{"id":1692,"date":"2020-01-23T22:38:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T02:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/?p=1692"},"modified":"2020-01-23T12:06:52","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T16:06:52","slug":"the-culture-of-disposable-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/2020\/the-culture-of-disposable-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"The Culture of Disposable Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

I really like taking things apart. When it comes to smart phones, the Nexus 4 was the last phone I really did any actual tinkering around inside. That phone had a 7\/10 repairability score on ifixit<\/a>, not bad. I had replaced the battery multiple times, and even the motherboard.<\/p>\n

My current phone is the Google Pixel XL, it also surprisingly gets a 7\/10 on ifixit<\/a>. Looking at the battery replacement guide<\/a>, it seems the display is likely to break when you pry it off. This seems much worse than the Nexus 4 to me since other than the screen, the battery is probably the next most likely component you’ll want to replace.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t always this way. Removable batteries were common, that is before the rise of smartphones. Some lay the blame on Apple<\/a> and the iPhone, but the industry as a whole needs to own this problem. The rate and pace of improvements has driven this issue, it’s quite common to replace your phone after 2 years – why make anything repairable?<\/p>\n

Even the latest macbook pro has a removable cover<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Imagine if we put a few screws on the back of the Google Pixel XL in the same style? The battery is stuck right on the back cover.<\/p>\n

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The only hitch is the battery connector is on the wrong side of the circuit board.<\/p>\n

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It might be awesome to create after market phone bodies which enable easy repair, but re-house the existing electronics. While it’s unfortunate that modern screens are glued to the frame – I can deal with that being a part I need to replace as a whole. The structural benefits of the screen being firmly affixed are worth that. The back of the phone, other than possibly being a water-resistance problem, seems like an obvious location for access to the inside.<\/p>\n

There is a security story here, making it hard to open the phone means you can trust the insides haven’t been tampered with. For the majority of users, this isn’t a key part of their threat model. Also, everything is broken<\/a> anyways. Tamper proof stickers are also an easy solution to that. I’d even be ok if the panel on the back was glued on – and removing it voided my warranty.<\/p>\n

It is probably a difficult business case to justify building an aftermarket phone body to re-house the electronics. Still I can dream.<\/p>\n

The trend of making the screen the thing you need to remove to get into the phone is a bad decision for repairability. If the latest macbook pro can have screws on the underside, why can’t modern smart phones?<\/p>\n

There is some hope if we look at the maker community and projects like kiteboard<\/a>. There is also the Fairphone<\/a> as an option, but it is not available in all countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really like taking things apart. When it comes to smart phones, the Nexus 4 was the last phone I really did any actual tinkering around inside. That phone had a 7\/10 repairability score on ifixit, not bad. I had replaced the battery multiple times, and even the motherboard. My current phone is the Google … Continue reading “The Culture of Disposable Technology”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gadgets","category-soap-box"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1692"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1700,"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1692\/revisions\/1700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lowtek.ca\/roo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}