Smartphones are Designed to Fail Us (and We Have to Change That)
Smartphones are Designed to Fail Us (and We Have to Change That)
A critique of the fragility and impracticality of modern smartphones, urging a shift toward more durable, repairable designs, and a call for manufacturers and users alike to prioritize function over aesthetics.
That’s an awesome domain
This is how it's supposed to look, wish Lemmy/Voyager did a better job here:
I assume it's done that way to prevent an IDN homograph attack.
For example if I sent you a link to "gооgle.com" you'd be like, sure. Except that isn't a link to "google" it's a link to "gооgle.com".
Nothing special, that's how urls with unicode, non ascii chatacters look like. It's called punycode, more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name
Emoji domains work the same, e.g. ❤️🍺.ws is the same as http://❤🍺.ws/
They have such a custom site. In a good way. Works well with RSS :)
The first step toward meaningful change begins with us. We must abandon our craving for glossy (and therefore glassy) devices, and instead embrace hardware that may not be as immediately pleasing to the eye (as it is the case with e.g. Fairphones or the PinePhone), but is built to be slightly more durable, somewhat repairable, and capable of outlasting even today’s limited commitments to software updates.
Fairphone and PinePhone being only mentioned anecdotally for being too pretty, and I guess not as sturdy as the author wants, is quite weird for an article about reducing fragility and improving repairability.
Kinda funny that they end up full of glass when for the most part everyone just bangs it in a case of some kind.
The main issue is the lack of software support. They keep making each new Android version more bloated so you can't update more than once or maybe twice. If it wasn't for that, you could keep using the same 5G phone until they shut down the 5G network as long as the battery is replaceable.
I wish Android was more like Debian where it's lightweight, uses stable versions of software and runs well on old hardware.
The newer Android versions aren't that much more bloated. Sure. If you compare Android KitKat with Android 14 it is gonna be a bit more demanding probably especially on graphics, but overall there were a lot of improvements to the battery usage and memory management over the years and I have an experience of newer Android versions running better than the older ones. You can have a 6 years old phone that will run the newest Android version just fine because you flashed it with a custom ROM.
When we get to the manufacturer's custom Android skins... Well that's a different story. Most of them are gonna be more or less bloated than stock Android, but this is a problem of manufacturers and the fact that mobile OS market and ecosystem is so much locked down compared to desktop, which makes it harder to remove manufacturer's bloat from your OS, install different ROMs and tinker with it, rather than Android being bloated as an OS.
There are tons of rugged smartphones out there, also some brands that focus on easy to repair phones.
The fact that they're not well known kind of shows that the majority of the market doesn't really care about those things.
One big problem is that pretty much all of these devices have major downsides. For example, I don't know a single repairable or rugged phone with an actually really good camera or a flagship SOC.
They also usually have a huge markup and are often produced by small boutique manufacturers with terrible support (like Fairphone) and/or really bad software (like Fairphone).
So if you have the choice to e.g. pay €600 for a Fairphone with its terrible camera, battery life problems, inexistent support, huge amount of bugs and frequent issues with network providers (e.g. VoLTE not working), or you pay €300 for a comparable Samsung with similar software support duration (6 vs 10 years) and it just works without issues.
If there was something like a Samsung A56 or even a Samsung S25 that's nicely repairable and costs a maximum of €100 more than the regular version, that might be worth it.
But the way it is now, it's much better to buy a regular phone and spend the €300 you saved on 1-2 professional battery replacements down the line.
Quite happy with my fairphone running /e/OS. So far I've not needed to replace anything, except for the battery which was getting weak. So I bought another battery, and I'm keeping the other one as a spare battery.
And there is me using a 2019 (dying) device which I heat up with a termux command to get it back in working state 😁
For the curious the device is a Poco F2 Pro, known for IMEI and charging flex issues, the termux command I use to bring alive my IMEI, Wifi and USB data transfers is:
for i in $(seq 1 32); do sh -c 'while :; do a=$((a+1)); done' & done; for i in $(seq 1 32); do yes > /dev/null & done
This paired with fast charge will heat the SOC and make it work like the 1st day without an issue lol.
What dies that do? Just do noops heating up the CPU? How does it help?
Yep, loops to heat up the CPU, in combination with fast charge to make it hot quicker.
CPU loses contact with the board or something like that making it not able to read modem, efs, and whatever is the responsible to transmit data through the USB port (charging works normally, even fast charge), it needs a reflow or reballing to fix this for good, but technicians nearby are... Simply put, thieves lmao.
So I'd rather keep doing this until the phone dies (the workaround makes it work for an undefined amount of time, which can be hours, days or almost a week) or change the motherboard myself.
I got the idea along with ChatGPT when a user in telegram told me that he got USB data transfers working again (in order to escape from MIUI once again) by heating up the SOC with a hairdryer, yes, that worked for me too to fix all above, thus I decided to create a software solution in the meantime 😅
I'm honestly quite happy with my Samsung XCover 6 pro:
- physical headphone jack
- notification LED
- removable and replaceable battery
- rugged and without a screen that bends around the edge of the phone
- relatively recent and quite powerful imo
- some samsung's default apps are surprisingly good
- two extra freely mappable physical buttons
- gps and all the other stuff
- dual sim
- good battery life
- it's an enterprise device
- you can get it new for 350€, if not less
Only drawback: utterly dogshit camera. It looks to be interpolated. 50MP never looked that much like 8MP
Can't wait for this to get LOS/EOS support
Most "50 MP" cameras are actually quad Bayer sensors (effectively worse resolution) and are usually binned 2x to approx 12 MP.
The lens on your phone likely isn't sharp enough to capture 50 MP of detail on a small sensor anyway, so the megapixel number ends up being more of a gimmick than anything.
Now, if the camera isn't the reason anymore, why would you still pay $1200 for a flagship if you get essentially the same for $300?
Fucking lights bulbs are designed to fail and we are okay with it. Why would anything change with phones.
As in, desgined to fail early? I highly doubt that.
Even if it were true, lightbulbs still last longer and are way cheaper. Whether I have to replace them every six years or every five years doesn't matter as much.
Light bulbs originally lasted basically forever, is my understanding. The wires were thick enough to not break with use, and also made of a more durable metal. Then they were made thinner and the metal used changed, so they'd wear out eventually and users would have to buy more.
Software side too: Linux's deliberate choice to not have a stable driver interface is detrimental to atomic distros with the usually shitty proprietary vendor drivers. Causing you to get no updates after a few years or get a new device.
Which is why i think BSD would have been a better fit for Android.
Still use my iPhoneX from 2017, and it still get updates 😊
It’s stuck on iOS 16. Once iOS 26 releases, companies will quickly pivot to iOS 17 as the minimum supported version and slowly you will find important apps no longer work on the phone.
The global smartphone screen protectors market size was estimated at $49.73 billion in 2022and the global protective cover market was anticipated to reach $21.89 billion in that same year.
That's insane, are screen protectors really twice the market size of phone cases??
Screen protectors need to be changed way more often than a good case and they are usually similar is prices so this makes sense to me.
The article is disappointing. It appears author of that article only has one narrow view and assumes the rest of the world has the same.
They buy the most fragile and aesthetically pleasing phones, and complain they are fragile. They advocate for manufacturers to stop making fragile aesthetically pleasing phones, and only make rugged or repairable phones instead. They make an inference that phones should be repairable like cars with accessible parts and non-proprietary tools, but they appear to not know that today's cars have difficulty getting replacement parts and absolutely contain mechanical and electronic proprietary tools to repair the cars.
Mr/Ms author, if you want a phone that doesn't break so easily when dropped, you can buy such a thing right now. Something like CAT phones:
... or other ruggedized Android phones.
I think the last time I dropped a phone an broke the screen on it was maybe 2007. I don't even use phone cases. If your particular use case has you dropping your phone more, buy one that exists and is designed to take those kind of conditions. There's no shame in that, but don't advocate for an entire industry shift because of just your own use case.
Smartphones/technology are still incredibly young in the grand scheme of things. Each of the new generation of devices that comes out adds more functionality for features that people want. Until that stops, it doesn't make sense to try to switch everyone to a "buy it for life" approach. My Commodore 64 computer still works, and is very easy to service, however I wouldn't have wanted technology to stop back then just because its a sturdy built machine. Today I have the paper thin laptops with 8 hours of battery and high speed CPUs are not as rugged or repairable as my venerable C64, but I'm quite glad to have the fragile laptop instead.
I have had few phones over the years, few of them I damaged by using them in bad conditions, mainly on construction sites.
As far I can remember I have never cracked the screen. Phones are and always were fragile, its a piece of condensed technology, with large glass screen. What do people expect from glass dropped from 1m? Just take care of your shit.
It always amazes me how can people cary their phones in back pocket or just throw it in the bag with keys or other sharp objects.
Smartphones are fragile without a case. They should have one, and maybe manufacturers should make that clearer, but a world where removable cases didn't exist would just mean that the case you get is the one that the manufacturer chooses for you and permanently attaches to the smartphone. Less options for you.
Just get a case.
I am also more than willing to carry a slightly thicker device if it means greater durability and easier repairability.
Me too. It's why I have a case.
And I am certain many others would gladly trade their bulky, overpriced cases and bumpers for a sturdier device that inherently provides the protection we now have to purchase separately.
If you want a built-in case, you can get them. There is a whole collection of "ruggedized" smartphones from various manufacturers in China that are large, usually have a hefty battery, and have shielding built into the device.
Look at Doogee for one such manufacturer.
Oukitel for another:
Ulefone for another:
Personally, I think that the built-in case isn't very interesting relative to a removable case, but the large battery might be, depending upon your needs.
EDIT: A number of manufacturers will even make official cases for their phones, if you can tolerate a removable case and just want something endorsed by the manufacturer.
Apple, for example:
https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/accessories/cases-protection
Or Google:
https://store.google.com/product/pixel_8_phone_case?hl=en-US
They don't have to be fragile, though. I have several old, cheap smartphones that didn't need a case and weren't bulky by the standards of the day. Even now all they would need is a new battery (easily replaceable btw) and they would work as good as new.