I cannot help with the processor and camera, but the battery is comparatively easy.
For most phones, the electrical interface is usually three-wire (plus, minus, thermistor referenced against minus). Some batteries have more wires; e.g. the iPhone 5S has a fourth wire, a serial comm line with the bq27541 battery gauge chip. You can extract the board from an existing battery and just replace the cell with bigger.
My first cellphone came up with nearly dead 500-or-so-mAh-as-new battery. I replaced the cells with 2.2 (or maybe 2.5?) Ah round NiMH ones placed into the shell of the original battery, protruding out, and wrapped in electrical tape. Voila, LOTS of standby and talk time.
Batteries without chips inside that would need to communicate are easy, itâs just mechanical adjustment of the case to fit them. It becomes tricky with the battery gauge chips, which need some individual care (or may lie to you and you have to suck it up).
The Pebble seems to me a more correct engineering tradeoff - it emphasises function rather than form. I think that the problem Apple has created for itself is a uniform design for all its products, in which an iPhone, a tablet and a laptop look pretty similar if all reduced to the same size. A watch is a completely different kind of device. If Apple made a Bluetooth earpiece (as if an Apple user would ever want such an uncool thing) it would have exactly the same problem. The Apple Stillson wrench? Do not want.
There is. Itâs called the Sony Xperia Z3 Compact, which is probably what I will go for when my Z1 compact dies. The Z1 lacks the battery life of the Z3, but it goes well over 2 days on a charge. The Z3 exceeds 3 days.
For an approximation as a rectangular beam, with length L, width W, and thickness T, deflection d and force F, and materialâs elastic modulus E, the equation is
F = d * (E * W * T^3) / ( 4 * L^3 )
Notice the powers of three on the length and thickness. The addition of just a little of material can make things seemingly disproportionately better.
And thatâs for being in the realm of elastic modulus. Get above that. and the deflection grows faster than this equation would predict (and does not get all the way back anymore).
OK, but no one is asking you to pay for one. Would you refuse to buy a BMW 2 Series because BMW also offers the 6 Series? If you want to rant for the sake of ranting thatâs fine, but to me it seems like youâve gone over the top. How does a gold watchâat any priceâalienate you? What is really going on here?
They used to release top of the line products that had extreme attention paid to design, user experience, and detail in exchange so a fairly modest premium on pricing. The watch is a very different direction, particularly the $18k one. Itâs all style and zero substance. Iâm not ditching my iPhone, and Iâll likely get another model, but Iâm seeing a trend and a horizon. Thatâs it.
If the 6 series was simply a gold plated 2 series, yes Iâd refuse to buy one. It would be silly.
There is simple proof of this. Toyota make a tiny town car - the IQ. In order to get their average MPG up to meet California and other regs, Aston Martin started making a car which was basically a blinged IQ based on Toyota running gear. It cost three times as much as an IQ and didnât sell, even to the sort of people who own Astons - but whose wives actually need to go to town to do the shopping (note - yes I know this is sexist, but Astons are very sexist cars.)
As someone who has done a fair bit of manufacturing-related R&D, I know well that many companies produce âmugâs eyeballâ products to get attention even though they lose money. I do resent knowing that if I buy the mainstream product Iâm contributing to this. In the same way I avoid where possible the products of companies that sponsor games on a large scale or are associated with any political party - I really donât want to help pay for these things.
Of course the thickness is the case material thickness, not simply the overall thickness. The sides of the case need to be thick enough to provide rigidity so the case surface doesnât simply ripple under load. A phone case is very much more complicated than a cantilever, especially with its cutouts.
For things like remote access I use an Xperia Z1 Ultra, which is a phablet with a 6.4 inch diagonal screen. But I know it is bendy, so it lives in a pocket of a bag. Itâs an acceptable tradeoff. In my view, the mistake that Apple made with the 6+ was to forget that its target market is not physicists and engineers, but people who wouldnât know a cube law from a pair of skinny jeans.
For a car example (I like car examples) consider the way that Porsche had to add lots of electronic stability control to the 911 as soon as it stopped being the car for successful engineers and become the car for bankers. People who didnât understand the limits of rear engined vehicles were not a suitable market for the ârealâ 911, so it had to become a bloated travesty that protected the driver from his own ignorance. Apple should have over-engineered the 6+ in the same way.
But itâs not. Even though the 2 series is described as a coupe, and the 6 series is described as a coupe, the 6 series is larger, and the engines are on the whole, more powerful. BMW isnât Geely.
Yes, the cutouts make it more complex than what an analytical approach can handle. Finite elements approach would have to be used for them. But the solid cantilever is still the easiest best case approximation.
These things should be elementary school physics.
With cars, Iâd say letâs Darwin do the job.
Portable gadgets, especially if they are mission-critical communication devices, should be engineered as robust enough to withstand the rigors of less than careful handling with some reserve.
The cars should also be engineered as robust. So leaning against its size wonât push the chassis in. (They usually are, much more than electronics.)
Sang Noir (2011)[edit]
The Sang Noir was introduced as a show car at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show for customers who did not like the look of the âWorld Record Editionâ. It is finished entirely in black, except for the interior, which is bright tangerine orange. The car costs a very high US$3.4 million, US$1 million more than a standard Super Sport.[56]
Many years ago I was travelling down a country road on my little trials bike when an Aston came round the bend, lost it complete and ended up in the shallow ditch on my side of the road. I braked so hard that I ended up facing the wrong way (but still upright - thanks, Jawa). The driver was drunk - at 11 on a Sunday morning - and was stunned but seemingly undamaged. I imagine the DB5 was a writeoff.
If I had been just a second ahead of where I was at that time, I would have been unavoidably dead. I donât mind Darwin doing the job so long as thereâs no risk of potential award winners taking the rest of us with them.
What about that thing that is supposed to monitor your sleep patterns?
Because I am a tightwad but I wanted a pedometer, I have a cheap Chinese $60 model that runs about 2 weeks on a battery, charges in 30 minutes and records day and night. I donât want a heartrate monitor because I do not plan to run any marathons, and because I think obsessing about your vital signs is itself unhealthy. I do want the data on my tablet and occasionally I want notifications.
It is going to take some serious additional functions that nobody seems to have thought of to make me change. Iâm prepared to spend money on things that actually improve life significantly, but quite honestly as things are with wearables I think it needs an awful lot more mugs early adopters to get to that point.
I donât want an Apple watch either. But it doesnât mean I think they suck. And I also donât think overnight charging is âridiculously oftenâ (which is the OP that I was responding to). I guess if you want to wear the watch during the night, you then have to charge during the day.
OK, all chargeable devices would be better with longer battery life, but many require overnight charging, especially if you donât want to be one of those numpties looking for outlets everywhere.
A cheap pedometer may be perfect for you, but I donât want one of those either.
There are still cars for real drivers available. But I donât think the current 911 could/should really be regarded as a âbloated travestyâ. If you want raw, get an Atom or an Elise.
Put your watch into Nightstand mode.
Now you can use your watch even when youâre done wearing it for the day. Just place it on its side and connect the charger. Apple Watch will automatically go into Nightstand mode, a digital display that illuminates whenever you touch the screen, the Digital Crown, or the side button. Nightstand mode even changes how the watch buttons function. When an alarm sounds, you press the side button to turn it off, or the Digital Crown to snooze.
Iâm sure charging has nowt to do with orientation but that nightstand mode doesnât sound like it can work in portrait. Maybe thatâll change.
I dunno, I only mentioned it because Iâd recently seen it and it seemed relevant to this product.
