iPhone4 大件事了 再一次的被暴露的设计缺陷！『英文版』

JunJun04035

When the iPhone 4's screen was shattered, people said that the test wasn't valid. Only scratch-resistant. But it seems that "30 times harder than plastic" can still be scratched in normal use.

In his review, Walter Mossberg agreed. He said that he tried to break it and scratch it, and he couldn't do it:

I dropped it several times from a few feet onto a hard surface with no problem, and it acquired no scratches at all in my testing, even though I didn't use a case or coddle it.

But as this photo shows, he really didn't try hard enough. Gdgt editor Ryan Block didn't even try to scratch his, but he got a scratch anyway in normal daily use: Gdgt editor Ryan Block takes this photo of Engadget's J. Topolsky's official Apple review iPhone (thanks metronome49):

Just spotted on the iPhone 4's supposedly nigh-indestructible glass: scratches. Seriously. Not good!

Of course, Apple's own claim was not to be scratch-proof, but scratch-resistant.

In their advertising, Apple says that the iPhone 4's aerospace-grade glass is "Chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic". According to them, "the glass is ultradurable and more scratch resistant than ever." But, they said it's 30 times harder than plastic, not 30 times more scratch-resistant than plastic, meaning that "more scratch resistant" might mean just 1 or 2 times more so than plastic, and less of an improvement over glass. Who knows.

The bottom line is, even if the iPhone 4 is more scratch resistant than the previous iPhone that doesn't mean you should be throwing it around, or putting it in the same pocket as your keys—it can still scratch. Even on day one.

原文大意为：iPhone4主打的超强化玻璃虽然注明其玻璃表面强度为塑料30倍，以为用户仍然不小心刮花了他的iPhone4

再者，作者觉得iPhone4的超强化玻璃表面为一宣传手段，其玻璃表面强度为塑料30倍不代表其防刮花能力强塑料30倍

JunJun04035

The iPhone is made of aluminosilicate glass. Apple says it's "chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic" and it's "ultradurable and more scratch resistant than ever." Still not enough to survive a 3.5-foot drop.

That's what the people at iFixyouri did: Test Apple's claims by dropping the iPhone 4 from 3.5 feet, the distance you drop a phone when you're standing up. They say their iPhone—which they claim is real, but without any internal components—survived the first two shocks.

On the third one, however, the display was completely shattered after a loud pop. That's a sound I'm personally familiar with: My current iPhone 3G's display has broken two times in the same way.

It's not surprising that the Cupertino company is releasing a protective case of their own called the "bumper". Because now, unlike older iPhones where there's one side that has a display and one side that's plastic or aluminum—where you don't care if it gets messed up or cracked—now both sides are glass. Which means both sides are susceptible to breaking. My iPhone was dropped on its display face two times and broke two times. I lost count on the times it dropped on its back.

This new material—20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic—still shatters when dropped. But is it scratch-proof? More scratch-resistant? The test doesn't say. Having both sides be more scratch resistant—the backs of everyone's phones is most likely much more scuffed than the front—is a good thing, if it really is. But having the phone, as a whole, be more likely to break from drops is a bad thing.

And picture the scenario where you have to put your phone down on concrete. Previously, you just it down back first, because you didn't care what the back looks like. Now that the black is shiny and smooth and glass, what do you do? (Oh yes, Apple's own bumper case.)

I agree with Steve that the all-glass-and-steel design is beautiful, but its beauty is pointless if I have to hide it in order to protect it from drops. That's not what Dieter Rams would want in a product: "Good design is aesthetic" he said, but "good design is durable" too. There's a key difference between hardness and brittleness, and although the new glass screen might be harder, it doesn't mean it's not that brittle and likely to shatter when dropped on.

原文大意：强调超耐用的iPhone4表面玻璃真的被甩爆了，从3.5英尺左右的高度往下掉的结果。Jobs一直强调的比塑料强30倍的玻璃并不代表该材质不容易碎掉。当然，电话是拿来呵护的，不是粗暴使用，可是谁敢说生活中没意外啊？

个人观点：玻璃碎成这样，感觉上很尖锐，会伤人

JunJun04035

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 can't stop looking at you. But your industrial design is a failure.

Don't get me wrong. Like I said back when we found you, you are oh so pretty. But after holding you, after seeing some of the glaring problems you have, I have to surrender to the facts.

Your industrial design sucks because, despite your sheer beauty, your blazing speed, and having the best software in any smartphone today, Jon Ive and his team didn'tcompletely follow their beloved Dieter Rams' guidelines for good design.

First and foremost, the rule that good design has to be durable. Good design has to stand the pass of time both aesthetically and physically. Good design has to age gracefully. The object, whatever it is, can't get easily scratched. Its surface can't easily shatter. It has to perdure. It has to arrive to the future and feel at home and natural.

Then, good design also has to be thorough. Nothing must be left to chance. And good design has to make a product useful. It has to show respect to the user by providing the function it claims with perfection and accuracy. Its form has to follow function to its final consequences.

And your function, dear iPhone 4, is to make calls flawlessly, to transmit smiles and tears through video chat, to show newspaper headlines like they were printed on the real paper as fast as possible. And for that you need a steady, strong signal. Not a signal that drops if the user holds you in a certain position—which just happens to be the most natural position you can imagine. Wireless signals are the heart of phones. They should come first, always. The form should follow its functions.

This is why the iPhone 4's industrial design is not good:

The material problem

Despite being glossy and shiny, the undeniable fact is that glass is not a good material to make products that are constantly being moved around, under stress, and in the hands of users. Glass breaks. That's why you never see products made of glass around you, except when it's completely necessary because the product itself needs to be transparent.

It doesn't matter that it is strengthened, like aluminosilicate glass, the one Apple uses in the iPhone 4's. In fact, strengthening glass to avoid scratching—which is what Apple did—makes it more prone to extreme shattering on shock. The reason: Aluminosilicate glass has a much higher internal tension than regular glass. What makes it harder also makes it more fragile.

Cases of broken iPhone 4's backs are already appearing. One of Gizmodo's interns broke his iPhone 4 after accidentally dropping it while testing it. This hasn't changed from previous generations. Hell, I broke my iPhone display twice. The fact is that, at the end of the day, dropping the phone while handling it is something that everyone will suffer sooner or later.

But the difference is that the iPhone 4 is all glass. If you drop any other phone, you have a 50% chance of breaking its screen. With the iPhone 4, the risk will always be there, no matter how it falls. It's just more exposed to damage because of the material choice.

Some people argue that the shattering doesn't matter. That the important thing is that this glass is hard to scratch. But, as GDGT editor Ryan Block showed, this doesn't mean it's scratch-proof. He scratched his iPhone 4 accidentally, without even noticing.

Why? An expert on the matter who wants to remain anonymous, may have a good explanation:

I saw your article about the glass scratches on the iPhone 4. I work for [a major watch company] that uses the same Chinese factory [as Apple's]. We had a huge problem with a similar "chemically treated" glass from the same manufacturer.
The glass passed all of our tests. Drop tests, steel ball impact tests, etc. but the glass started chipping and we couldnt figure out why.
Eventually we found that when the glass was hit against another piece of glass of similar strength they both broke very easily. I would be willing to bet money that if you took 2 iphone 4's and tap the glass edges together with light to moderate force you would get an instant chip on the edge. We found this same problem when the watches were hit onto a glass coffee table, or hit into a glass door when entering a shop.
Could be a major problem for apple. This caused us to stop production and redesign so that glass edges werent exposed.

Perhaps this is why the glass is surrounded by a black plastic rim. But even if you ignore the above—we don't even know if it is the same glass or not—what practical proof has showed us is that the iPhone 4's glass scratches and shatters. At the end of the day, glass is not a good material choice to make phones.

The handling

The material choice also affects handling. The all-glass 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 slippery than his 3G, and Mark that the sharp edges make it uncomfortable to handle. I don't agree on the latter, but I can appreciate his opinion and I know that others will feel the same way. In a way, in its beautiful Germanic minimalism, the phone has lost the humanity of the cheap looking, even naff, but more organic, iPhone 3GS.

The alternatives

While you can't avoid glass on the front, you can certainly use other materials for the back. Steel, aluminum, ceramics, teflon-coated materials, 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 case to avoid shattering the glass or fix the antenna problem, why not make it rubberized in the first place. There are plenty of pretty rubber materials out there.

Like glass, all those materials can be scratched too. But unlike glass, all those materials age more gracefully. Scratches in steel or wood give the surface character. The same scratches makes glass look bad.

Look at this design by Dieter Rams & Hans Gugelot, the Braun SK4 record player and radio from 1956:

Like the iPhone 4, this design will travel to the 22nd century and remain beautiful and timeless. Unlike the iPhone 4, however, this the SK4 will age beautifully, even if gets blemishes on its wood panels. For the next iPhone generation, and for other products, Jon Ive and his team should explore other combinations. Preferably one that would make their designs to have better wireless performance, one of the major sins of the Cupertino house.

This time, despite creating perhaps the best smartphone available and one of the most beautiful industrial objects in their history, the Apple industrial design team has failed. This time, Dieter Rams won't be happy, just like consumers won't be happy when their iPhone's back break or the signal drops just for holding it.

一向以来，苹果的东西是充满格调的，高贵的，高雅的，引领潮流的。
人说科技和艺术是水火不容的，可是我们在苹果身上却看到两者水乳交融后的火花，让人惊叹，让同行汗颜。
可是这次，苹果的研发团队失败了。
无可否认，iPhone4同样留着苹果高尚的血液，但是作为电话的而不是雕塑品的iPhone4有着太多的设计缺陷，让人惋惜。
但是苹果塑造的风潮并不会歼灭，因为人们就是这样，每天在臭骂Jobs的团队太糟糕，但是依然对苹果的产品爱不释手

JunJun04035

The damn antenna

That's precisely the other major problem of this design: The wireless reception. The iPhone 4's reception is flawed by design. Holding it in certain positions will degrade the signal dramatically, sometimes completely breaking it. It's not a matter of the AT&T network—which is bad as it is—but a problem of the steel band that serves as the antenna. According to Apple, the antenna was supposed to enhance communications. In the practice, it causes the signal to drop for many people while they are holding the phone exactly like Apple shows in their ads and web pages.

When asked, Apple offered a very simple solution: Hold it in a different way. Minimizing what could be the iPhone's biggest functionality flaw, industry pundits like David Pogueare saying that the problem is sweaty hands and the solution are insulating cases. That's what Apple is saying too.

No, that's not the solution. Those are lame excuses for bad industrial design and engineering decision. The fault is not in the user and the usage of the product. This goes completely against Rams' guidelines. Design should help the user, it should enhance the experience. Good design is unobtrusive. It can't limit the user expression, much less obligate him to act in a certain way.

Jon Ive, do you think Dieter Rams would have asked people to place his T 1000 world receiver in a certain place of the house to have a clear reception?

Do you think he would have asked consumers to hold his Braun T3 pocket radio in a certain way in order to listen to the Beatles with perfect sound quality?

The answer to both questions is no.

求败哥

无言，买一架来test下先  

stewartlim

嫌钱太多，这样也要test！无话可说了！{:3_83:}

赵里昱

想问大家,之前的iphone有马来文的吗?





  

牛牛好累

难道iPhone 4G忘了换上康宁的玻璃？
非也。

其实是手机结构过于紧凑，手机表面无法再吸收多余的余震而裂开了。
苹果官方表示，购买并安装他们的iPhone 4G保护套即可解决以上问题。
即表示苹果老早就知道有这个设计疏漏？

JunJun04035

购买并安装他们的iPhone 4G保护套即可解决以上问题
牛牛好累 发表于 27-6-2010 21:21

天線問題也是這個解決方法

新力爱力新

今天的蘋果是過去的微軟～

blchiew

世上没有不会坏的电话手机，这是铁一般的事实。

HiiTP

原来我才知道iphone不能和其他牌子蓝牙传输？必须JB?

JunJun04035

回复 12# HiiTP

哈哈，惊讶？ xD

HiiTP

回复  HiiTP

哈哈，惊讶？ xD
JunJun04035 发表于 11-7-2010 12:00 AM

   
我朋友之前新买的3GS进行JB后，电池不到一两个小时，或者几通电话，就battery low 了不小心restart的话就会hang机

JunJun04035

回复 14# HiiTP

那是没插饱电吧？

HiiTP

回复  HiiTP

那是没插饱电吧？
JunJun04035 发表于 11-7-2010 12:19 AM

插满电了JB前都没这些问题

superDog

回复 12# HiiTP

不必惊讶。 jailbroken  也不能完美。。。。。

就比如想用 PSP 来打电话一样

hackintosh

请看 DELL STREAK