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

[baryon]

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.

[travisbrowning]

Cool. Apple plastics are always nice, and if this new rumored iPhone 5 is going to be plastic than I can see why they'd want to up the ante. I am excite.

[0dev]

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.

[jimbo1mcm]

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.

[ScruffyS]

Originally Posted by Dwalls90

China + Plastic = iPhone Mini?

Or, since TELEVISIONS tend to have lots of plastic in them

^This

[MsQueen]

Well, it'll be the best looking plastic phone on the market

[bushido]

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]

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

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

[Miharu]

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!

[F123D]

So is plastic good or bad? I'm confused now..

[SlCKB0Y]

Originally Posted by F123D

So is plastic good or bad? I'm confused now..

Duh!! It's durable, beautiful, innovative and magical with pixies and unicorns when Apple uses it. When Samsung uses it, plastic is just cheap crap.

[AppleGuesser]

Originally Posted by SlCKB0Y

Duh!! It's durable, beautiful, innovative and magical with pixies and unicorns when Apple uses it. When Samsung uses it, plastic is just cheap crap.

Thats basically what I said in my post

[you people smh]

PLASTIC!

How Innovative!!!!

[dazed]

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.

[Nickerbocker]

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.

[Bubba Satori]

Amazing.

[kjs862]

Originally Posted by Krazy Bill

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.

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

[iGrip]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

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.

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.

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by dojoman

Plastic from 3G/3GS is much better quality than Galaxy S3 back plactic. Just sayin'.
I cringed every time I pulled off the GS3 back cover. It sounded cheap and felt cheap.

Maybe that’s because you can’t take the back cover off the 3GS.

[Patriot24]

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]

Originally Posted by iGrip

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.

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.

----------

Originally Posted by you people smh

PLASTIC!

How Innovative!!!!

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]

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.

[Premium1]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

<insert smarmy comment about how Apple would never use Plastic as it's cheap>




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.

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)

[sagnier]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

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.

Oh dont worry, it wont be cheap...

[Premium1]

Originally Posted by philosopherdog

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.

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.