Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

None of these people have ever worked on a tiny electro-mechanical assembly that needs to happen on a monumental scale. It’s impossible to make this thing repairable without sacrificing size or it’s water resistance and more. I’ve worked in HVM and have a huge respect for people who make this possible. iPhone? Sure they could probably try making it repairable. It’s difficult though. I worked in a company that did competitive analysis of iPhone PCB. It’s insane. WLCSP and various CoWoS packages everywhere. Not a single mm^2 wasted. Apple Watch is the most amazing thing ever - we did cross sections and X-rays of the SoCs, lots of flat flex and hybrid PCB components, glue is king - companies like Nitto specialize in making glue for assembly. I can’t imagine how to make it repairable. It’s hard. I also wish things were repairable but then people will complain its not waterproof or whatever.

One of the things that I absolutely despise is the habit people have for consumer entitlement. People are assholes - just ask anyone who has worked in a call center or H&M cash register. General public is thankless and constantly complain about how much everything just sucks. It's almost like a passtime.

Unrelated thankless jobs: Imagine you’re an engineer working on Siri and the entire world makes fun of your work constantly. And it’s not your fault that Apple doesn’t collect insane amounts of data like Google does to make AI work. This is debatable.

Edit: let’s not talk about Siri. I’m sorry to bring it up, just had the thought come to my mind about it today when I watched Linus Tech Tips’s video about Siri. I was like damn, it must suck to be in that team. They’re just people like you and me.

Perhaps we should be making sacrifices in order to ensure our devices are repairable, or at least more durable. While it may be an amazing feat of engineering as it stands, the disposability aspect does have long term consequences.

I think this is generally true. We could go even further - the amount of Airpods vs. the amount of crap sold on Amazon for your kitchen, living room and bathroom is a few magnitudes more. Not saying we shouldn't strive, just providing some perpective how much impact Airpods has vs. the entire disposable culture we've created. Volume of plastic from Lego alone would eclipse everything Apple makes. Do you think we need to stop making Lego bricks? Not trying to be snarky, but there are some naunces that need to be hashed out.

It is an expectation for a can opener to less than $7. With this kind of consumerism, you're barking at the wrong tree with the Airpods.

Apple gets the dirty end of the stick - It is pretty juicy to hate Apple and people love it in some kind of a deep contemptful vengence.

> Volume of plastic from Lego alone would eclipse everything Apple makes.

To be fair, Lego don't stop working. Lego made decades ago work just fine today and will continue to work a century later. It's not that making things out of plastic is a sin, it's building planned obsolescence into our plastic products which is wrong.

>To be fair, Lego don't stop working.

No, kids just grow out of it, and parents throw it away...

While I'm sure that happens, Lego is also one of the toys that: is typically played with more and for longer; that gets passed from family to family, is passed between generations, or is resold. It is also less prone to breakage or wear, is relatively easy to clean, and (in many cases) has less plastic than other toys.

In many respects, it is the antithesis of what we are talking about since it is not designed to be disposable. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if many people simply toss Lego. Such is our culture ...

Why would you throw it away? It has a good second hand value. Give it away, or sell it. There's demand.

I think it’s reasonable to criticize all aspects of unnecessary consumer waste. Apple is a good target because they are highly visible. We should be thinking about earths natural resources and how quickly we’re turning them to trash whether it’s cheap imports through Amazon or the major companies. Saying we shouldn’t criticize Apple because they’re just one company in a sea of trash I think misses the mark.

Here's the keyword: cheap.

Price in the consequences, and consumers will notice. See how much even the tiny 5¢ price of the disposable supermarket bag change consumers' behavior.

I don't think it misses the mark. It is focusing on the low hanging fruit which is a smart thing to do. Apple does pretty good: https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental_Pr...

Where is Samsung's or Google's? Or Microsoft, GE, Lenovo, Amazon, HP, Huawei, Xiaomi?

I really doubt it's impossible to make iPhones and such just a bit more repairable. Plenty of other manufacturers have found a way.

Perhaps a single-minded focus on thinness and smooth industrial design is the real root of the problem here. Plenty of phones have decent repair scores, amidst many that have very poor ones: https://www.ifixit.com/smartphone-repairability

Looking at your list Apple is doing best of all flaghships.

Plus these scores need to price in scale of manufacturing. Fairphone total sales is less than iPhones per day.

Smartphones have been getting less repairable over time, including iPhones. If you scroll down, there is a noticeable trend towards greater repairability in older models.

It's a bit of FUD. Sure it's fucky for Apple to make glass back for no functional purpose, but breaking glass doesn't render phone useless. Mine got replaced in a dodgy shop for $130 NZD (I guess they would be able to do same in US for $50 or $20 in SE Asia). They just unglued everything and stuck new aftermarket glass.

Reality for smartphone fixes is 90% of cases they gonna replace screen, remaining - battery. Both jobs take something like 10 minutes.

"General public... constantly complain about how much everything sucks" reminds me of this hilarious Louis CK bit about cellphones and flying:

https://youtu.be/zbCoe3vIskA

My galaxy buds plus have replaceable lithium coin cell batteries. They are basically airpods but you can repair them.

I guess the market will decide how much it values that feature? Choice is good.

But the environmental cost of disposal isn't factored in the price, so that doesn't work.

I agree, but I dont have a problem with critics or people complaining per se.

I have a problem with people complaining without first ever think about the why, understanding the problem, the trade off etc. So in these cases they are not Assholes, they are idiot. And when you explain to them they still complain? Yes they are assholes.

Not only do they think they are entitle to so many things, those complaining also tends to be the group of people unwilling to pay anything for it. You want super fast charge and thousands cycle Carbon Nanotube Solid State Battery so they last 5 - 6 years without battery replacement included with AirPod Pro? How about $399? Nope. Crazy! You are now accused of trying rip people off..... You just cant win.

They want best 4G/5G Modem and Network Technology? How about paying a slight premium for Qualcomm Modem? Nope. Qualcomm are Patent Troll.

5G is useless, stupid, patent grabbing pile of mess. I guess no one look at 3GPP Profile and view the amazing engineering achievement we went from literally little Data usage from 2009 to 4.5B people on Earth with 3G+ ( And Soon 4G ) Mobile Data connection.

And you know what make it hundred times worst?

Some of these people complaining also happen to have engineers in their title.

Something could be the most amazing design in the world, but if it cant serve its function, then its just well designed garbage. Repairability is a function i except a product to have, and if it doesnt to me that is a failure.

I think Airpods are an exception. Do you think hermetically sealed things like Pacemaker [0] should be repairable?

I generally agree with you - I personally wish people weren't so afraid of screws and other cosmetic artifacts that allow things to be repairable. There is a general distaste from the public to make things sexy, clean and minimal. So manufacturers comply. Just look up a 1950's electric coffee grinder [1] - it will have visible screws without an apology. Or a Collins instrument in a airplane cockpit even today [2]. I blame the public, designers and the bean counters. Generally, engineers' job would be easy if things were repairable because assembly/disassembly is part of the requirements from the get go and there is no Jony Ive breathing down their necks to hide screw holes. There is a whole area of study of snap-fit components to reduce BOM cost and this is where the bean counters come in.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNW3Xqtgkus

[1] https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-electric-coff...

[2] https://www.aeroexpo.online/prod/collins-aerospace-rockwell-...

How do you think pacemakers and AirPods are even comparable?

They have some similarities and many differences. I was just extending my argument to make a point that: 1) Can't increase the size 2) Ingress of fluids and weather sealing is a concern 3) Battery capacity > aesthetics/repairability

In the case of the air pods, why couldn't they just have a cylindrical compartment for the battery that can be opened - like any other device? It just seems silly.

I'll take a stab at this one:

opening compartments require more space. Any place that has a compartment needs to have that area waterproofed off of the rest of the device. When it's a thing that can be removed, it may not provide as much structural rigidity, so it can't be trusted in as part of the foundation of the device.

If the same form factor was to be maintained, then, since you need a compartment to store the battery, that takes up extra space that can't be used for more battery, so battery life would suffer, too.

How much space could a plastic or rubber end piece plug take up though, really? That would probably provide enough moisture resistance, why would headphones need to be waterproof?? I think it's just planned obsolescence.

> why would headphones need to be waterproof

because of consumers

and it makes them last longer

> I think it's just planned obsolescence.

you're blaming them for planned obsolescence (which is a wildly overplayed card on HN), while being willing to discard water resistance, which has ended god only knows how many consumer electronic devices.

please consider the possibility that you lack the information to understand the trade offs being made.

But Airpods aren't waterproof. So there's that. Galaxy buds look pretty small and have a replaceable battery. Apple with all their genius could make it work.

You'll need to provide space for seals and gaskets, either reducing battery capacity or increasing size.

I think if anything else, we shouldn't be attacking Airpods for their construction. There is bigger fish to fry like Macbooks, and often quoted along with Apple - John Deere and their tractors.

In their defense, when you're constantly bombarded by companies rolling out the puffery claiming they are the biggest thing since sliced bread, when you run into a mere mortal's mistake, you tend to get testy.

Which is why I think everyone would have been a lot happier with everyone else if we'd just drop the damn marketing wank, and just admit we all made a thing, here's the price if you like it, and moved on.

> In their defense, when you're constantly bombarded by companies rolling out the puffery claiming they are the biggest thing since sliced bread

lol, touche. Apple's marketing dept needs to tone things down.

I would feel bad for the people running Siri but I wouldn't be surprised if most of the problems come from Apple intentionally handicapping it.

And it's not like interactive language based interfaces can't be built, that's what the shell is!

Plus Apple intentionally not letting you to replace Siri with more capable assistants that support remaining 2-3 billion people and their native languages.

if it were apple priority , we would've had atleast one iPhone launch with a 2-time detail on how "repairable" it is.Can we just understand that its a feature apple is not willing to invest on and move-on , than try to defend them in other possible ways ?If only one of those PMs drew out their million-$ R&D budget on this feature!

Where’s the reference that Siri’s abysmal performance is from a lack of data? Apple might not have Google scale data but it should have enough to make it work through some sort of self-supervised/semi-supervised learning.

I am not an expert in this area, I’ll trust your word. I edited the comment. My guess was that Google has a knowledge graph thing and it’s been collecting people’s behavior for more than a decade. It's also their core business, for Apple, Siri is not.

I found a lot of value in your post, regardless of the Siri part. Manufacturing is hard.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com