(Zack) So we are here at the headquarters of iFixit.
I’m here with Kyle, he’s the CEO of iFixit and we’re talking about cell phones, reparability,
and durability.
So Kyle I have a question for you.
(Kyle) Alright.
(Zack) We’re pretty into the repairing of cell phones.
What, for you, is the ideal cell phone?
So we have different materials they can be made out of, plastic, glass or metal.
Which one do you prefer?
(Kyle) Well, I like quality materials.
So if you look at, I mean, the higher end flagships phones that are investing more in
the materials…you know, the iPhone is a very durable phone in general.
So I think that there’s a lot to be said for what Apple’s done.
I have an iPhone and in general, like the metal that they have done, right, it has a
pretty good build quality.
I have here, this is a 50 dollar Android phone that they sell in India and this is reasonable.
This is more close to like an old school Nokia phone.
But I definitely like robust, durable materials.
I don’t really have any problem with the metal.
I think you could also build a plastic phone that stood the test of time, but it would
probably need to be a higher quality plastic than you see here.
Maybe a little bit thicker.
(Zack) Ok, so in your ideal Smartphone would it be metal or plastic?
You have to pick just one.
(Kyle) Ha, ha I have to pick!
Yeah, I could go either way.
I mean I would want…
I just want a rugged case.
So if it’s metal that’s taking the impact…if it’s plastic…I can go either way.
But I think that, you know, in your bend tests that you’ve shown that if you go with….like
that plastic phone you’ve got over there, that’s the extreme side of flimsy plastic.
But I think you could do some things with polycarbonate.
So I would say I’m more about the functionality and I don’t really care how you get there.
(Zack) Ok.
And so as far as what about internals go?
So if you’re…when you go to buy a Smartphone, you have the iPhone right now, what is the
most important aspect for you?
As far as reparability, battery life…what do you look for?
(Kyle) So the crazy thing about most phones these days is it’s gotten really commoditized.
There really isn’t as big a difference between all the phones on the market as there was
three or four years ago.
Everything has a camera.
The flagship phones all have pretty good cameras.
So we can sit here and we can really nitpick the differences.
But the difference between the S7 camera and the 6s camera isn’t huge, right?
They’re both really good cameras within the form factor.
What I would say is make the thing bigger.
Like I actually don’t need a bigger screen, I think this screen could even be made a bit
smaller.
But like, give me more room for the camera.
Or, like the biggest design flaw with the iPhone, I have my own bumper I added, but
the design flaw is the camera bump, right.
So they could have given me 25% more battery life if they just made the entire phone as
thick as the camera.
So they’re sitting here and it’s funny when you see interviews with Johnny, Apple’s
famous designer, and you say what do you think about the bump?
And he’s like, well, we had to do that.
Well you didn’t have to do that.
You could have made the phone thicker.
So that would be mine.
Make the phone a bit thicker and give us a longer battery.
The phone battery is going to degrade after you’ve had it for a year or two; you’re
going to get dramatically less life out of the same battery.
So we should design the phone to have maybe 150% more battery than you need so that a
year from now when the capacity has shrunk, it’s still functioning.
(Zack) Yeah, and there’s…so it will last more charge cycles because there’s more
life in there.
(Kyle) Exactly.
And we see that with the ipads.
Like an ipad has a battery that nobody really burns through an ipad battery in a day, right?
It takes a couple days to work through it.
And so it’s not until you’ve had an ipad for three or four years that you really need
to change the battery.
Where a phone, you need to swap the battery every year.
So if we’re in this constraint where we’re saying we have the phones we have now, I would
like to see a battery that’s easy to swap.
So my ideal phone, like my favorite phone out there on the market right now is the Fairphone.
And unfortunately I can’t use one myself because it only works on the European frequencies
right now.
So I’m hoping that the Fairphone 3 comes to the US.
But it’s designed so you don’t need any tools to swap the battery.
You don’t even need any tools to swap the screen, it’s just plastic tabs and it comes
out.
(Zack) Perfect.
And it’s cuz that phone’s pretty modular right?
(Kyle) It’s designed to be extremely modular for reparability, not modular for functionality.
So you can’t swap out a better camera on it, but it is easy when a camera fails to
swap it out.
(Zack) So just put in the same component again?
That’s good.
So just to summarize, the ideal phone for the iFixit CEO would be a phone that has a
rigid case on it, so like it won’t bend or damage easily.
And a bigger battery than what is in most flagships.
(Kyle) And a battery that you can swap yourself.
And then the other things I would say is that it should have a repair manual that’s publicly
available.
And there should be parts available.
And what’s crazy is that the Fairphone is the only phone in the world that has a repair
manual and parts available from the manufacturer.
None of the other companies do it.
Even the Indian Smartphone companies.
Even Samsung, Apple, HTC, Huawei…none of them are making repair information available.
It’s crazy.
So you and I have to figure it out instead of everybody else.
And I don’t understand.
I think it’s the most consumer hostile market.
You go and you look at power tools…like you came from construction right?
Every single power tool company has repair information available and parts.
You get a Makita and you get a DeWalt, and you need a new clutch for your drill and they
will sell it to you because if they don’t, the word’s going to get out in the construction
community right?
If DeWalt stops selling repair parts, no one will buy DeWalt’s anymore.
(Zack) Exactly.
(Kyle) So how do they get away with this in the Smartphone world?
I don’t understand.
(Zack) I don’t know, but it’s good for us as the two largest cell phone repair channels
on YouTube.
(Kyle) They’re going to keep making these fragile things made out of glass right?
You got Samsung’s got glass on the front and the back, yeah.
So as long as everybody is out there making very fragile devices that are thin, we’re
going to keep teaching you how to swap the batteries, how to fix the glass, how to fix
the lenses on the cameras…yeah.
It’s a target rich environment for people that are looking to teach people how to fix
their broken stuff.
(Zack) Well good.
Well now we know what the ideal Smartphone is for the CEO of iFixit.
I agree 100% even MKBHD mentioned something about having a thicker battery in his phones.
So I think, you know, from a consumer standpoint, having a bigger battery is just better all
around.
(Kyle) It’s time to end this design anorexia; making things thinner and thinner and thinner
to the point where you can’t even play Pokémon on your phone.
(Zack) Exactly.
If you can’t play Pokémon Go on your phone, there’s no point in even having a phone.
(Kyle) There’s no point in even living, right?
I mean, really.
This is what we’ve come to.
What level are you at?
(Zack) I haven’t downloaded it yet.
(Kyle) You’ve got to get going!
(Zack) I’m working on it.
After this, I’ll do it.
Well thanks for having me here at the studio of iFixit.
I’ve really enjoyed this time.
If you haven’t subscribed to their channel yet, iFixit, they have fantastic repair guides;
even pictures and a blog format.
It is fantastic.
(Kyle) Our goal is to teach people how to fix everything that they have.
(Zack) There we go.
Thanks for watching!