Revealed: The amazing magical innovation in the iPad Mini 3 – a lick of paint Ready to ditch your iPad Mini 2 for the latest and greatest miniature fondleslab from Apple? You may not get much more for your money. Hardware teardown specialist iFixit has dismantled of the iPad Mini 3 and found that, underneath a pile of glue and some gold paint, it's more or less the same tablet as the iPad Mini 2. …
@Andy Prough.
"Not sure why thinness means you have to glue down all the components."
Because doing so increases device reliability. Today's mobile devices are so sleight, everything is packed in with such precision, connectors are minute and easily disturbed and the components themselves have to contribute to structural rigidity. In the past you, would have a expected that to be the sole responsibility of a chassis structure instead (and in the past, with plenty of airspace between the chassis and the components: how things have changed).
One of the ways to add strength is with glue. Kinda like ply wood, only with the layers made of expensive electrical components. Ply wood with bad glue glue is less resistant to e.g. torsional stress and the layers can separate and move relative to one another when subject to load. When components contribute to the structural rigidity of the device, the same principle applies and such movement would see e.g. ribbons disconnect. As devices get thinner we are going to be seeing more and more glue, probably to the point where one day all the components in these things will get set in a block of epoxy resin, or thermally conductive epoxy resin like, material.
Except 3rd party companies will still be able to do it and of course Apple themselves will do repairs - but of course getting ultra thin and lighter devices is going to come with some compromise on end-user repairability.
Newsflash - keyboard breaks on my laptop and it's not as easy to service as my desktop.
Also Applecare now includes insurance for accidental damage - so smash up your iPhone / iPad and you can it fixed or replaced for an excess of about £50 (think they will do it up to twice in the 2 year period). Outside of warranty pretty sure the costs to replace a battery / screen or even the whole unit are not that bad either considering it's with genuine parts etc.
@AC - "Also Applecare now includes insurance for accidental damage - so smash up your iPhone / iPad and you can it fixed or replaced for an excess of about £50..."
Who are you talking to? Why would I care? Your comments aren't even responsive to anything I said in any perceptible way. I was discussing the ribbon cables being glued down, and how it seems to be done in order to ensure repairs are not attempted. Are you just copying and pasting Apple promo for some reason? News flash - the purchasing public isn't reading this forum - I don't think your evangelizing efforts are going to gain you any new iWorshipers.
Andy Prough says:
Who are you talking to? Why would I care? Your comments aren't even responsive to anything I said in any perceptible way.
Whoa! Slow down there Nelly! Your original post said:
Seems like the only reason to do that is to make darn sure no one ever repairs one. Keep that upgrade purchase cycle alive and well.
The AC's post was addressing what you said. He explained if you needed something repaired you could get it done under warranty. That also explained how you wouldn't be contributing to the upgrade cycle. Not sure why you couldn't see how that directly addressed some of your concerns. Your response sounded downright spiteful.
"Newsflash - keyboard breaks on my laptop and it's not as easy to service as my desktop."
My netbook's keyboard - three spring loaded clips at the back. Lever it up, rotate keyboard on front edge until vertical, there is a ribbon cable at the back/underneath clipped into an edge connector via a small slot in the netbook's body. Nudge the connector crimp and the ribbon just falls out. Keyboard is now disconnected. Reverse the process to install.
Okay, it is a little harder than swapping a USB plug, but it is not exactly a challenge.
No, it's their quest for WEEE directive compliance, meaning that devices need to be recyclable as cheaply as possible since it's the manufacturer paying the bill. A bit of heat and the iPad falls apart ready for separate recycling processes, screws make that impossible and so have been ditched by all of the sensible manufacturers. That this makes thinner devices more easily achievable is a happy side effect.
That almost nobody would get their devices repaired anyway seems to be ignored by everyone when these articles are published. Yes, we would all replace a broken hard drive in a recent PC, but how many people actually repair a TV, washing machine or microwave these days? My washing machine was replaced because a replacement pump plus labour would make it more costly than a shiny new one. I could have done it myself but to be honest I value my time more than the repair man valued his!
Interesting. Our 20 year-old dishwasher died, so we got our friendly appliances man around, with me thinking, ugh, bound to be a new one.. and he said NO! If you bought a new one it wouldn't be nearly as good as your old dishwasher, we'll fix it, and it will last longer than a new one. He did, for $NZ65. No displays, no buttons to push, just a rotary switch which goes around as it cycles. It's fantastic, it actually works, and even cleans the dishes too! Moral: Use Ken The Appliance Man.
The EU are the ones who started it with the WEEE directive, why would they strive to make things less recyclable? These things are not allowed to go to landfill anymore, and you'd be surprised how little rubbish in the UK actually does go anywhere near landfill now with the various recycling schemes in place. I found that there's even a scheme to turn plastic into diesel the other day, and all those nasty batteries get frozen and smashed for recycling, but to get at them it's easier to melt some glue than have an army of slaves undoing screws. Sadly iFixit have a fairly simple view of the world and a single point to make over and over again so purposefully ignore these facts.
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