No Apple, We Really Do Not Want Skinnier iPhones

Apple's skinniest product to date is the new M4 iPad Pro, which is even thinner than the iPod Nano. According to reports from Bloomberg's serial rumor-whisperer Mark Gurman, Apple's entire portable lineup is ready to slim down, including the iPhone, the Apple Watch, and the MacBook Pro. This sounds fine, but thin devices come with significant downsides, like less repairability and worse battery life.

"You are absolutely correct that the smaller and thinner a device gets, the less repairable it will be as well. We are an electronics manufacturing company, and some of our products are so small that they would require advanced machinery to properly repair," Cassandra Gluyas, CEO of 50-year-old family-run electronics design and manufacturing company Thomas Instrumentation Inc., told Lifewire via email.

"Personally, I would like a more repairable device that doesn't need to be replaced as often as phone companies would like us to. I believe it's more something we're forced into by sales and not really a necessity to buy new phones every year. I also agree that we've probably achieved a reasonable level of thinness for phones."

Thin Isn't In

For years, Apple has been making its devices chunkier. The current iPhones are much heavier than earlier models, and if you lay your new iPhone next to an old iPhone 7 or similar, you'll see quite a difference. Likewise, the MacBook Pro, which totally owned its thickness by squaring off those visually-slimming, tapered edges and going with a squat design reminiscent of the old PowerBooks. Apple used this space to add back the ports that it had been trimming over previous years and made perhaps its best computer ever.

Now, apparently, Apple is set on reversing these improvements. If you ask somebody if they'd prefer a thin phone to a thick one, then they'll probably opt for the slimmer model, but in reality, thinness seems to be low on our list of priorities. We no longer keep a phone in our pockets until it rings with a call. We have these things in our hands all the time or carry them on shoulder straps or in our bags. We buy bigger and bigger phones, not smaller and smaller ones.

Imagine if Apple were to take the know-how it's applying to thinning its devices and instead use it to squeeze in bigger batteries or to make the devices more repairable. Think about it. None of your friends is complaining that their MacBook or iPhone is too thick. What they hate is when the battery dies, or they have to carry a bulky battery pack just to keep them juiced throughout a normal day.

Repair

When you struggle to squeeze every component into a gadget, there are compromises. The newest iPad Pro, for example, actually improves the ease of battery replacement but still falls short. Because it is so thin, Apple uses pull-release glue strips to hold the battery in, and to simultaneously help stiffen the ultra-thin casing. In order to get to the pull-tabs of these batteries, you need to remove other components. This is not necessary in a design that is less compromised by a lack of space.

And repairability is super important for your pocket and for our world. Imagine if replacing the battery or screen of your phone was as easy as loosening a few screws and popping a new unit? Fairphone manages exactly that, but it comes at the expense of a slightly thicker body.

"[A] more repairable [phone is] more cost-effective in the long run because you'll spend potentially thousands less on a repairable phone rather than a newer, thinner phone on a two-year appointment schedule. Also, a more repairable phone means less hazardous waste in the environment, while also not draining as much natural resources to continuously create new phones," Catherine Rohde, senior product manager and power expert for Batteries Plus, told Lifewire via email.

Are skinny phones and laptops kind of cool? Yes. But thinness is one of the least important specs on the sheet, especially in these days of radical climate change, where big tech should be minimizing their impact, not minimizing their products.