Category: Product Design | Page 12

Anything involving how a product was built to serve a certain need. This could include ways manufacturers make their products more feature-rich, more/less repairable, or how they make stupid decisions that cause the product to break more often.

Product Design

DIY Cell Phone Is Clunky But Geektastic

At a recent open house, the MIT Media Lab debuted a prototype of a DIY build your own cell phone kit. (A "do-it-yourcellf" phone? I know...there's a special place in…

May 1, 2012

by Elizabeth Chamberlain - iFixit

Product Design

Why the iPad Has to be Made in China

The iPad's light, sleek, simple construction belies its complex origins. There's a lot of stuff in the iPad: aluminum and glass, of course, but also other heavy metals and toxic…

April 19, 2012

by Elizabeth Chamberlain - iFixit

Product Design

Rare Look Inside Foxconn Reveals More Automation, Less Repairability

Not very many reporters get inside the gates of Foxconn in Shenzhen, China, where workers assemble 40% of the world's electronics, including iPads and iPhones. But last week, American Public…

April 13, 2012

by Elizabeth Chamberlain - iFixit

Product Design

New York Times Pimps iPhone Mods

In a New York Times article today, Jenna Wortham discusses a variety of ways that tinkerers are making their iPhones stand out in a sea of identical devices, including some…

April 2, 2012

by Elizabeth Chamberlain - iFixit

Product Design

TechCrunch Is Full of It: Repair Is Exactly What Consumers Need

An article on TechCrunch yesterday by Matt Burns responded rather forcefully to our criticism of the new iPad. Burns says that Apple shouldn’t make the iPad user-serviceable. He explains, “If…

March 21, 2012

by Elizabeth Chamberlain - iFixit

Product Design

Three Ways We Hoped the iPad Would Be Better (But Wasn’t)

We’re spending today huddled in our office, trying to figure out the best way to get into the new iPad—so it seems like an opportune time to discuss what we…

March 16, 2012

by Elizabeth Chamberlain - iFixit

Product Design

Hope for a Tool-Less Tomorrow

I’ve seen the future, and not only does it work, it works without tools. It’s moddable, repairable, and upgradeable. Its pieces slide in and out of place with hand force.…

February 24, 2012

by Elizabeth Chamberlain - iFixit

Product Design

A Tale of Two Displays

Our fine friends at Macrumors sent us a special little something in the mail the other day – the same purported iPad 3 screen with which they confirmed the existence…

February 23, 2012

by Miro Djuric

Product Design

A Visit to the Only American Mine for Rare Earth Metals

This post was originally published in The Atlantic. That big hole in the ground? It’s a pit mine at the Molycorp Mountain Pass rare earth facility in California’s Mojave Desert.…

February 21, 2012

by Kyle Wiens - iFixit

Product Design

Demonstrate Your Love with Durable Design

We talk a lot about products designed to break. Sometimes we forget to acknowledge companies that are doing it right—so today, kudos to Nokia's candybar phones. They're modular, nigh indestructible,…

February 18, 2012

by Elizabeth Chamberlain - iFixit