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Apple Job Listing for Plastics Design Engineer Hints at Innovative Designs for Future Products

baryon

baryon

macrumors 68040
Oct 3, 2009
3,878
2,929
I'd really love it if they could somehow make the whole back from a single piece of something. It could look more minimalistic than it does now with the iPhone 5, that has two seams at the back and quite a few seams at the edges in the aluminum frame. All this because antennas can't transmit through aluminum, which is why plastic or glass seems like a great solution. Though glass can't be nice and curved like it was with the 3G/S, so it needs a metal edge, which adds yet another seam.

Plastic allows truly 2 parts for the phone: The screen + The back. The problem is that it needs to be a bit thicker to be strong, but at least it's more flexible and resistant to drops. I think that the 3G/S now feels very chunky and big, and quite hollow (bigger than its weight would predict). Don't know if that's because of the plastic back, or something else, but I guess it's probably related.

I absolutely love the stainless steel back of the old iPod Touches, I think that looks amazing and feels even better: strong and heavy and looks great. Thin aluminium feels a bit too thin and hollow. Glass feels right but it was very square and not so comfortable on the 4/4S. The iPhone 5 is so thin it doesn't really matter, but I think that the 4th Gen iPod Touch (or whichever the previous one was) is the perfect design: Thin, stainless steel back with tapered edges, to make it feel even thinner.
 
0dev

0dev

macrumors 68040
Dec 22, 2009
3,947
24
127.0.0.1
Good. Despite the bitching on this forum, plastic is a lot more durable than glass for the body of a smartphone. I'd like to see the return of the plastic design.
 
J

jimbo1mcm

macrumors 68000
Mar 21, 2010
1,922
477
I love my aluminum Iphone 5......I think. It's had a plastic cover on it from day one. As did my plastic Galaxy s3. Makes little difference in a phone with a cover on it. On a laptop, it does.
 
bushido

bushido

Suspended
Mar 26, 2008
8,070
2,755
Germany
well i guess those people who put their beautiful, thought through and minimalistic designed 679€ phone in a crappy 40€ case probably wont mind going plastic again
 
AppleGuesser

AppleGuesser

macrumors regular
May 1, 2012
240
102
Macon, GA
I am ok with Apple using plastic. But many Apple enthusiasts have been bashing other phones for feeling cheap and flimsy because they were plastic. All ive seen is, "the iPhone 5 feels and looks so much better, sophisticated. Way better than a plastic S3..."

Apple goes back to plastic and all of a sudden those same people are declaring that Plastic is sophisticated and stylish, Apple-esk. Come on :rolleyes:

Personally, I like the aluminum back that my iPad mini has and the new iPod touch have. Thats the design of the future IMO :apple:
 
Miharu

Miharu

macrumors 6502
Aug 12, 2007
381
10
Finland
Nokia polycarbonate phones are durable. But things like Samsung plastic phones are just cheap.

If it were up to me, evertything would be made of titanium or something unbreakable!
 
D

dazed

macrumors 6502a
Jun 23, 2007
911
211
Some people on here seem to have a 'Hard On of Hatred' for plastic.

Not sure why, plastic doesn't have to look like a toy bought in a dollar store.
 
N

Nickerbocker

macrumors 6502
Apr 4, 2012
274
135
I miss the form factor of the 3G/3GS as well. It fit very comfortably in my hands. The plastic scratch prone material could have been better, but it didn't have the "cheap" creaky feel of Samsung hardware.
 
kjs862

kjs862

macrumors 65816
Jan 21, 2004
1,297
24
Krazy Bill said:
I dunno folks... I look at my 4S and marvel at the precision machine engineering that went into the thing.

Plastic meh. Give me rubber... something that bounces on concrete. :(
Click to expand...

And how is this specific to stainless steal and glass? What, plastics can't be precisely machine engineered?
 
iGrip

iGrip

macrumors 68000
Jul 1, 2010
1,626
0
mrsir2009 said:
But Apple would NEVER (again) use cheap, crappy plastic, would they? This would never have happened (even tho it did with the 3GS) if Jobs was still around. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The thing about plastic is that it feels so cheap and crappy in the hand. That is why all those Android Phones are so nasty to hold - they are made of plastic.

Aluminum and brushed stainless are the materials that make Apple products worth the money.
 
Patriot24

Patriot24

macrumors 68030
Dec 29, 2010
2,813
805
California
This is probably an entirely new engineering effort to improve a 0.4mm x 0.2mm part that sits inside of Apple's least-popular product and is never seen by anyone.
 
mrsir2009

mrsir2009

macrumors 604
Sep 17, 2009
7,505
156
Melbourne, Australia
iGrip said:
The thing about plastic is that it feels so cheap and crappy in the hand. That is why all those Android Phones are so nasty to hold - they are made of plastic.

Aluminum and brushed stainless are the materials that make Apple products worth the money.
Click to expand...

IMO the 3GS didn’t feel crappy to hold. And my galaxy tab certainly doesn’t. It’s solid and has a quality build. Whatever anyone says, plastic CAN be done well.

----------
you people smh said:
PLASTIC!

How Innovative!!!!
Click to expand...

What? Is plastic some sort of disease or something? You’d think it was based on the way a lot of people act around here.
 
philosopherdog

philosopherdog

macrumors 6502a
Dec 29, 2008
736
517
The race to sell phones to "emerging markets" is forcing Apple to play ball with the plastic junk phone market. They've already lost a lot of ground to cheap (or free in many cases) phones. It's hard to produce something of quality these days. There's the unrelenting drum beat of cheapism. People are so caught up with price over value. The thing that I find the strangest phenomenon is the world is how Google gets away with the impression that the Android platform is open, when Google is the biggest company in the world collecting user data. The only reason they're in the phone business is advertising. Google has done something right on the PR front, because they seem to have duped the vast majority of users into believing that somehow they're open. The whole cheap smart phone race is the same thing we've seen for years with Windows PC's. The long race to the bottom has produced mostly cheap, useless crap. The same is about to happen in the smart phone market. Fact is Google and Amazon in particular can sell devices at cost, or even below it because their business model is not hardware or software. They're in the ad business, or in Amazon's case in the content business. They're practically giving away these devices just to get users to use them. Innovation is grinding to a halt as these big huge corporations duke it out. There's no chance for any smaller players to come along with innovative ideas. It becomes rarer as time goes on. This is what happened with PC's. Eventually M$ had a strangle hold and choked off innovation. They still do. Witness their recent thwarting of internet standards around video formats. They still fear losing their dominance with Office if the internet is truly standards compliant. As long as they can keep the internet broken, they win. So they do everything in their power to keep it that way. Anyhow, I digress.
 
P

Premium1

macrumors 65816
Jan 26, 2013
1,406
1,657
rmwebs said:
<insert smarmy comment about how Apple would never use Plastic as it's cheap>

:rolleyes:


I still think that whilst the iPhone 5 is a sexy phone, it'd be nicer with the glossy plastic back of the 3/3s. Nothing wrong with plastic.
Click to expand...

I feel the same way. I dont understand why people are so against plastic. Personally I like the look of the 3gs the best of any iphone. Not to mention it's much more durable than an all glass or metal product.

Then again what are they going to use to bash samsung if they go to plastic, since they like to claim plastic is cheap( they being many iphone users)
 
P

Premium1

macrumors 65816
Jan 26, 2013
1,406
1,657
philosopherdog said:
The race to sell phones to "emerging markets" is forcing Apple to play ball with the plastic junk phone market. They've already lost a lot of ground to cheap (or free in many cases) phones. It's hard to produce something of quality these days. There's the unrelenting drum beat of cheapism. People are so caught up with price over value. The thing that I find the strangest phenomenon is the world is how Google gets away with the impression that the Android platform is open, when Google is the biggest company in the world collecting user data. The only reason they're in the phone business is advertising. Google has done something right on the PR front, because they seem to have duped the vast majority of users into believing that somehow they're open. The whole cheap smart phone race is the same thing we've seen for years with Windows PC's. The long race to the bottom has produced mostly cheap, useless crap. The same is about to happen in the smart phone market. Fact is Google and Amazon in particular can sell devices at cost, or even below it because their business model is not hardware or software. They're in the ad business, or in Amazon's case in the content business. They're practically giving away these devices just to get users to use them. Innovation is grinding to a halt as these big huge corporations duke it out. There's no chance for any smaller players to come along with innovative ideas. It becomes rarer as time goes on. This is what happened with PC's. Eventually M$ had a strangle hold and choked off innovation. They still do. Witness their recent thwarting of internet standards around video formats. They still fear losing their dominance with Office if the internet is truly standards compliant. As long as they can keep the internet broken, they win. So they do everything in their power to keep it that way. Anyhow, I digress.
Click to expand...

and apple isn't "giving away devices?" last I checked the 3gs and now the 4 are being given away. Plus what does google advertising have anything to do with android being open? Being open means anyone can use it and not have to pay. So sorry you are completely off the mark with your statement about that. Blame the lack of innovation of all the lawsuits *cough* apple* cough where as the smaller corporations feel it's not even worth getting into the market just to be taken out by lawsuits.
 
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