Primitive folding iPhone built from Motorola Razr and iPhone parts [video] | Hacker News Reader

Primitive folding iPhone built from Motorola Razr and iPhone parts [video]

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64 pointsreimertz22 comments

Cool project. I'm very disappointed however, to see the creators using clever editing and high production values to deliberately lie about otherwise minor shortcomings.

The outer case isn't 3D printed - it's an off-brand iPhone 12 Pro cut in half. The split screen hack is just FloatingDock for Cydia. And the triple lens camera enclosure is a non-functional mockup.

To imply the case was 3D printed, they show a Blender file - in reality, this was only used for promo animations. The printer from the video can't output that kind of product, so they took a cheap iPhone lookalike (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5mSrWqw3No) and cut it in half, combining it with the Razr hinge.

The triple rear camera is from the off-brand iPhone, with no functional sensor behind it. A second device is used to demo the real camera - one with a rough outer finish, and a likely-unfinished back which is never shown. You can identify this device in the videos by the 4 lenses on the front.

These flaws are certainly nitpicks - the project overall remains nothing less than amazing. Surely any hacker would brush these off as artifacts of the creative process.

Which is why I'm deeply disappointed to see the creators diminish their own achievements by outright lying about these minor details. And with such slick editing too. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

They mentioned sacrificing parts and the camera being wrong. Still, I'd agree about misleading there.

The 3D printing looks like it was for the internals, I don't think that's an "outright lie".

And there's nothing wrong with installing a Cydia hack while saying they "explored renovation schemes" and "the floating plugin is used".

Watch the video again (timestamped): https://youtu.be/k1DxL-vyjfs?t=678

They cut directly from Blender scene, to 3D printer, to finished product. The editing and subtitles clearly imply that they printed the outer components. It's deliberately misleading, and these kinds of tricks are used throughout the presentation.

It's particularly hard to stomach the embellishment when the real work stands on its own so well. It casts everything else into doubt, and reflects very negatively on the creators IMO.

Why did we never end up with a normal folding smart phone form factor? By which I mean take two square touchscreens and attach them with a hinge, like a pocketwatch.

Is the bar down the middle really too much of a hassle? I suspect it would not take too much engineering to make one with bezel free screens, you would still get a seam, but no ridge.

In most other metrics it would appear to be a winner, protects the screen, compact. Don't get me wrong the folding screen is an amazing bit of tech, but from the durability standpoint, i don't like it a bit.

you could even make the lower part touch screen, and use gestures heavily to avoid ever needing to touch the top screen; which would solve a lot of the one-handed usability issues with large phones forcefully; and be much better for battery life.

But then apps would have to be developed separately just for this phone, and I doubt anyone wants to do that

I doubt that it's not possible to write firmware/drivers to present the two screens as a single one to the OS and the applications. Early cheap 4K monitors were doing this quite a bit 4-5 years ago.

You just described a Nintendo DS

I suspect pocket sand would scratch the screens.

Because Apple never did it.

There was Android flip phones but they never caught outside Japan.

https://www.gsmdome.com/sharp-aquos-sh-06g-announced-by-doco...

those are normal flip phones, not what the parent is referring to:

>two square touchscreens and attach them with a hinge, like a pocketwatch

Isn't Samsung Flip exactly that? (Or am I misunderstanding something?)

Like a Surface Duo?

Aside from the project itself, the production value of this video is crazy good.

I'm not sure if I'm understanding the subs correctly, it mentions they used an "original" iPhone screen (and went through 37 of them) before they were able to successfully extract layers and get the bendable display working. But it's not clear exactly what they did, how do you go from original non-bendable screen to bendable one? And what do different batches have to do with this?

You remove the glass and be extremely gentle with bending and don't expect it to have any durability.

The OLED layer probably has a thin plastic substrate.

At my old job, we actually did this on an industrial scale. We took the LCDs, separated the layers (cover glass, polarizer, LCD), added a touch panel, customized glass (maybe hardened or with a logo). Then we glued everything back together with special silicone, so that you had the airgapless look common on phones (optical bonding), but also for larger size screens. It turns out to be cheaper this way, and you can't always buy the plain LCD cell anyway.

Our Chinese factory was quite proficient at this, but it is very tricky and you need a lot of practice.

OLED screens are inherently flexible.

Watching the demonstrator scrolling @12:43 did something in my brain. That looks incredibly compelling.