Millions of dollars of research and materials science, successfully integrated into Apple’s billion dollar iPhone manufacturing line, solving a real repairability problem in a way that’s almost magical…
And you are honestly asking if they thought to maybe try heating it up?
> honestly asking if they thought to maybe try heating it up?
yeah it's amazing to me that laymen often do not understand that experts have more understanding than they do. i see this all the time and it's incredible.
"surely i, who am very smart at what i do, when i turn my attention to this other thing, will notice something in mere seconds that those who have spent years focusing on this have not considered. that is entirely plausible."
I know that no one has those exact thoughts and I am obviously exaggerating for effect, but the root of that exaggeration is the same as I see every day. laymen thinking they are smarter than experts in the expert's own field. i don't understand where this is coming from but it is very common since the pandemic.
> I don't understand where this is coming from but it is very common since the pandemic.
It seems to come from a misunderstanding of expertise. Experts are often deeply focused on a specific issue and provide highly specialized advice. The problem arises when people either dismiss this advice outright, believing they know better, or when experts themselves overstep and present their advice as the only viable solution, missing the broader picture.
In the case of Apple’s screen removal method, it’s not that experts didn’t think of simpler approaches like using heat, but rather that they likely considered and discarded it for technical reasons. Just because a solution seems obvious to us doesn’t mean it hasn’t already been carefully evaluated by those with far more experience in the field.
This gets to the heart of why decision-makers must take expert advice but balance it with other factors. Experts, by nature, can become so focused on specific details—like examining individual leaf cells—that they fail to see the trees, let alone the entire forest. That’s why we shouldn't let any single expert dictate the entire process. If you let a lawyer design your product, it might be lawsuit-proof but unusable. If a security expert designed it, it might be unhackable but frustrating to use. And if an abstract artist designed it, it might be beautiful but completely impractical.
The pandemic is an extreme example of this problem. We didn’t just listen to epidemiologists; we listened to a specific subclass—the doomsday epidemiologist. The more balanced experts, who understood their role as advisors and recognized how their guidance needed to fit into the bigger picture, were sidelined. This led to morally reprehensible policies, like forcing children to die alone in hospitals and isolating the elderly in nursing homes, all because visitors were banned. In Australia, they even killed 15 shelter dogs, including puppies, just to prevent volunteers from traveling to pick them up [0]—another example of blindly following extreme advice. These kinds of decisions, made in the name of public health, are why many people have lost trust in “experts.”
Good product design—or public policy—requires input from multiple experts and a balance of priorities. Letting one perspective take over is a recipe for disaster.
And you are honestly asking if they thought to maybe try heating it up?