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Comment by meesterdude | Hacker News Reader

I would welcome some additional thickness in my iphone for a better battery life. The end goal should not be a paperthin phone; it should be a phone that has a long charge time and fits reasonably into your pocket / hand. Phones are pretty important to people and it's silly something so important is so needy of recharging.

It's not technology so much that is the problem, it is design principles and priorities.

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I would happily buy a phone twice as thick as my current one in order to fit twice as much battery in it.

I agree but there are issues with having bigger batteries as well: they add a lot of weight and could result in more wrist/arm pain for those using their phones for extended time. You certainly don't want your phone to be as heavy as a brick.

>* they add a lot of weight and could result in more wrist/arm pain for those using their phones for extended time.*

Seriously? I think we somehow survived the nineties, early '00s without such issues.

>* You certainly don't want your phone to be as heavy as a brick.*

It's been at least 5-10 years that we've been very far away from that situation...

> Seriously? I think we somehow survived the nineties, early '00s without such issues.

Smartphones were not mainstream in the early '00s. All the "normal" phones were very light and very portable.

For about 100 years or so the handset was a lot heavier than todays smartphones and nobody thought anything of it. My grandmom had one of those old black bakelite jobs, it must have weighed at least 2 pounds and could be used as a means of self defense.

But no one was tapping on the screen and looking at it to interact with it …

I would personally argue that I’m unsure about the connection between weight and comfortableness and the tolerances. Would 200g be ok? I really don’t know.

However … making phone calls is not the main use case for smartphones. You just cannot design them with that in mind as something to optimise for. That’s non-sensical, weird, and a total non-sequitur. Your comparison makes zero sense in that regard. It just doesn’t even apply, so it’s not a valid argument in any way, shape or form.

> making phone calls is not the main use case for smartphones

Try marketing a smart phone that can't make phone calls and see how it goes.

> You just cannot design them with that in mind as something to optimise for.

Every smartphone has been primarly a phone, secondary a camera and thirdly something that runs apps.

It's essentially a computer with a telephony interface but that telephony bit is absolutely essential and not an afterthought.

> Try marketing a smart phone that can't make phone calls and see how it goes.

http://www.apple.com/ipod-touch/

> Try marketing a smart phone that can't make phone calls and see how it goes.

I think that's called a (mini) tablet.

How many people that have mini tablets also have a phone? How many people that have a phone also have mini tablets?

Are you serious?! How is it even possible to hold that opinion? I mean, really?! I’m so confused right now.

http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/02/how-do-users-re...

It’s not the phone part you have to design around, it’s obviously all the other stuff, especially – really, really, especially – if your argument basically boils down to “Oh, but it’s fine for making phone calls!” I mean, yeah, you can easily argue making the situation better for phone calls in your design since they still play some role, but the argument you made just doesn’t fly at all. It makes no sense.

It makes no sense to you. But the world is a lot larger. If there is an interruption in data services most people wouldn't even notice. But when you can't make or receive calls that's major and in extreme cases will lead to loss of life. Apps are nice-to-have, phone calls are a must.

That argument of yours is so confusing and non-sensical, mostly in that you don’t link it back to the original point you made.

Basically, there is just no connection between what you just said and the original point you made. It’s utterly irrelevant, unconnected.

Even if weight were a problem, a hands free headset trivially solves it.

I thought that, but it only solves the voice/audio portion - doesn't solve anything about holding the device to interact with the screen.

Good point. I got to thinking about a remote screen attachment, sort of the touchscreen version of a headset, then realized you just do that now by using an external battery pack and a smartphone with a decently long cable between them.

Well, either this, or instant recharging (think: super capacitors).

You're out of juice? Find a wall outlet, connect your phone for a minute and you're completely recharged.

Fast charge plus an actual, real standard for connecting my devices to charge would be great. Seriously, the world has come a long way - there's now only a few options... iphone 30pin, iphone lightning, micro-usb and "wierdo".

But what I really really want is a standard way to plug in my devices (including laptops!) and be done with it. We've had the same interface to wall current since forever - and it just works. I want the same for my devices. These things should be commodities and exist everywhere, for every device, basically for free. Right now I keep usb wall warts all over my house, and a box of cables in a central location, so guests can just charge as needed. It sure would be nice to just have each of those wall warts be something else... with a retractable "the one cable". It would reduce a small but persistent issue go away.

I thought Micro-USB is now the de-facto standard (for mobile phones/tablets at least). All the manufacturers except for Apple (that's playing special) are using them.

Micro-USB has a 1.1 amp maximum current as specified. That's half the charge rate of a current lightning connector. The upcoming type C connector will do 3 amps, so thats an easy 15 watt charge rate which would probably start hitting thermal limits of the batteries. If you make more circuitry you can run them up to 100 watts (um, maybe 60 watts) by negotiating higher voltages.

And it's reversible!

Sadly, adoption will probably be slowed somewhat since there are governments that mandate the nasty old micro usb connector for mobile phones.

The EU seems satisfied with adapters (that's how Apple complies, for example), so I don't imagine it will be a big impediment even if the regulations aren't updated for the new standard.

That's the case in the EU, where all smartphones sold must use Micro-USB by law. In America and elsewhere I believe every manufacturer still has its own proprietary "solutions."

America is now microvusb except Apple.

> Right now I keep usb wall warts all over my house

That's my current strategy, but now that USB 3 is finalized I think my next place (which I'll be buying) will have integrated USB power in the outlet plates.

Doesn't solve the cable problem, but gets rid of a lot of wall warts!

The Lumia 920 I bought over two years ago has wireless charging (via the Qi standard) that I consider so convenient and revolutionary, I was stumped when Nokia released subsequent models without this killer feature. If I need to charge it, I just set it on a pad. I want this so badly in portable devices, including laptops, for everyone in my household. Whenever Apple creates yet another "new and improved" charging port that requires a proprietary "smart" cable, I cry a little.

>Whenever Apple creates yet another "new and improved" charging port that requires a proprietary "smart" cable, I cry a little.

How many times have they done that?

> How many times have they done that?

iDevice 30-pin, iDevice Lightning, MagSafe 1, MagSafe 2. To make matters worse, MagSafe stuff is patent restricted, so there's not much competition for chargers...

So … exactly once for each type of device? In something like a decade?

Complain that it’s not what everybody else is using, do not complain that it’s frequently changing. Because it isn’t. That’s just empirically untrue and a very weird statement to make. It’s non-sensical.

You can also hardly complain about the original Magsafe since that one is actually different from other power cables for a reason. These complaints are just so fucking weird and disconnected from all reality to me. Like you don‘t really understand the world or something.

Relatively speaking, it is frequently changing. I can plug a depression-era radio into an electrical outlet and it will work. Delivering power via a cable, even with AC/DC conversion in the middle, is a solved problem. I can think of five Apple devices currently in use in my house that can't share the same cable. None of them are more than seven years old. That's nonsensical. The fact that none of them can use the same connector as other non-Apple devices merely adds to the annoyance.

As for MagSafe, it's only a partial success. All of my MacBooks have outlasted their original MagSafe power supplies. They aren't robust, can't be easily repaired, and are expensive to replace. I'm happy they're easy to use and help to prevent damage to the laptop, but Apple should have fixed the other problems by now.

Both my MacBook Pros have outlasted the MagSafe power supplies. As nice as they are--and even with careful usage--the cord has split at the base twice leaving the inner wires exposed.

I only discovered the issue when I felt a mild tingling sensation on my leg. Apple has let this issue slide for some time; there's over 2,000 1 star reviews on the Apple Store site [1]. This stands in stark contrast to the superb build quality of the MacBook Pro itself.

[1] http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC461LL/A/apple-60w-magsaf...

To be completist add:

* the original iPod which used a Firewire port

* the original iPod shuffle which you plugged in like a USB flash drive

* 2nd gen iPod Shuffle which used a special 3.5 mm minijack docking station for charging

* 3rd-4th gen iPod Shuffle which used a 3.5 mm minijack to USB cable

Update: If you do include MagSafe, you might as well include the 3/32" sub-mini and Barrel plug variations for the really old Powerbooks and iBooks http://support.apple.com/kb/TA32393

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