| > This is great, and most of the comments here seem to either miss the days of the StarTAC _or_ would gladly enjoy a physically bigger device. If HN had its way, iPhones would be made from through-hole components and 7400 logic. The battery would last all of approximately 13 minutes… so it would be not just possible, but actually necessary to swap the battery in seconds. Ideally, the phone would be slightly unreliable (MTBF of no more than 200 hours) so that every user could experience the joy of troubleshooting the bad component and soldering in a replacement themselves. Maybe Apple could even include a sacrificial capacitor in the power supply that is just slightly under-spec’d. That would also give users the opportunity to “soup up” their iPhones by installing a better capacitor in that one location. It would be illegal to sell them without including (in the box with the phone) a 3000 page printed service manual containing not just schematics, but a detailed theory of operations and full source listing. Nobody would actually look that these, of course, but it’s the principle of costing the manufacturer money that matters. Such a device would be not small. After all, you need to have room to work inside the engine bay^H^H iPhone and you don’t want the components packed in too tight to support easy maintenance. That space would also promote airflow from the three fans necessary to cool all those 7400 ICs. |