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A few ideas about this problem: 1. Consumer behavior factors - Get a case. These devices will break if dropped, and when you are carrying it in your hand man
by blisterpeanuts 12y ago
A few ideas about this problem:
1. Consumer behavior factors
- Get a case. These devices will break if dropped, and when you are carrying it in your hand many times a day, it is highly likely to be dropped. It's a matter of "when", not "if".
- Don't carry the device in pants pockets. Carry it in a shirt pocket, or in a bag or satchel or hang it on your belt. Solved.
2. Manufacturing and marketing factors
- Distribute 5,000 beta devices and really field test them. Manufacturers, especially Apple, hate to do this because it reveals the secret design in advance of the dramatic release event. But field testing the devices makes more sense given their complexity and unknown uses and conditions to which they will be subjected.
- Make the devices thicker and sturdier. Many of us would not complain about an extra millimeter or two of thickness, especially if it means a bigger battery and some nice-to-haves such as a memory card slot. Thinness is costly, too. Make it an indestructible brick, charge less, and millions will continue to buy the devices.
- An alternative view: yield to bendiness! Make the displays bendy, make the cases flexible, and accept that customers want to abuse their phones by sitting on them in tight jeans.
- smackfu 12y agoSeems like a case would only help if it was made of metal.
- Tyrannosaurs 12y agoIf a metal phone is bending why couldn't a metal case? It's not the material, it's the construction. The case could be made of plastic so long as it had something along the long sides preventing it flexing.
- smackfu 12y agoTrue. I should have said that a case will only help if it's structural. Most of them are not.
- kumarm 12y ago>>Get a case. If getting case is a Must, why even worry about slim and beautiful devices? So much for good Industrial Design.
- blisterpeanuts 12y agoTrue... but every phone out there has a plethora of cases available for it. Customers have accepted that a case is a necessary accessory and indeed it's a way to personalize their devices. That's why someone can make a living selling cases in a kiosk at the mall.
- seanflyon 12y agoI have not accepted that a case is a necessary accessory.
- nilkn 12y agoPerhaps the reason there's a tendency towards thinner phones is precisely because of the bulk added on by the inevitable case. Even a thicker phone is going to risk getting scratched or dented if dropped on solid concrete or rocks. In my case, though, I choose to live somewhat on the edge and just get total insurance coverage on my phone (a Note 3 currently). In five years of owning smartphones, I've cracked the screen exactly once, and I just got a replacement phone within a week.