Strange Parts

I've built clone PCs since the early 80's, and worked at Egghead Software in San Jose as an assistant manager in high school. I remember the Fry's grocery store and the original Sunnyvale Fry's way back and the multitude of independent shops, WeirdStuff Warehouse, MicroCenter, Central Computer, JDR Microdevices, Pixel USA (did a lot of business with Tony). There were a zillion independent shops' ads listed in Computer Shopper (it was a good 1.5" / 4 cm thick).

CompUSA (a big, hypermart-style tech and electronics retailer) came in and killed Egghead (the shops were just too small to compete) and most other mom & pop's; I was there at the closing firesale. And later Comp USA also succumbed. Fry's was more of a pseudo-flea-market with cheezy looking price signs, and full-page ads in the San Jose Mercury News... their big draw was the Black Friday deals where people line up like people line up at Walmart.

Nowadays: NewEgg, PriceWatch.com, FindChips, OctoPart, Halted (HSC), AliExpress, eBay, Amazon

If you want to save some money, bargains can also be had traveling to a certain building or two in Shenzhen / Huaqiangbei; and it helps to have a friend who speaks fluent Mandarin. See also:

- https://strangeparts.com

- https://youtu.be/sZs4NDC4yrI

- https://youtu.be/tUXIzJpjEuU

PS: The Fry's pictured in the story is the Campbell location where it was fun to run up/down the flat "escalator" as it was like an airport's people-mover, but much bouncier.

I had to click, because it turns out that I love soldering. It's relaxing and has a skill curve such that there's a trick to it but with a bit of practice, you can be someone who is really good at soldering, too.

For anyone reading, the key is to invest in a proper stereo microscope and a decent fume extractor.

I recommend this one: https://www.strangeparts.com/a-boy-and-his-microscope-a-love-story/

If you're up for a bit of a bonus round, I absolutely love my Pixel Pump. https://shop.robins-tools.com/products/pixel-pump

I picked up a used Ninja toaster oven and hacked a https://reflowmasterpro.com/ to it. I also modified the plans for Stencil Fix to make it substantially bigger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am3ztQIkss0

So, I do a fair bit of both reflow and hand SMD soldering at this point, depending on what the situation calls for. It's great fun.

The space argument makes sense in theory, but one very dedicated person added a headphone jack back to his iPhone 7, and it was possible only because there was a suspiciously empty space where the jack used to be:

https://strangeparts.com/bringing-back-the-iphone-headphone-jack-in-china/

I'm also not persuaded by the "most people won't base their purchase" argument, as that applies just as well to adding another 5-10% to the battery. Most people don't base their purchase solely on anything. I may have to go by my local phone stores and chat with the staff to see how much this matters in practice to people.

Google, Samsung, and Apple all have lucrative wireless earphone businesses, or would like to. Simpler design with less components is also a win for them.

Didn’t someone add a jack to an iPhone 7? Difficult for DIY, but not impossible. I saw a similar mod for an iPhone 13 as well. https://www.strangeparts.com/bringing-back-the-iphone-headphone-jack-in-china/

I’d pay quite a sum for such a service. The value of a lossless, universally compatible port is hard to overstate. At the very least they could give us a second USB-C port on top-end phones.

He writes on he's blog that he thinks a lot of parts are recycled

You might wonder why I chose to make an iPhone 6s and not an iPhone 7. I had two reasons...

However, the other reason, which turned out to be far more important, is that iPhone 7 parts are pretty hard to come by in the markets. It’s not totally clear why this is, but I have some ideas. A lot of the parts come from recycled/broken phones, and so it would make sense that there just isn’t that much supply yet.

https://strangeparts.com/how-i-made-my-own-iphone-in-china/

Apple will likely sell tens of millions of AirPods this year. At $159 each, and presumably at very healthy margins.

This is no small business, even by Apple's standards!

Removing the headphone jack was a marketing-driven decision. AirPods are a cool product, but wouldn't have sold anywhere near as well without the forcing effect of the jack removal.

This guy managed to install a fully-functioning jack back into an iPhone 7:

https://strangeparts.com/bringing-back-the-iphone-headphone-jack-in-china/