I replaced my LCD display for my iPhone today and started to think about how companies like Apple make their phones. Some decisions don’t seem to make sense. For example, gluing a chip to a ribbon cable and placing that assembly close to an internal entry point makes the phone more prone to water damage that simply relocating the assembly.
There could be a number of reasons for this. To start, releasing a phone every year doesn’t really leave time to explore alternate options. Some poor engineer gets chewed out if the touch sensor housing design comes in late because that puts other projects on hold. Another option would be planned obsolescence. The iPhone 6 was the last model in Apple’s line to retain original design structures. The seven removed a headphone jack, increased water security, and introduced a curved display. Was the six built to fail? Probably not. Was the seven going to sell better regardless? Yes, but not without some issues of its own.
I don’t own an iPhone 7 and I can’t speak to its internal design structure. However, I wonder what some choices mean for the future of Apple phones. I don’t think that forcing people into buying a dongle or Air-pods is right, but we’re talking about products. As long as people buy the adaptors, Apple will keep selling them.
