Why does my iPhone still work?

I don’t get it. I’ve had my iPhone forever eight months now.

Why isn’t it broken yet?

I don’t have a case, it slips in my pocket (although I’m careful not to add keys or coins to the same pocket), and I fiddle with it and throw it around like crazy.

There’s not so much as a scratch on the thing.

There’s a ridiculous amount of technology crammed into a compact space, such that they couldn’t even fit a teeny little hole in the top corner to connect a suteki little string with miniature hello kitty bell for my amusement. Gutted.

In the past, phones I’ve had often required sending back or replacing only months into their life for:

  1. Touch screen that refuses to work or calibrate properly
  2. Keys that have stopped pressing properly
  3. Displays that have discoloured or faded in certain areas
  4. Phone earpiece / speaker rattling, crackling, stopping working
  5. Data cable connections going a bit limp
  6. Batteries coming a bit disconnected and having to bend bits of metal to make them work again… not to mention replacement batteries

I’ve done my own repairs

  1. on integrated qwerty keyboards on Smartphones myself from cheap ebay parts (the unit was never quite the same again),
  2. replacement cases when they have split, cracked, or scuffed so much you can’t see the screen

… and I can’t begin to tell you how much money I have spent on high-end handmade leather imported from Argentina.

(The most desirable leather I have ever found comes from this company: http://www.vajacases.com/. I have… supported them in the past.)

Before you think I’ve just been buying awful quality mobile phones – no, this all applies to the only makes I’ve ever owned:

  1. Nokia
  2. Sony Ericsson
  3. HTC Smartphones

So – now the iPhone comes along. Audacious piece of technology, promising things you really never expected to see in this decade on a mass market consumer device: multitouch, a keyboardless design which is still way faster for text entry, always-on internet, a wicked application platform, google freaking maps that directs you in realtime to the nearest pub…

Why the hell does mine still work?

It should be broken by now dammit!

I don’t doubt that Apple have the world’s most exceptional talent for product development, testing – and crazy high standards for quality control. But seriously – it’s a young concept. iPhone isn’t even two years old.

It took Nokia years to get to the stage of predicting faults in their hardware design such that they could phase it out more quickly and develop something new.

No product recalls, no major device hardware design flaws, no faulty batches have made the news… (or am I missing them?)

And I like what they are doing with their ‘we make develop one ultimate device’ approach. It’s so modern. It’s so cool. It makes Nokia, with their multitude of product lines to suit different lifestyles and technological needs, look kind of lame. I remember being frustrated that I had to choose between two technologies I felt I really needed in one device. No more.

And yes, the battery lasts 1.5 days, unlike my old Nokia n602 which lasted a week. Big deal – I didn’t grope, handle, gorp-at, play-with my Nokia n602 anything like as much. (And it didn’t have push email.)

And yes, iPhone isn’t perfect for a highly secure corporate environment. Who knows, maybe it never will be. But I’ve loved to hate Apple for a very long time now,  and iPhone has changed that for me.


Posted

in

by

Comments

One response to “Why does my iPhone still work?”

  1. […] But I thought it should have broken a long time ago, given how I treat it. Or rather, how often it is handled. See here for original post. […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *