I just can't think of a way to protect the pin-connection from wear in daily use without adding an additional shell or individual screws, which would make it even more bulky. Simply haven't seen a single miniature socket yet that works well under constant external stress. Regarding the proposed design, with all it's sharp edges and deep ridges I'm already looking forward to weekly lint removal sessions. In terms of total energy waste it might be worth considering that there's not only one logistic process anymore but a mere 5 to 10(?) with each has it's own packaging, transportation and handling footprint. So it's debatable that the total environmental impact might be actually worse than that of a 2 year life cycle smartphone.
  • 001sky 13y ago
    iPhone showed that most consumers don't value those features over a sleek integrated lifestyle product. Consumers have no acess to bid on the incremental value of features. There is no supply side market for these. There is no market because apple is playing monopolist (legal). Lets not use sloppy language !!
    • cowsandmilk 13y ago
      > apple is playing monopolist what? how does apple have a monopoly?
      • AnthonyMouse 13y ago
        You're going down the road into a philosophical argument. Defining a monopoly requires you to define a market, which is a huge can of worms. If you make the market "computing devices" then nobody has a monopoly. If you make the market "Win32 API PCs" then Microsoft has a monopoly. If you make the market "devices that run iOS apps" then Apple has a monopoly. And so on. The larger point is that consumer choice isn't there. You can't get an iOS device with a removable battery. That doesn't prove that current Apple customers don't want a removable battery, it just proves they value some other characteristics more, and the market may not be offering any single product that satisfies their optimal set of preferences. When that happens it means there is room for a newcomer to disrupt the market. If someone started selling iPhones (or something sufficiently equivalent) with removable batteries, some people would buy them -- if only because it would double the resale value since the phone wouldn't become landfill after the non-replaceable battery goes flat.
• mabhatter 13y ago
  Except manufacturing and cost considerations go exactly the other way. An iPhone 5S entire electronics that make it go is slightly smaller an an average stick of gum.... That's all the "modules" except screen and battery. It's made in one shot my high-speed machines that took about 30 seconds from bare board to operating phone parts.. Parts are so small you'd need a magnifying glass to handle them by hand. The current situatuion is about as good as it gets. There are enough iPhones sold third parties can copy parts or simply canibalize broken ones for repairs. Apple only updates models once a year, so that means there is lots of effort by third parties because their efforts pay off a whole 3 years of repairs. Fixing individual boards takes $1000+ of lab equipment and 2x what the part is worth for labor. Even Apple's MacBooks only have one main board that's small as possible. That's why Apple started using REAL glass screens, and metal bodies that can be pealed down for their bare scrap costs. To get the ELECTRONICS metals back is going to require some kind of furnace that can contain toxic fumes and perform exotic metals separation. Even then 3/4 of electronic waste is pastic and F4 circuit board material which is utterly useless except to burn off. That leaves 2/3 of at waste as dirt cheap tin-lead solder and a small bit of super fancy alloys.
• archagon 13y ago
  Another option is to ensure that most of your phone can be recycled: http://www.apple.com/recycling/ http://www.apple.com/recycling/
• jt86 13y ago
  It's difficult to express demand for something that doesn't exist.