Dealing With It is a new series that I’ll be writing from time to time, about how I end up having to deal with problems I’ve only managed to come across in Pakistan. Perhaps you have had the same experiences if you’re from a developing country as well.
Now, I’m not an Apple fanboy but I like using some of their products because of their usability- the iPhone does things way, way faster and easier than a lot of other phones don’t, and then – well, it totally, totally sucks at doing the most normal of things, like mass deletion of SMS’s, transferring files between phones (for shit’s sake, Apple provides bluetooth capability, but no ability to transfer files), and then there’s the Achilles heel of it all: the battery.
Ah yes, the battery. Apple’s managed to keep its design philosophy super in-tact by dictating strict industrial and mechanical design standards in their products, but let’s face it- some of them suck. I don’t think a single phone had ever come along, where the user had no access to the battery. No, wait- there was. It was called a car-phone, and it was 1986 then, and it belonged in Remington Steele’s 500SEL; i.e. it wasn’t a portable phone. It was just mobile because the damned car it was attached to, was able to move.
So Lahore get’s hot. F’ing hot. Like, 48 centigrade hot, as it was today (and that’s the official, airport temperature. The city is easily 2-3 degrees higher, and the streets during traffic, a good 5-7 degrees higher. I’ve had the phone long enough to say- oh well- I think the battery’s probably not in the fittest of health, so it’d be cool to replace it with a new one. As you know, that’s impossible, unless you order a new one and hack it open (which I have- and am in no mood to do again, in this bloody heat where the sweat dripping from my brow will likely short the phone circuitry when I open it up).
Here are some specs from Apple’s website, talking about the ideal temperatures of operation:
Environmental requirements
- Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F
(0° to 35° C) - Nonoperating temperature: -4° to 113° F
(-20° to 45° C) - Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing
- Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)
So even if I was in a nonoperational mode (what does that mean anyway?! I’m just showing the shiny plastic back off to friends while it’s powered down? I’m just storing it waiting for the next iPhone to come out and keeping it powered down to increase resale value?), the maximum temperature is 45C. Today, while the fan was off, I’m sure my room was somewhere in the 45 degree range because it’s a heat trap, and the charger kept tripping because the ambient temperature of the phone’s circuitry must have exceeded the maximum ranges. This is the biggest ‘catch 22′- don’t plug it in- the battery will die. Plug it in, and the battery heats up enough to cross a threshold, and the charging circuitry cuts out (that’s one main way to keep lithium ion/ lithium polymer batteries safe while charging) So, can’t replace it, can’t charge it. WTF is a man to do with a pretty, Rhodes scholar of a phone that can’t even tie its own shoelaces? Cool it, of course.
Behold the Pakistan-ready iPhone charging gallery, intended for use when the temperatures gone ballistic, and your phone is being a pansy ass bitch. You know why I say this? Because every Nokia, every Samsung, every Blackberry- they all manage to perform in this heat. Now I know there are many other iPhones out there that remain working, but seriously, there is a several need for balancing, in this equation of usability.
This entry was written by , posted on June 21, 2010 at 10:16 pm, filed under Apple, Dealing With It., design, pakistan, Stupid., Technology & Engineering. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.