Apple Dust - Week 8

Today, we were visited by Lara Houston from the Global Sustainability Institute, ARU. We had a discussion about repairability and how companies exploit people for profit through designing phones that often have difficult to repair components, short lifespans, and limited storage space which encourages customers to return for more.

However, as it turns out, there are many alternatives for those who do not like being limited by those unfair business models presented by nowadays smartphone giants. For example, the Fairphone, which whole purpose is to rebel against the industry standards. Fairphone allows its users to fully replace each component as they see fit. Additionally, it is a far more sustainable option.

As fair as Fairphone sounds, it may not be the ultimate solution for everyone. Many people, including me, don't like changing a whole phone brand as it is highly inconvenient to transfer all your data to another operating system. Fortunately, websites such as ifixit are a great guide for people to get started on the repairing spree.

Towards the end of the lecture, we were tasked with making our own design for a mobile phone, we could make it as industrial or off the wall as we wanted to.

I have decided to create a collaboration phone between Disneys Star Wars and Apples IPhone. This phone would be aimed at collectors of the Star Wars franchise - the phone is very much funcional with a extendable light saber that functions as a flashlight. The saber phone doesn't take itself seriously and it is supposed to be seen as a cool gaget that is to be appriciated by the fans. The phone would have a limited availability as it is aimed at a niche audience rather than mainstream - therefore not a large amount would be produced, which in turn makes the phone quite rare and desirable.