Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/07/man-adds-proper-headphone-jack.html
…
5 Likes
I miss going to Shenzhen for this stuff.
5 Likes
I wonder if it spoiled the water resistance of the phone?
4 Likes
I can’t see a way it wouldn’t, isn’t the water resistance reliant on an hydrophobic coating?
2 Likes
Good on him. It’s my only issue with my 7 Plus. But 17 weeks!?!
Or you could simply buy a competing phone which still has a jack, but might lack a fruit symbol on the back. Buy or design/make? Phones are one area where unless you’re planning for a production run of over half a million, the latter is a bad idea.
7 Likes
That’s not especially true, you break even at about 50,000 typically outside of super premium stuff. For an Apple product that is probably true, but they use a lot of premium materials, premium coatings, and a lot of machining.
You point still stands about just buying a different phone, especially since this guy bought the iPhone 7 for the camera.
4 Likes
If the break even point is 50k, why are Samsung and Apple the only two companies making any money (between them more than 100%, heck Apple alone is over 100%) in the Smartphone business?
1 Like
Because I’m talking about materials, and not an entire business architecture. If you wanted to make a cheap smartphone and sell it as is and let someone flash on android it’s cheap, and if you use a prepaid SIM you should be able to get away with it pretty easily.
Now if you want to talk about your chance of selling 50K basic smartphones in the US without being able to sell in carrier stores, big bow stores, or really pretty much anywhere… well that’s something entirely different. But there are more than two companies making money on smartphones - and if you spend an afternoon in the place this video takes place you can see that. I mean, Huawei rose to the second largest producers of smartphones in the worlds by producing low volume whitebox phones.
EDIT
Obviously, they abandoned low volume white box phones a long time ago. I’m just pointing out they started small with the other big brands in place.
Do 2013 iThingies still get timely security updates by any chance?
Exactly this. My S7 not only has a headphone jack, while retaining its hydrophobic integrity, it also allows me to install emulators for retro games, unlike iCrap. I didn’t acquire damn near every NTSC PS1 game for no reason ^^’…
2 Likes
Since removing the headphone jack was ‘courage’, this must be cowardice; but it’s the most nerves-of-steel-and-steady-hands sort of cowardice I’ve seen in quite some time.
2 Likes
Aren’t there mini-jack to full size headphone jack adapters out there, or is an iPhone jack of some unique non-standard size? Android dudes want to know.
Then that’s two adapters. iPhone to 3.5mm jack, then a 3.5mm jack to headphone jack port. Daisy-chain mania.
Just FTR, Fairphone started with below 50k units, with a licensed but slightly changed model, and then designed and produced a mid-range phone with the aim to sell 120k units. And they developed an entire business architecture.
Fun fact: the FP2 was, AFAIK, the first phone sold with a modular concept, and since recently, you can upgrade your camera.
So, 50k is possible for a start-up with a good idea.
1 Like
Er, no; a 3.5mm jack IS an analog “headphone jack port” o.o’. As is a 1/4" jack, but it would be a bit silly to expect one on a phone, of course.
In other words, you need a Lightning jack-equipped pair of headphones, Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter and bog-standard cans, or a Bluetooth set. All work acceptably well (even Bluetooth, these days) BUT… If you want to charge your iCrap and use corded headphones at the same time, it gets a good bit more annoying and you’ll need more “techtopus” bits.
A lot of that has to do with the ability to know exactly how many orders you have to fulfill, enabling you to buy what you need, and no more, at the best possible prices, without anywhere near as much warehousing of either raw materials or product.
Seriously, you can save huge amounts of money, simply by (nearly) eliminating storage.
Which makes me wonder. The stuff is so small, hence no big costs in storage capacity, and while stuff in store is something like “money lying around, not working”, buying larger quantities must make costs somewhat less volatile and somewhat, well, less costly?
Anyway. Analysis is correct, you can save a lot on storage.
