I used to carry a rugged android that could be operated underwater or in the presence of some explosive gasses. It was a bit heavier, but it was also the equivalent to normal device with a rugged case.
A company with the sophistication of industrial design like Apple could build a moderately more rugged device that would be very close to the existing iPhones.
The real and obvious reason for Apples decisions is that both high margin extended warranties and cases for iPhones probably generate more income than the Mac.
Assuming you aren't one of the very few people on earth that make those decisions (made obvious by your choice of phone earlier), then saying your pet theory is real and obvious.. is unhelpful. I would posit (as the most profitable company on earth) that the reason Apple makes iPhones they way they do is simply because they sell better to normal consumers.
If you carry a phone based on which explosive gasses it can operate near, you are an extreme outlier when it comes to consumer behavior. Perhaps the things that are "real and obvious" to you.. aren't.
Just because something or someone is successful doesn't mean all decisions that are made are optimal, close to optimal, or even not an active detriment.
The famous example is people conflating Steve Jobs being an asshole with being successful.
I generally agree with you, but in this generic case, phones are actually truly packed to the max. Similarly to how you could easily fix your older car with just a few tools, modern engines are so complex that such home-twinkering is impossible. Phones go in the direction of having less and less separate parts, which is bad from a repairability pov, but the reason why these gigantic screen sizes are the new norm is also the side-effect of having to put n cameras, 5G, a huge battery, LiDAR and what not into a comparatively small body, while at the same time making it dust and water proof.
Agreed. It's like saying mid-engine cars are intentionally made complex to repair to make more money of service whereas it's more likely that the primary driving factor is better performance & handling and the extra service revenue is an added benefit.
Yes, but those are all choices, and they're all vendor-driven. It's not users demanding these things - users just select from what's available on the market.
And here, it's not even the case of all those weird nerds complaining about missing headphone jack. Go poll normies about screen sizes. Regular people complaining about phones being too large is pretty much a meme now.
(Engineering-wise, phones do get thermal advantage from the current form factor trends - thinner but larger -> more surface area. But I suspect it's more than compensated by the extra heat from the larger screen.)
In this case, I carried a phone that works outdoors in typical field conditions, including high heat, cold, and high background noise. iPhones are designed with assumptions that make them inappropriate for outdoor work — they have an operating range that leads to shutdown in outer pockets in the winter or in hot summer conditions.
With respect to the warranty and accessory stuff, I spent several years in that part of the hardware business — a product like AppleCare has 70% margins at retail (minimum), and unbranded cases identical to Apple branded sell for 60-80% less at retail.
Am I wrong about Apple’s abilities to manufacture durable products with different design goals? Maybe, but I doubt it.
MacBook Pros are a great example, when transitioning to unibody design, the MacBook lost replaceable batteries and other components, in exchange for a more structurally rigid frame and a very marginal weight/thickness savings. What they did achieve is a higher margin design by focusing on production efficiency and an attempt to push higher service costs to the consumer. (Which partially failed with the defective keyboards) The engineers produced a product that met its design goals, with the exception of the garbage keyboard.
A curious thing about consumer behavior is that they never report phone thickness being a top concern but in practice it is actually one of the top criteria by which they judge phones.
Apple may benefit from planned obsolescence but they can (and do) just stop updating the software to achieve the same end. I suspect that if they made two versions of the iPhone, one like now and another along the lines you suggest, the current design would sell much better.
> they never report phone thickness being a top concern but in practice it is actually one of the top criteria by which they judge phones
So much true. I'm on iPhone 12 Pro right now but I am always tempted to play with my Moto 5g Plus. It is quite a bit thinner or at least feels like that and it feels so much better in my hand.
My iPhones have always gotten software updates much longer than my Android phones so I’m always curious why Apple gets targeted so often when talking about phasing out old phones. Heck half of the new Androids had trouble getting software updates in a timely manner.
IMO Apple's planned obsolescence is based on ridiculously low RAM. Modern phones are running same workloads as modern computers. Browser engine is the same, kernel is the same. Phone CPU is as powerful as laptop CPU with similar power budget. Developers use same or similar frameworks to write apps. Imagine buying premium laptop with 2 GB of RAM. That's iPhone 8 while high-end Androids were shipping with 8+ GB of RAM at that time.
RAM requirements of OS and apps will increase every year, so it'll be obvious to stop supporting old phones because of lack of RAM, even if CPU and Disk are more than capable.
In the past Samsung built phones with both a swappable battery and a headphone jack and in a test it survived a run through a washing machine. No problem if there's an incentive to do it right. Not to mention Apple was pretty much the last to the waterproof smartphone party even though they always locked their phones down the most.
And I don't mind thickness. Thicker means better ergonomics in my experience, at least compared to today's oversized sheets of metal and glass. And I bet you put those in a case which adds 2-3mm thickness. Well, that sure paid off, did it?
And weight? I can't even come up with a scenario where I'd care about that. Make it weigh less than a pound and I'm okay with it.
The guys at the watch store would always warn that changing the battery could compromise the water resistance of the watch and, based on some bitter experience, not without reason.
Phones have much larger batteries and pack far more functionality into a small space than a regular watch. Hard to see how the constraints are comparable.
The battery size and device's functionality are the two most irrelevant factors. Water doesn't care if the thing has Bluetooth.
Whether it's a watch or a phone, you don't want water or moisture inside. Simple as that. Watches do have the advantage that they can be built so that they're 100% filled with a lubricating fluid, making them more or less immune to outer pressure.
IP68? The 6 stands for absolutely dustproof and the 8 means it can be submerged more than one meter in water and still work. Wasn't there a case of a working iPhone from a lake?
Disclaimer: prefer changeable batteries and don't own Apple devices.
iPhones are not waterproof. Warranty do not extend to water damage and iPhones have internal indicators of water leakage. If Apple is not confident with iPhones waterproof properties, neither should users.
You're right that water damage isn't covered but they're still pretty resistant:
> iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max have a rating of IP68 under IEC standard 60529 (maximum depth of 6 meters up to 30 minutes).
I have to say that I never find it convincing when people baldly assert the opposite conclusion of what I said without any explanation of why I should change my mind.
