On Sun, 3 Apr 2011 01:11:21 -0700 (PDT), Jeff Urban
wrote:
"The rounded corner distributes the inpact load over a larger
area of the case than it would if it were more box shaped."
You are an engineer somewhere ?
Yep. Wit out mah spellin chequer, I kin spel just like an engineer.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jeff-liebermann/0/823/151
I am not being sarcastic, maybe you
should be if you aren't. That's the way to think.
Thanks. The down side of being an engineer is the bad habit of
looking at any product and thinking that it could have been designed
better. For example, the doctor recommended I get some exercise. So,
I bought a bicycle, then another, etc, until I now have far too many
bicycles:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/bicycles/index.html
Instead of riding them, I've been looking at the way they work, and
the way the components are designed. I've read some books on design,
researched patents, performed my own repairs, rebuilt a few bikes, and
pondered the logic behind the designs. Of course, I think I can do
better and have designed and built a few experimental components that
I might eventually sell. The problem is, I'm so busy analyzing the
bicycles, I don't have much time left to actually ride them. According
to the bicycle computah, I've only ridden about 100 miles in the last
3 months.
Look at how some
things, bigger things are built. You might scratch your head and say "
What, did they think it was going to fall up ? ". Well that is exactly
what they were thinking.
Yep. However, that's not exactly the way I do it. I think "What
problem were they trying to solve"? If you understand the motivation,
you usually understand the rational. That's often difficult when
dealing with industrial design and artistic concerns. The problem may
have been nothing more than product differentiation, or trying to look
sufficiently different than the rest of the pack. For example, the
rounded corners have many potential benefits besides surviving a drop
test. Rounded corners appeal more to women, while men prefer more
angular products. It's easier to mold parts with rounded angles, than
with angular corners. It may have been simply functional, so that the
iPhone doesn't rip one's pocket or purse liner. It might have been
human factors, where talking on a phone with a sharp edge digging into
one's palm, is not exactly ergonomic.
I can design simple stuff, test fixtures and all that, apply a signal
and watch the result through a current resistor, **** like that, but I
am not an employable engineer, except by myself and a few others.
Welcome to the age of specialization. It's a dangerous place to be as
when your specialty is suddenly exported overseas, you're potentially
unemployable. I saw the problem early. Officially, I was an RF
engineer. However, I made the effort to get experience in many
adjacent fields, and bounced around the company doing almost
everything. Hint: avoid specialization.
But
I can think of it from their viewpoint.
You need to attend a few product brainstorming and subsequent design
review meetings to really understand how things work. Reverse
engineering is possible only if the motivations that inspired the
designs are logical. I've seen designs that were based on faulty
marketing, bad guesses as to user needs, managerial egos, and simple
stupidity. The designs that worked and sold were deemed brilliant.
Those that failed were deemed, ummm.... something else. For example,
the first incantation of the iPod player, was the Diamond Rio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_PMP300
which pre-dated the iPod by about 3 years. It was very similar to the
iPod, but instead was a flop. There were many problems, but the big
one as that Apple solved the legal issues prior to release, while
Diamond did not. Diamond spent the initial years fighting lawsuits,
while Apple had already made a deal with the recording industry. You
could not have determined any of this just looking at the product and
trying to reverse engineer the logic behind the design.
All they care is get it on the
shelves intact working and sellable.
Nope. I could easily design almost anything that will appear on the
shelf and be sellable. The trick is to make it profitable for
everyone involved. There's also litigation avoidance, bad press,
timing, reviews, distribution, warehousing, shipping, promotion, ad
infinitum that has to be dealt with. Those are often more difficult
and time consuming than the product design. I recall several product
launches that had to be delayed because of some obscure problem, such
as wrong wording on the legal disclaimers page/book or failure to
display some certification agency's logo with the proper font size.
I've worked on several products where the initial product design took
about 2 weeks. Prototypes and troubleshooting added another 3 weeks.
However, getting it into production, out the door, and into the hands
of paying customers, took an additional 30 weeks, little of which had
much to do with the initial design. In effect, the design was
"frozen" after 2 weeks.
After that the minimum warranty
possible, anything goes under US law. Got to watch it in Europe, their
governments seem to work for the people there. We're working on that.
But the US government works for us.
Not really. If you were ever to do your own product, you'll soon find
that the legal system heavily favors the plaintiff. In Europe, court
costs are paid by the loser, so there's a tremendous counter incentive
to solving problems by litigation. In the US, it's paid by both
parties, meaning that even if you prevail in court, you can easily
lose your potential profits or the company to the legal costs. Product
liability, tort reform, and patent law all currently favor the
"injured" party in the US.
Think I'm ****ing kidding ?
Yes, because engineers don't talk or write like that.
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558