iPhone 4 , you ’re the most beautiful thing . Holding you — so solid , so smooth , your zowielala screen glowing — makes me greedy . My precious . I want to lick you . I ca n’t stop looking at you . But your industrial purpose is a nonstarter .
Do n’t get me wrong . Like I saidback when we find oneself you , you are oh so pretty . But after holding you , after seeing some of the glaring problems you have , I have to cede to the fact .
https://gizmodo.com/this-is-apples-next-iphone-5520164
Your industrial figure fellate because , despite your sheer beauty , your blazing speed , and having the best software in any smartphone today , Jon I ve and his team did n’t completely follow their belovedDieter Rams’guidelines for good figure .
https://gizmodo.com/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future-343641
First and first , the rule that good design has to be long-lived . Good innovation has to stand the pass of time both aesthetically and physically . Good design has to senesce gracefully . The object , whatever it is , ca n’t get easily scratched . Its open ca n’t easily shatter . It has to perdure . It has to get in to the future and feel at home and natural .
Then , serious design also has to be thorough . Nothing must be left to chance . And good plan has to make a ware utile . It has to show respect to the user by provide the function it claims with perfection and accuracy . Its mannequin has to follow function to its terminal consequence .
And your function , dear iPhone 4 , is to make calls flawlessly , to transmit smiling and tears through telecasting chat , to show newsprint headlines like they were printed on the material paper as tight as possible . And for that you require a unbendable , strong sign . Not a signaling that drops if the user hold you in a certain position — which just happens to be the most natural positioning you could imagine . Wireless signals are the bosom of phones . They should come first , always . The form should come after its functions .
This is why the iPhone 4 ’s industrial innovation is not good :
The material problem
Despite being glossy and shiny , the undeniable fact is that chalk is not a dependable material to make ware that are always being strike around , under stress , and in the hands of user . Glass breaks . That ’s why you never see products made of crank around you , except when it ’s wholly necessary because the product itself need to be transparent .
It does n’t matter that it is strengthened , like aluminosilicate glass , the one Apple habituate in the iPhone 4 ’s . In fact , tone up drinking glass to quash inscribe — which is what Apple did — produce it more prostrate to extreme shattering on daze . The reason : Aluminosilicate glass has a much high intimate tenseness than steady chalk . What hit it hard also hit it more fragile .
Cases of broken iPhone 4 ’s backs arealready appear . One of Gizmodo ’s interns break his iPhone 4 after accidentallydropping it while testing it . This has n’t changed from old generations . Hell , I broke my iPhone display twice . The fact is that , at the last of the mean solar day , dropping the earphone while handling it is something that everyone will meet earlier or later .
https://gizmodo.com/first-iphone-4-broken-after-one-foot-drop-5571658
But the divergence is that the iPhone 4 is all Methedrine . If you fell any other phone , you have a 50 % fortune of cave in its cover . With the iPhone 4 , the risk of infection will always be there , no matter how it falls . It ’s just more exposed to damage because of the material choice .
Some people reason that the shattering does n’t matter . That the authoritative thing is that this methamphetamine hydrochloride is surd to scratch . But , as GDGT editor in chief Ryan Block show , this does n’t mean it ’s excoriation - cogent evidence . He scratched his iPhone 4 accidentally , without even acknowledge .
https://gizmodo.com/first-iphone-4-scratch-on-its-ultradurable-glass-5570742
Why ? An expert on the issue who want to stay anon. , may have a safe explanation :
I sawyour clause about the chalk scratcheson the iPhone 4 . I make for [ a major spotter society ] that utilize the same Chinese factory [ as Apple ’s ] . We had a Brobdingnagian problem with a similar “ chemically treated ” chalk from the same manufacturer .
The spyglass passed all of our tests . drop curtain tests , steel lump impact tests , etc . but the glass started chipping and we could nt figure out why .
finally we regain that when the deoxyephedrine was hit against another piece of glass of like strength they both broke very easily . I would be uncoerced to bet money that if you take 2 iphone 4 ’s and tap the glass adjoin together with light to restrained force you would get an instant fleck on the bound . We receive this same problem when the watches were strike onto a chalk coffee mesa , or arrive at into a glass door when entering a workshop .
Could be a major problem for Malus pumila . This cause us to stop product and redesign so that glass edges were nt exposed .
Perhaps this is why the glass is surrounded by a black plastic rim . But even if you push aside the above — we do n’t even sleep together if it is the same glass or not — what practical cogent evidence has showed us is that the iPhone 4 ’s chalk scratches and shatters . At the end of the Clarence Day , Methedrine is not a right material alternative to make phones .
The handling
The material choice also affects cover . The all - meth surface feels more slippery in your hand than other smartphones including the iPhone 3G. Talking with fellow Gizmodo editors Matt Buchanan and Mark Wilson , they agree ( both have their own iPhone 4s ) . Matt says that it is more tricky than his 3 GB , and Mark that the sharp edges make it uncomfortable to treat . I do n’t fit on the latter , but I can apprize his opinion and I know that others will feel the same agency . In a way of life , in its beautiful Germanic minimalism , the phone has lost the humanity of the cheap looking for , even naff , but more organic , iPhone 3GS .
The alternatives
While you ca n’t avoid shabu on the front , you could surely use other materials for the back . blade , aluminum , ceramics , teflon - coat material , even wood — there are plenty of alternatives that would have been more resistant and as pretty . Apple ’s current solution , however , is not a solution : If you need to cover the iPhone with a guinea pig to ward off shattering the glass or fix the antenna trouble , why not make it rubberise in the first place . There are plenty of pretty rubber material out there .
Like glassful , all those materials can be scratched too . But unlike glass , all those materials long time more graciously . wampum in steel or wood give the open character . The same scratches make glass look bad .
search at this design by Dieter Rams & Hans Gugelot , the Braun SK4 record player and radio from 1956 :
Like the iPhone 4 , this design will move around to the 22nd century and remain beautiful and timeless . Unlike the iPhone 4 , however , this the SK4 will age beautifully , even if perplex blemishes on its wood panels . For the next iPhone propagation , and for other products , Jon I ve and his squad should explore other combinations . sooner one that would make their pattern to have better wireless performance , one of the major sins of the Cupertino house .
The damn antenna
That ’s precisely theother major problem of this figure : The wireless receipt . The iPhone 4 ’s reception is blemish by design . Holding it in sure positions will degrade the signal dramatically , sometimes totally breaking it . It ’s not a affair of the AT&T web — which is bad as it is — but a problem of the steel banding that serves as the antenna . According to Apple , the antenna was supposed to raise communications . In the exercise , it causes the signal to cast for many hoi polloi while they are holding the telephone set incisively like Apple shows in their ads and web pages .
http://gizmodo.com/5571171/iphone-4-loses-reception-when-you-hold-it-by-the-antenna-band
When demand , Apple propose a very simple solution : Hold it in a different way . Minimizing what could be the iPhone ’s biggest functionality fault , industry punditslike David Pogueare saying that the problem is sweaty hand and the root are insulating cases . That ’s what Apple is tell too .
No , that ’s not the solution . Those are lame alibi for bad industrial design and engineering decision . The mistake is not in the substance abuser and the usage of the merchandise . This conk completely against random memory ’ guideline . intent should avail the user , it should enhance the experience . Good design is unobtrusive . It ca n’t define the user saying , much less obligate him to act in a certain way .
Jon I ve , do you think Dieter Rams would have call for people to commit his tetraiodothyronine 1000 world receiving system in a certain shoes of the house to have a clear response ?
Do you think he would have ask consumer to restrain his Braun T3 pocket radio in a certain way in fiat to take heed to the Beatles with perfect sound quality ?
The answer to both questions is no .
This time , despite make perhaps the best smartphone usable and one of the most beautiful industrial objects in their story , the Apple industrial innovation squad has go wrong . This time , Dieter Rams wo n’t be happy , just like consumer wo n’t be happy when their iPhone ’s back good luck or the signal drops just for support it .
AppleDesigniPhoneiPhone 4
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