16 ms·

iPhone X Teardown

mankash666 9y ago
Truly impressive. Smaller, yet faster than the competition. Surprising how many of the chips are now internal Apple components: 1. CPU/GPU 2. Auxiliary Machine Learning/AI chip 3. NAND controller 4. IR Deapth sensor & signal processing chip 5. Power management IC (surprising that Apple is doing Analog IC design too!) Axiom in the tech world is that "Apple is a software company that builds hardware". Above is ample evidence of Apple being a hardware-heavy innovation machine. A software company building hardware is Google, and it's Pixel phones show
- alvis 9y ago
  Strategically, I think Apple has made a right move by internalising all the hardware designs. That said, as many have suggested, the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier.
  - criddell 9y ago
    Doesn't Samsung do that as well though? They make screens, and CPUs and many of the other components in a modern phone, don't they? I'm wondering when Apple will start making their own camera sensors.
    - muninn_ 9y ago
      Basically, yeah, they don't make the OS. I think the parent comment was more aimed at software companies. Though, you could look at it from the opposite point of view as well.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Samsung's screens are excellent, but their CPU/GPU performance is a generation (or more) behind Apple. Plus they are way behind in integrated functionality such as motion coprocessor, ai processing, and secure enclave. I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that the Samsung OLED screen on the iPhone X is significantly better than the ones Samsung puts on it's flagship phones, in color fidelity especially. Partly because of Apple's attention to detail, but also because Samsung's flagship phones ship in much higher volume than the X is expected to.
      - MBCook 9y ago
        I can believe it. The quality is all about cost. What level of rejected units can you accept for price $X? If Apple can pay more (due to cost, scale, or just where the price of the phone is allocated between parts) they can buy a better screen.
      - sundvor 9y ago
        Yeah the S8 and S8 Plus had (has?) significant top/side edge colour shift. (Speaking as the owner of the Plus, who has his first replaced and the second is somewhat better but not perfect. Wife's S8 is also affected but she doesn't see it or doesn't care. I would still take that slight imperfection over the horrid notch though).
      - vilmosi 9y ago
        >>> I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that the Samsung OLED screen on the iPhone X is significantly better than the ones Samsung puts on it's flagship phones I can't believe that. I just can't. All iPhone X reviews mention the screen tech difference, all of them say how they don't notice a difference.
        valuearb 9y ago
        Most reviewers (and people) don't appreciate color fidelity. Jon Gruber was just talking about how Google spent the time/effort to make the colors of the Pixel display more accurate and natural, and then people complain they don't "pop" and look as good as the super-saturated colors on other android phones.
        vilmosi 9y ago
        >>> Most reviewers (and people) don't appreciate color fidelity It's not about "appreciating". It's that it doesn't matter. Everyone talked about retina resolution, then about "true colors". Today we have Samsung making all the screens. The point is, nobody except professionals care.
        9y ago
    - MBCook 9y ago
      Not quite. Samsung fabs chips. They may even design chips. But they don’t work ‘together’. Samsung makes 5 processors and puts them on the open market. The another part of Samsung buys those chips off the shelf and used them in their phones. My understanding is the two units don’t work together hand in hand like Apples teams do, they work together the way Samsung and HTC do.
    - mankash666 9y ago
      Multiple differences between Samsung and Apple: 1. Samsung was a semiconductor maker, that successfully moved up to make phones. Apple was a integrator of third party chips that successfully went down to own many of the chips. 2. Apple's chips are significantly better than the competition. Partly because the chip division has a captive customer whose requirements are more apparent, plus no middlemen thanks to the vertical integration 3. Samsung's components need to serve multiple segments of the phone market, and other external customers. Apple only builds for Apple's specs 4. Every new breakthrough on the iPhone has been because of a chip that Apple alone had. From the very first iPhone's capacitive touch sensors to the new IR sensor system, no one else has the access for a couple phone cycles. Apple put out a 64 bit ARM processor even before arm had finalized the instruction set
      - Vogtinator 9y ago
        4. Is absolutely wrong in every aspect. Most "innovation" was bought tech (primesense, for instance). The ARMv8 ISA was finalized ages before the chips got designed. Middle of 2011 IIRC.
        mankash666 9y ago
        True - They bought 3rd party companies with the tech. Still doesn't change the observation that they made it better, and tailored it specifically for the iPhone. None of those sensors have drop in replacements. And Apple put out the 64bit proc prior to ARM having IP --> FACt
        unobtaniumstool 9y ago
        Having the foresight and capabilities to make the right acquisitions at the right times is just good business. Splitting hairs over whether the technology was internally developed or purchased is irrelevant to the point being made about the exclusivity of the hardware.
      - johansch 9y ago
        Number 4 got me curious about the latency for the competitors catching up with the various hardware advances. Capacitive touch screen: iPhone: June 29, 2007 HTC Dream/G1: October 20, 2008 (479 days later) Fingerprint sensor: iPhone 5s: September 20, 2013 Galaxy S5: April 11, 2014 (203 days later) ARMv8 (64-bit) ISA: iPhone 5s: September 10, 2013 Galaxy Note 4: October 17, 2014 (402 days later) Tiny bezel: Galaxy S6 Edge: April 10, 2015 iPhone X: November 3, 2017 (938 days later) OLED screen: Samsung Galaxy: June 29, 2009 iPhone X: November 3, 2017 (3049 days later)
    - GeekyBear 9y ago
      Samsung has a problem with adding features to their devices that are simply not well executed. For instance, from the NY Times review of the Galaxy Note 8: >Some of the biometrics, including the ability to unlock your phone by scanning your face or irises, are so poorly executed that they feel like marketing gimmicks as opposed to actual security features. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/technology/personaltech/samsung-galaxy-note-8.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/technology/personaltech/s...
  - gehsty 9y ago
    Just smaller and faster with new technology, never before seen delivered at this size, capability or scale. What does Apple have to do to impress people? Do all this then give the phones away for free?
    - chaostheory 9y ago
      Louis CK - everything is amazing... but no one is happy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ
      - hinkley 9y ago
        Easily one of his best bits and he did it on a talk show.
        chaostheory 9y ago
        It helped spawn an app too: https://theymadethat.com https://theymadethat.com
    - hinkley 9y ago
      People used to bitch about why people thought the MacBook was so cool when it was “only” 5mm thinner than anything else on the market. The low end doesn’t understand why people pay so much more for fit and finish. Except automobiles. Everyone seems to accept and even approve of the high end for cars.
      - TylerE 9y ago
        Fit and finish on many "high end" cars is actually pretty abysmal. Especially basically anything Italian.
        tigershark 9y ago
        Oh..I didn't know that your Ferrari had a shit finish, you must have been quite unlucky...
  - bluthru 9y ago
    >That said, as many have suggested, the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier. FaceID is a huge leap and affects how people use their phones. The phone can behave differently if you are looking at it. For example: showing sensitive info only if you're looking at it, and not playing notification sounds as loud (or at all) if you see the notification as it comes in.
    - GeekyBear 9y ago
      There's an interesting article from the folks at Wired who have been attempting to fool Face ID without any success so far. https://www.wired.com/story/tried-to-beat-face-id-and-failed-so-far/ https://www.wired.com/story/tried-to-beat-face-id-and-failed...
  - austenallred 9y ago
    > the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier. I'm sold. I'll take it.
- ksk 9y ago
  Indeed, Apple is excellent at integration. But at the system level, that leaves them with fewer partners who can help with the business side of things. They had to become excellent in operations, strategy and sales, which they did as well.
- gehsty 9y ago
  I think Apple explicitly position themselves as the combination of hardware and software and want as much vertical integration as possible... the more hardware they control the better they can make software to run on it.
- wnevets 9y ago
  With how buggy iOS 11 is/was, it really does show where their focus has been.
  - mandeepj 9y ago
    Software bugs can be fixed with iterations but hardware....nope. Not without a recall
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - cjsuk 9y ago
      Clever software workarounds can save a board respin if you’re lucky. I’ve seen it done before.
      - baq 9y ago
        Just take a look at driver source and published errata for anything not trivial. Software workarounds are everywhere.
  - ForrestN 9y ago
    I think this personification of companies as people is misleading. Whose "focus?" Do you mean you think that the same people within Apple are working on both hardware and software, and are focusing more on hardware? Or that you think many people who write software have been re-educated, re-assigned, and are now working on hardware? I assume that the size of Apple's teams working on iPhone are limited by more than resources, and the recruitment pools are totally separate, so it's not like they're spending too much on hardware engineers and can't afford enough software engineers, right? I just don't really know how you can conceive of such a massive company as having an obviously zero-sum "focus" like a person has.
    - brians 9y ago
      Quality comes from feedback control systems. Quality of design comes from management oversight and correction. Fan-in is a concern. Orphaned teams become a concern at a tenth Apple’s scale. Informal networks and approval based on trust of people rather than examination of product is a concern. Executive attention is expensive.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Who thinks Apple is a software company? Because they're wrong. Apple started off making hardware and they've always made hardware. They make software to compliment their hardware.
  - wmeredith 9y ago
    This. They've become more and more a hardware company as they give away almost of their software now to move more IRL gadgets.
  - draw_down 9y ago
    Even they claim it. It’s that old Alan Kay quote, you know.
  - psergeant 9y ago
    Kind of depends what you mean, doesn’t it? I buy Apple products because they run Apple software. I like the Apple hardware I have, but if it ran easily and bug free on other hardware, I suspect I’d end up with cheaper knock offs for the hardware itself.
- hinkley 9y ago
  > Power management IC (surprising that Apple is doing Analog IC design too!) Have you seen the tear down of the old MacBook power bricks? Check it out if you haven’t. There’s a lot of tech in there to improve efficiency (ie keep that tiny brick from melting)
  - cjsuk 9y ago
    They’re shit. The inrush current is so high it actually damages the plugs with arcing!
    - artursapek 9y ago
      You must have bought yours on Amazon :)
      - cjsuk 9y ago
        No from the Apple store. See my other post. This is poor design, regardless of where it came from. There should be a hefty NTC or inrush current limiter in the charger.
        nixgeek 9y ago
        Have you looked at an 87W USB-C charger to see if this was addressed with the latest generation of laptops?
        cjsuk 9y ago
        Not yet. I’m not due for a hardware refresh for about a year yet. I’ll probably head in the direction of Lenovo then.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      You're describing the cheap Chinese made knock-offs. They look almost perfectly identical and generally you can only tell by opening them up. They're awful. There are a LOT of teardowns of those. It's scary.
- pjc50 9y ago
  There's a lot to be said for "if you want something done properly, do it yourself". Hard to do in a connected ecosystem but Apple has the level of platform control that they can do whatever they feel they need to do without having to consider partners, competitors or exogenous forces.
- Illniyar 9y ago
  "Axiom in the tech world is that "Apple is a software company that builds hardware". " Is that really a common belief? I know many people who think the opposite - apple is a hardware company. In fact Tim Cook went out of his way several times to remind people that apple isn't a hardware company.
  - gurkendoktor 9y ago
    In terms of profits, yes. But many of us don't buy Apple for the hardware, but because we want to stay in their software ecosystem. I'd rather use a Nexus running iOS than an iPhone X running Android, and I'm even more invested in macOS. That Apple builds nice hardware is a bonus for me (but I'd honestly prefer better software right now). I mean, on paper Apple is making more money from hardware than from software, but how do you measure hardware sales that only happened because of the software?
    - mamuf 9y ago
      Apple is making buttload of money on hardware because it does not sell any software anymore. I mean, in the mass consumer market – and they are cutting off the Pro software (which is sad). But remember the hardware sales pay for the software, too. So basically people say Apple is making $$$ on an iPhone price minus manufacturing costs and R&D but great slice of the zillion $$$ is the software part. Anyway, not sure who said what exaclty, but Steve Jobs repeatedly said that Apple is great because of the tight interconnection between sw and hw. So Apple is not a hw company. It is not a sw company either. They do both and the result is greater than just a combination of the two. I see Apple, and the way they present their products supports it, as an appliance company. It's harder and harder to repair their devices and the software is more and more integrated with the hardware – examples: force touch and feedback, Touch/Face ID, all the camera magic, Apple Pay, MBP Touch Bar etc. So basically the sw and hw are more and more inseparable unless you lose "half" the features.
    - selectodude 9y ago
      Apple has been very serious about how they’re a hardware company vs a software company for like 30+ years now. Literally the first thing SPJ did after coming back was kill the Mac clones program. They’re obsessed with the feel of the hardware in every way. The software is just a platform.
- rufugee 9y ago
  Typing this from a Pixel 2 XL after having been a happy Pixel XL owner. The 2 is truly the greatest phone I've ever owned, and that includes iphones along the way. If this is what you get with a software company building hardware, I'd say keep it up.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    If iPhones ran today's Android, they would lead the pack; but because they run iOS, they're pretty MOR in terms of everyday performance and responsiveness (and perhaps especially disappointing WRT battery life). This is quite a role reversal from the situation five years ago.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      Name an android phone that’s faster than last years iPhone.
      - microcolonel 9y ago
        Compare last year's Samsung Galaxy to whatever iPhone was available at the time, and you'll find that the Samsung loads equivalent applications (preferably the same or same function) faster, retains them for longer, and lasts considerably longer on battery, all while charging faster. It's not that hard, I'm sure somebody's done this on video, do the test yourself if you're not convinced, I don't have an iPhone 7 Plus and 20 hours of time on my hands. iOS is a hog, and the A series chips are clearly not competitive in idle power consumption as configured by iOS.
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    Once again, anecdotal evidence is not data. We have confirmed reports that Pixel 2's build quality is... questionable: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/google-is-investigating-reports-of-pixel-2-xl-display-burn-in/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/google-is-investigat... edit: keep downvoting. You can't change the facts :)
  - matwood 9y ago
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  > "Apple is a software company that builds hardware". Above is ample evidence of Apple being a hardware-heavy innovation machine. I disagree with both. Apple is a design company that builds hardware and software together so the design works as intended.
- marcell 9y ago
  > A software company building hardware is Google, and it's Pixel phones show FWIW Google has put a lot of effort in the hardware of their datacenters, and in that sense they're a hardware giant as well. Compared to their datacenter projects, Pixel is a funny hobbby for Google.
  - aliasxneo 9y ago
    As a datacenter technician for Google, this makes me happy to see other people recognize this.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      It’s just sad that we’ll never see any of that openly available, or described.
      - j-walker 9y ago
        There's a lot of openly available networking hardware on the Open Compute Project.
        kuschku 9y ago
        Sure, but that's not even close to the "every board and switch is custom designed" story.
        pyvpx 9y ago
        there isn't as much exotic "stuff" as you might think. they have the same ODMs build switches and line cards to their specifications, with chips from the same vendors (Broadcom, Cavium, etc) only they can easily hire a team and sign the NDA and write/optimize/perfect the forwarding plane and control plane implementations. hell, the IS-IS implementation in Quagga is usable because of Google :)
      - jankey 9y ago
        It's not a lot, but there are a bunch of pictures on google.com/about/datacenters, including a 'street view' inside our DC in North Carolina. There are also a bunch of papers on the network architecture, https://research.google.com/pubs/Networking.html https://research.google.com/pubs/Networking.html . But yes, a lot is closed for the obvious reason that this is really core to the business Google is running. (I'm a datacenter engineer at Google)
- mwilliaams 9y ago
  Apple is a hardware company that also makes software, and its software shows.
- Jack000 9y ago
  I think Apple is a Design company, as in that's their main value add. Like Steve Jobs said, design is not just how their products look but how they work - something that requires both software and hardware. On the other hand Google seems to be more of a software company, which reflects in their general culture and hiring practices.
  - johnchristopher 9y ago
    > I think Apple is a Design company, as in that's their main value add. Like Steve Jobs said, design is not just how their products look but how they work - something that requires both software and hardware. That's just word redefining. And I have an old iMac 20 that has all its USB ports on the back and every time I have to twist my wrist to plug something I am reminded how Apple isn't that good at functional design. The thing is pretty though.
    - Jack000 9y ago
      those macs had a target user of designers/creative industry professionals. For these people the aesthetics is pretty much a part of the function. Apple's biggest innovation is probably the realization that "normal" people care about very different things than engineers, when it comes to computers.
- manojlds 9y ago
  Wasn't it always like Apple was a hardware company doing software for its hardware, while Microsoft was the other way around?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
pat2man 9y ago
Amazing to see everything shrink (except for the battery). Reminds me of a quote referencing Blackberry falling behind the iPhone: "Imagine their surprise when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2043613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2043613
- joering2 9y ago
  The new concept seems to be dual-battery. I'm sure they investigated designing simply L-shaped battery but for some reason they decided to go with two batteries instead. I wonder if its because one is supplying power to some critical circuits while other one isn't, or since display and battery are #1s replacement on these phones, they simply run some stats and decided that splitting cells into two separate battery boxes will help them cut the costs down the line when it will come to battery replacement.
  - Qworg 9y ago
    Manufacturing costs are the most likely reason. Prismatic cells are much less costly to produce in a rectangular format vs. an L shape.
    - joering2 9y ago
      I don't know, but putting 4 cells into one box, versus 2 cells in 2 boxes at the iPhone scale might be more expensive. My take is that still less expensive that constant replacement (warranty, recalls) that they do on daily basis.
      - snewk 9y ago
        it could be related to power draw inconsistencies in cells with concave angles
  - kevinchen 9y ago
    Along with the reasons others mentioned, 2 cells means higher voltage, so the battery can deliver the same power using less current.
mavhc 9y ago
iPhone X(Box) 2013: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Xbox+One+Kinect+Teardown/19725 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Xbox+One+Kinect+Teardown/197... 2017: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975?revisionid=HEAD#s182894 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975?revi...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- skeletonjelly 9y ago
  FWIW this is v2 of the Kinect, the X teardown mentions Primesense was bought after v1 came out.
djrogers 9y ago
I gotta say, that is a beautiful device!
marze 9y ago
The most impressive thing to me is how similar the iPhone X is to the original iPhone (shown side by side in the second picture). Ten years ago, Apple totally nailed the design. Same buttons, same speaker design, same full panel display. Even design work by a company as talented as Apple, you might expect that a new model ten years into the future may look quite different, but it looks the same.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > Same buttons There might be a button or two missing…
  - marze 9y ago
    True, but look at the change phones from ten years pre-iphone vs iPhone. http://www.mobilephonehistory.co.uk/lists/by_year.html http://www.mobilephonehistory.co.uk/lists/by_year.html Huge change. But after Apple nailed the modern smartphone design on the first try, ten years later it is remarkably unchanged.
    - robotresearcher 9y ago
      Remarkably, yes. But this release removing the biggest, most used, iconic button might not be the ideal moment to claim "same buttons!"
      - mikeash 9y ago
        75% the same after ten years is not too shabby!
- phinnaeus 9y ago
  > Same full panel display What?
  - Zee2 9y ago
    I mean, relative to the competition, the original iPhone was certainly rather "full panel"! http://www.techpavan.com/wp-content/uploads/mobile-phone-market.jpg http://www.techpavan.com/wp-content/uploads/mobile-phone-mar... Devoting the majority of the vertical dimension of the profile of the phone to display was definitely not a priority of the market at the time.
diggan 9y ago
Is there another reason than space-saving for the two batteries instead of one bigger one but L-shaped?
- gbba 9y ago
  Splitting a battery into two cells might mean it can charge twice as fast in parallel.
  - pkulak 9y ago
    Unfortunately, no.
    - gxs 9y ago
      Not agreeing or disagreeing - just curious, why is that?
    - biggerfisch 9y ago
      Not that I don't believe you, but could you explain why and educate the rest of us?
    - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
      Hmm, this is what I thought as well. Just like if I have a splitter plugged into the wall and two USB cables attached I can charge those two devices as fast as if there was one item plugged in. So why wouldn't this be faster?
      - kogepathic 9y ago
        > Just like if I have a splitter plugged into the wall and two USB cables attached I can charge those two devices as fast as if there was one item plugged in. So why wouldn't this be faster? Because with your method you are doubling the power. Imagine you have one charger with a fixed output of 10W (2A @ 5V). Now you have a USB splitter cable which allows you to plug two devices into the same charger. What happens? Most likely both devices will charge at 1A (5W) instead of a single device charging at 2A (10W). The power output of the charger doesn't magically increase to 4A (20W) because you plugged in a USB splitter cable. Increasing the number of battery cells is equivalent to adding more splitter cables to the charger. The input power doesn't change, but the power to each cell (device) is decreased proportionally to the number of cells (devices) drawing power.
nsxwolf 9y ago
Do you really need to hold it up to your face like I've been seeing? The reviewers look so awkward and uncomfortable. I was hoping it would see your face laying on the desk and whatnot.
- valuearb 9y ago
  You need to look at it. Just like when you use it.
  - JustSomeNobody 9y ago
    I can't tell if you're being passive aggressive or not. Many, many people have pointed out that looking directly at the phone (as needed by Face ID), is NOT the only way to use a phone. Sometimes one just wants to glance down at the screen to see a notification. Watch Nilay's review and you'll see what I mean.
    - derefr 9y ago
      You look at the phone to unlock it; notifications still display when the phone is locked. I believe waking up the phone just involves raising it a bit (like in the Watch), along with some light-sensor heuristic (like in the AirPods.) Or, y’know, pressing the sleep button.
      - calibration263 9y ago
        You can also wake the phone up now by tapping the display(similar to the watch). Also it might be configurable in settings but the notification content is hidden on the X when the phone is locked, after FaceID they become visible.
      - ClassyJacket 9y ago
        >You look at the phone to unlock it; notifications still display when the phone is locked. Actually, by default they don't display the content of notifications until it recognises your face. But you may be able to turn this off.
jaux 9y ago
> Repairability 6 out of 10 That's a big surprise to me!
- duskwuff 9y ago
  iFixit has historically rated Apple devices rather harshly for their (non-)repairability. 6/10, from them, is high praise.
  - elicash 9y ago
    iPhones have gotten 6's and 7's in recent years.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      mainly, I think, they realized it's a trend and they can't just give every single thing 0/10 each time.
  - rconti 9y ago
    I read it as "surprisingly high", actually.
mandeepj 9y ago
Steve Jobs - "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."
- alaaibrahim 9y ago
  That was Alan Kay Edit: Adding source https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Creative_Think.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...
  - jonknee 9y ago
    To be fair, that wouldn't stop Steve from claiming it was his idea.
    - B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
      "I did not say it." "You will." (Oscar Wilde, if memory serves)
- noblethrasher 9y ago
  He actually attributed that to Alan Kay at the first iPhone event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAfTXYa36f4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAfTXYa36f4
asteli 9y ago
This is an engineering masterpiece. The electrical engineer in me is mind-blown. I love the inter-PCB BGA-style interface. Standoff, connector and shield all in one component. And the component density is stunning. Clean internal layout, relatively serviceable, structured light 3D scanning built in. You can debate whether or not Apple have made good UI decisions, but the hardware design execution here is superb.
- overcyn 9y ago
  Yeah I don't know the slightest about electrical engineering but the spacer that servers as a connector struck me as super clever.
- nimish 9y ago
  Yeah their product engineering is just off the charts. That PCB layout alone is insane.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  I've never seen anything remotely like it... is there anything else like it on the mass market?
  - solidr53 9y ago
    they probably got the idea from halt and catch fire :)
- rconti 9y ago
  Part of me thinks it's absolutely stunning that such engineering is even possible, and frankly, in a way, how much you get for your money. The future is here. Then I realize, the only reason this is remotely possible is due to volume. So it almost says less about technical progress and performance per cubic inch per dollar coming down, and more about how volume makes the above possible.
- yodsanklai 9y ago
  I'm just wondering, how does it compare to let say a samsung galaxy S8 in terms of engineering? on paper, they seem to be pretty similar devices but Samsung doesn't get nearly as much praise. Is Apple really ahead there?
BinaryIdiot 9y ago
I'm still on the fence about whether this is a great phone or not because I use every one of my phones a significant amount when not directly looking at it. But this hardware is absolutely incredible. I wish there was a clear casing to the phone. Apple has always done a great job design the internals and clearly this is no exception.
- manmal 9y ago
  IMO it’s even better suitable than previous iPhones for that situation. A tap on the display will wake it up and you can start looking at notifications, swipe to get the camera.. or if you refer to Siri, it’s still a button press.
doe88 9y ago
It seems this is the second times after the Apple Watch 3 in september that the Wifi/BT module is branded with the Apple name. Does someone knows if they have designed their own Wifi/BT chipset or if it is licensed from somebody else?
- wmeredith 9y ago
  They're def doing something of their own with BT. The airpods use it, but it's been highly modified.
sk2code 9y ago
Hardware company or Software company, we can always debate about it and choose whatever we want to say. In few years Apple will be a "Trillion dollar company" and there won't be any debate or doubt about it.
- zaroth 9y ago
  More like in a few weeks.
Synaesthesia 9y ago
The video of the infrared dots is quite interesting.
- valine 9y ago
  The iFixit video doesn't show it very clearly. Seeing the dots up close is crazy: https://twitter.com/reckless/status/926466977413128192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fbgr.com%2F2017%2F11%2F03%2Fiphone-x-face-id-video-infrared%2F https://twitter.com/reckless/status/926466977413128192?ref_s...
timthelion 9y ago
I don't understand, when they got rid of the audio jack and added wireless charging, why does the phone have ports at all? Couldn't they make a port-less phone?
- mattnewton 9y ago
  Diagnostics, developer experience and backups are all hard to do wirelessly, but I am sure they are thinking about it.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    We (developers) can already build and run wirelessly since a year or so ago, and iTunes will back up your iPhone wirelessly, too. It does need to be plugged in once and then enabled, but after that you're off to the races. We're actually pretty close. It wouldn't surprise me if the next iPhone had no ports, although they'll probably save that for a non-S year.
- leerob 9y ago
  I mean, they could. But does that mean they should? Personally, I don't think so.
- sib 9y ago
  I personally would not want to have wireless charging only for this device. Given the number of different places in which I want to charge my phone over the course of a week, and how few of them have wireless charging stations, that would be a big problem.
- thefalcon 9y ago
  As I understand it, Apple committed to X years of the lightning port to certain MFi vendors, which (if true) is just another checkmark in the "why have ports" column.
- doctoboggan 9y ago
  I heard somewhere, (but have not been able to back it up) that Apple guarantees a certain lifetime for their connectors to accessory manufacturers. This would explain why Apple hasn't switched to USB-C or no port at all.
synaesthesisx 9y ago
Does anyone have any more details/teardown on the new front sensor? Curious if there's a Xilinx chip/FPGA in there....
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  Given the volumes in which these things are produced, I doubt you'll see any FPGAs. It's full of proprietary ASICs.
fermienrico 9y ago
The SIM card holder's size shows its age. It is literally as big as the A11 package. Such archaic things need to evolve or disappear. What's the status on electronic SIM? We don't need a piece of plastic that holds a numeric key and takes up EXPENSIVE real-estate in one of the most densely packed electronic devices in the world. Apple doesn't have the leverage to sway the standards?
- parent5446 9y ago
  https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/4/16424740/google-pixel-2-xl-esim-technology-project-fi-first-ever https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/4/16424740/google-pixel-2-x...
  - valuearb 9y ago
    The Pixel is a great example of how Google is trying to cast off the constraints of Android's distribution model. I really think they can do it, but it's going to take a long effort. Eventually all the cheap phones will be Android and Google/Samsung/Apple will fight for the premium market. And it's unclear how long Samsung will remain in the fight given their lack of control over the OS and hardware integration.
    - lovich 9y ago
      Will Samsung even want to stay in the fight if they can get themselves as the screen manufacturers for every phone? They make money on every iPhone already selling parts, not sure if they do so for Pixels. No sense digging for gold if you can sell the shovels though
- mattnewton 9y ago
  They have an electronic sim on the watch- I imagine that’s serving as a test bed for the carriers and for apple.
- okanesen 9y ago
  They did it with their most recent Apple Watch, which could be a first start to also bring it to the iPhone. They probably want to first get the adoption going, before making it available globally.
hamandcheese 9y ago
> Today, we're taking apart Apple's 18th iteration That seems a bit exaggerated. Original 3G 3GS 4 4S 5 and 5C 5S 6 and 6 Plus 6S, 6S Plus, SE 7 and 7 Plus 8, 8 Plus, X I count 11 iterations. 18 total products.
- swang 9y ago
  i don't think it's over-exaggerated at all. over exaggeration would be saying, "100th iteration." to them they have to consider each as it's own iteration because they're picking the device completely apart.
karpodiem 9y ago
I've owned various iPhones (starting with the 4 in 2010) and I'm going to take a serious look at the Pixel 3 in 2018. Performance is a feature, and I don't see a compelling reason why I should upgrade my 6S. I have a suspicion that Apple will keep the '6' chassis they've stuck with since the release of the 6 (6/6S/7/8) at 2GB of memory, and will continue to do so with the 9 next year. Pixel 2 performance with 4GB of memory is impressive. And I will not pay $1000 for a phone, that's absurd. Features I focus on when evaluating a phone - how quickly does the device unlock? Does it have a fingerprint reader? How quickly can I open the camera app? How are the photos? (I really hope Android device makers diverge from Apple and pursue a under the front glass fingerprint reader instead of facial recognition). I could care less about AI assistants/animojis. Get the basics down. Google _still_ has significant QA issues nearly six years after designing their first phone (Nexus 4) for OEM manufacturing. RCS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services) still needs to get off the ground. Until then, iMessage will still rule. My family is familiar with the built in messaging app, and I'm not asking my parents to use a separate app for texting. RCS will be able to replace iMessage for us. Apple is a $875 billion dollar company because they figured out how to do customer service/QA/hardware and designed an easy to use OS. I'm not asking Google to focus on ease of use for the OS, just get QA/service/hardware correct, at a $650 price point.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  > I'm not asking Google to focus on ease of use for the OS, just get QA/service/hardware correct Apple does the QA/service well because of their focus on usability. Usability has been a focus since their founding. They spend more money on design, which is why their hardware can cost more than the PC/Android equivalent.
  - karpodiem 9y ago
    My comment pertains to the hardware issues Google has had with Pixel - OLED bleeding, phones shipping without an OS, etc. Mostly hardware defects, not OS design choices. There’s quite a few threads on reddit.
- 9y ago
mcescalante 9y ago
> If the back glass breaks, you'll be removing every component and replacing the entire chassis. oof, sounds like this is in part because of the "camera nub". I know a number of people who have had the back glass panel replaced on their iPhones, almost as many as the front. Sounds like X owners may want to opt for a case or some extra protection for the back glass and chassis to save the pain of getting this replaced/repaired, it sure isn't likely to be a DIY project for most.
ikurei 9y ago
TL;DR: I see that Apple is doing great engineering, but where is this engineering better than Samsung's? Or is it not? --- This was fascinating, but I am not very knowledgable when it comes to hardware and I have a burning question. Everybody here seems to think this was a great feat of engineering. I am looking also at the teardown of the Samsung Galaxy S8. Where is Apple doing a better work than Samsung? Is it just the fact that Apple are "doing it themselves" that is impressive? (not implying it isn't.) The only thing I can see is that the iPhone X seems to devote much more space to battery, by cramming up all of the components tighter together. Does this mean the iPhone X will have a better battery life? I truly have no dog in the fight, and have no interest in starting a flame war. I'm just curious. PD: Yeah, the A* CPUs are fantastic, no doubt. But that doesn't show in this teardown.
- scott_karana 9y ago
  I only had this quote to go by: > and the OLED is well supported by a frame, unlike some displays we know. "Some displays" linked to the S8 tear down, and "we know" to the Note 4. I too wish they had taken a stronger tack and clearly compared against other flagships. (Including the iPhone 8 too)
- developer2 9y ago
  Basically, this "cramming up all of the components tighter together" is worth being impressed with. We're at the point in manufacturing where every square millimetre of space saved on a logic board, or within a collection of components, is bringing us ever closer to the limit of what we are capable of producing based on our current understanding of physics. Aside: I'm excited to see how far technology advances in my lifetime. The general consensus seems to be that we are approaching some supposed limit. I'm hoping this turns out to be wrong, and that our technology continues to experience "horse => car" types of leaps. All I've been reading is that we only have "faster horses" in our future. With any luck, this kind of narrative is short-sighted and naive, and we have some incredible technological advances to look forward to.
  - bovine3dom 9y ago
    We're nowhere near the theoretical limit. Biological brains are much more energy efficient (up to 100,000x depending on who you ask) than our current offerings, and beyond that one can make an entropic argument as to how much energy information processing should require, to which the answer is "not much". What makes you believe that we are only destined for incremental improvements?
sengork 9y ago
It is interesting to observe that this teardown has been carried out down under (in Australia). Maybe it had something to do with the timezones and release date.

Truly impressive. Smaller, yet faster than the competition. Surprising how many of the chips are now internal Apple components: 1. CPU/GPU 2. Auxiliary Machine Learning/AI chip 3. NAND controller 4. IR Deapth sensor & signal processing chip 5. Power management IC (surprising that Apple is doing Analog IC design too!) Axiom in the tech world is that "Apple is a software company that builds hardware". Above is ample evidence of Apple being a hardware-heavy innovation machine. A software company building hardware is Google, and it's Pixel phones show

alvis 9y ago
Strategically, I think Apple has made a right move by internalising all the hardware designs. That said, as many have suggested, the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier.
- criddell 9y ago
  Doesn't Samsung do that as well though? They make screens, and CPUs and many of the other components in a modern phone, don't they? I'm wondering when Apple will start making their own camera sensors.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    Basically, yeah, they don't make the OS. I think the parent comment was more aimed at software companies. Though, you could look at it from the opposite point of view as well.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Samsung's screens are excellent, but their CPU/GPU performance is a generation (or more) behind Apple. Plus they are way behind in integrated functionality such as motion coprocessor, ai processing, and secure enclave. I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that the Samsung OLED screen on the iPhone X is significantly better than the ones Samsung puts on it's flagship phones, in color fidelity especially. Partly because of Apple's attention to detail, but also because Samsung's flagship phones ship in much higher volume than the X is expected to.
    - MBCook 9y ago
      I can believe it. The quality is all about cost. What level of rejected units can you accept for price $X? If Apple can pay more (due to cost, scale, or just where the price of the phone is allocated between parts) they can buy a better screen.
    - sundvor 9y ago
      Yeah the S8 and S8 Plus had (has?) significant top/side edge colour shift. (Speaking as the owner of the Plus, who has his first replaced and the second is somewhat better but not perfect. Wife's S8 is also affected but she doesn't see it or doesn't care. I would still take that slight imperfection over the horrid notch though).
    - vilmosi 9y ago
      >>> I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that the Samsung OLED screen on the iPhone X is significantly better than the ones Samsung puts on it's flagship phones I can't believe that. I just can't. All iPhone X reviews mention the screen tech difference, all of them say how they don't notice a difference.
      - valuearb 9y ago
        Most reviewers (and people) don't appreciate color fidelity. Jon Gruber was just talking about how Google spent the time/effort to make the colors of the Pixel display more accurate and natural, and then people complain they don't "pop" and look as good as the super-saturated colors on other android phones.
        vilmosi 9y ago
        >>> Most reviewers (and people) don't appreciate color fidelity It's not about "appreciating". It's that it doesn't matter. Everyone talked about retina resolution, then about "true colors". Today we have Samsung making all the screens. The point is, nobody except professionals care.
        9y ago
  - MBCook 9y ago
    Not quite. Samsung fabs chips. They may even design chips. But they don’t work ‘together’. Samsung makes 5 processors and puts them on the open market. The another part of Samsung buys those chips off the shelf and used them in their phones. My understanding is the two units don’t work together hand in hand like Apples teams do, they work together the way Samsung and HTC do.
  - mankash666 9y ago
    Multiple differences between Samsung and Apple: 1. Samsung was a semiconductor maker, that successfully moved up to make phones. Apple was a integrator of third party chips that successfully went down to own many of the chips. 2. Apple's chips are significantly better than the competition. Partly because the chip division has a captive customer whose requirements are more apparent, plus no middlemen thanks to the vertical integration 3. Samsung's components need to serve multiple segments of the phone market, and other external customers. Apple only builds for Apple's specs 4. Every new breakthrough on the iPhone has been because of a chip that Apple alone had. From the very first iPhone's capacitive touch sensors to the new IR sensor system, no one else has the access for a couple phone cycles. Apple put out a 64 bit ARM processor even before arm had finalized the instruction set
    - Vogtinator 9y ago
      4. Is absolutely wrong in every aspect. Most "innovation" was bought tech (primesense, for instance). The ARMv8 ISA was finalized ages before the chips got designed. Middle of 2011 IIRC.
      - mankash666 9y ago
        True - They bought 3rd party companies with the tech. Still doesn't change the observation that they made it better, and tailored it specifically for the iPhone. None of those sensors have drop in replacements. And Apple put out the 64bit proc prior to ARM having IP --> FACt
      - unobtaniumstool 9y ago
        Having the foresight and capabilities to make the right acquisitions at the right times is just good business. Splitting hairs over whether the technology was internally developed or purchased is irrelevant to the point being made about the exclusivity of the hardware.
    - johansch 9y ago
      Number 4 got me curious about the latency for the competitors catching up with the various hardware advances. Capacitive touch screen: iPhone: June 29, 2007 HTC Dream/G1: October 20, 2008 (479 days later) Fingerprint sensor: iPhone 5s: September 20, 2013 Galaxy S5: April 11, 2014 (203 days later) ARMv8 (64-bit) ISA: iPhone 5s: September 10, 2013 Galaxy Note 4: October 17, 2014 (402 days later) Tiny bezel: Galaxy S6 Edge: April 10, 2015 iPhone X: November 3, 2017 (938 days later) OLED screen: Samsung Galaxy: June 29, 2009 iPhone X: November 3, 2017 (3049 days later)
  - GeekyBear 9y ago
    Samsung has a problem with adding features to their devices that are simply not well executed. For instance, from the NY Times review of the Galaxy Note 8: >Some of the biometrics, including the ability to unlock your phone by scanning your face or irises, are so poorly executed that they feel like marketing gimmicks as opposed to actual security features. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/technology/personaltech/samsung-galaxy-note-8.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/technology/personaltech/s...
- gehsty 9y ago
  Just smaller and faster with new technology, never before seen delivered at this size, capability or scale. What does Apple have to do to impress people? Do all this then give the phones away for free?
  - chaostheory 9y ago
    Louis CK - everything is amazing... but no one is happy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ
    - hinkley 9y ago
      Easily one of his best bits and he did it on a talk show.
      - chaostheory 9y ago
        It helped spawn an app too: https://theymadethat.com https://theymadethat.com
  - hinkley 9y ago
    People used to bitch about why people thought the MacBook was so cool when it was “only” 5mm thinner than anything else on the market. The low end doesn’t understand why people pay so much more for fit and finish. Except automobiles. Everyone seems to accept and even approve of the high end for cars.
    - TylerE 9y ago
      Fit and finish on many "high end" cars is actually pretty abysmal. Especially basically anything Italian.
      - tigershark 9y ago
        Oh..I didn't know that your Ferrari had a shit finish, you must have been quite unlucky...
- bluthru 9y ago
  >That said, as many have suggested, the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier. FaceID is a huge leap and affects how people use their phones. The phone can behave differently if you are looking at it. For example: showing sensitive info only if you're looking at it, and not playing notification sounds as loud (or at all) if you see the notification as it comes in.
  - GeekyBear 9y ago
    There's an interesting article from the folks at Wired who have been attempting to fool Face ID without any success so far. https://www.wired.com/story/tried-to-beat-face-id-and-failed-so-far/ https://www.wired.com/story/tried-to-beat-face-id-and-failed...
- austenallred 9y ago
  > the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier. I'm sold. I'll take it.
ksk 9y ago
Indeed, Apple is excellent at integration. But at the system level, that leaves them with fewer partners who can help with the business side of things. They had to become excellent in operations, strategy and sales, which they did as well.
gehsty 9y ago
I think Apple explicitly position themselves as the combination of hardware and software and want as much vertical integration as possible... the more hardware they control the better they can make software to run on it.
wnevets 9y ago
With how buggy iOS 11 is/was, it really does show where their focus has been.
- mandeepj 9y ago
  Software bugs can be fixed with iterations but hardware....nope. Not without a recall
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - cjsuk 9y ago
    Clever software workarounds can save a board respin if you’re lucky. I’ve seen it done before.
    - baq 9y ago
      Just take a look at driver source and published errata for anything not trivial. Software workarounds are everywhere.
- ForrestN 9y ago
  I think this personification of companies as people is misleading. Whose "focus?" Do you mean you think that the same people within Apple are working on both hardware and software, and are focusing more on hardware? Or that you think many people who write software have been re-educated, re-assigned, and are now working on hardware? I assume that the size of Apple's teams working on iPhone are limited by more than resources, and the recruitment pools are totally separate, so it's not like they're spending too much on hardware engineers and can't afford enough software engineers, right? I just don't really know how you can conceive of such a massive company as having an obviously zero-sum "focus" like a person has.
  - brians 9y ago
    Quality comes from feedback control systems. Quality of design comes from management oversight and correction. Fan-in is a concern. Orphaned teams become a concern at a tenth Apple’s scale. Informal networks and approval based on trust of people rather than examination of product is a concern. Executive attention is expensive.
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Who thinks Apple is a software company? Because they're wrong. Apple started off making hardware and they've always made hardware. They make software to compliment their hardware.
- wmeredith 9y ago
  This. They've become more and more a hardware company as they give away almost of their software now to move more IRL gadgets.
- draw_down 9y ago
  Even they claim it. It’s that old Alan Kay quote, you know.
- psergeant 9y ago
  Kind of depends what you mean, doesn’t it? I buy Apple products because they run Apple software. I like the Apple hardware I have, but if it ran easily and bug free on other hardware, I suspect I’d end up with cheaper knock offs for the hardware itself.
hinkley 9y ago
> Power management IC (surprising that Apple is doing Analog IC design too!) Have you seen the tear down of the old MacBook power bricks? Check it out if you haven’t. There’s a lot of tech in there to improve efficiency (ie keep that tiny brick from melting)
- cjsuk 9y ago
  They’re shit. The inrush current is so high it actually damages the plugs with arcing!
  - artursapek 9y ago
    You must have bought yours on Amazon :)
    - cjsuk 9y ago
      No from the Apple store. See my other post. This is poor design, regardless of where it came from. There should be a hefty NTC or inrush current limiter in the charger.
      - nixgeek 9y ago
        Have you looked at an 87W USB-C charger to see if this was addressed with the latest generation of laptops?
        cjsuk 9y ago
        Not yet. I’m not due for a hardware refresh for about a year yet. I’ll probably head in the direction of Lenovo then.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    You're describing the cheap Chinese made knock-offs. They look almost perfectly identical and generally you can only tell by opening them up. They're awful. There are a LOT of teardowns of those. It's scary.
pjc50 9y ago
There's a lot to be said for "if you want something done properly, do it yourself". Hard to do in a connected ecosystem but Apple has the level of platform control that they can do whatever they feel they need to do without having to consider partners, competitors or exogenous forces.
Illniyar 9y ago
"Axiom in the tech world is that "Apple is a software company that builds hardware". " Is that really a common belief? I know many people who think the opposite - apple is a hardware company. In fact Tim Cook went out of his way several times to remind people that apple isn't a hardware company.
- gurkendoktor 9y ago
  In terms of profits, yes. But many of us don't buy Apple for the hardware, but because we want to stay in their software ecosystem. I'd rather use a Nexus running iOS than an iPhone X running Android, and I'm even more invested in macOS. That Apple builds nice hardware is a bonus for me (but I'd honestly prefer better software right now). I mean, on paper Apple is making more money from hardware than from software, but how do you measure hardware sales that only happened because of the software?
  - mamuf 9y ago
    Apple is making buttload of money on hardware because it does not sell any software anymore. I mean, in the mass consumer market – and they are cutting off the Pro software (which is sad). But remember the hardware sales pay for the software, too. So basically people say Apple is making $$$ on an iPhone price minus manufacturing costs and R&D but great slice of the zillion $$$ is the software part. Anyway, not sure who said what exaclty, but Steve Jobs repeatedly said that Apple is great because of the tight interconnection between sw and hw. So Apple is not a hw company. It is not a sw company either. They do both and the result is greater than just a combination of the two. I see Apple, and the way they present their products supports it, as an appliance company. It's harder and harder to repair their devices and the software is more and more integrated with the hardware – examples: force touch and feedback, Touch/Face ID, all the camera magic, Apple Pay, MBP Touch Bar etc. So basically the sw and hw are more and more inseparable unless you lose "half" the features.
  - selectodude 9y ago
    Apple has been very serious about how they’re a hardware company vs a software company for like 30+ years now. Literally the first thing SPJ did after coming back was kill the Mac clones program. They’re obsessed with the feel of the hardware in every way. The software is just a platform.
rufugee 9y ago
Typing this from a Pixel 2 XL after having been a happy Pixel XL owner. The 2 is truly the greatest phone I've ever owned, and that includes iphones along the way. If this is what you get with a software company building hardware, I'd say keep it up.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  If iPhones ran today's Android, they would lead the pack; but because they run iOS, they're pretty MOR in terms of everyday performance and responsiveness (and perhaps especially disappointing WRT battery life). This is quite a role reversal from the situation five years ago.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    Name an android phone that’s faster than last years iPhone.
    - microcolonel 9y ago
      Compare last year's Samsung Galaxy to whatever iPhone was available at the time, and you'll find that the Samsung loads equivalent applications (preferably the same or same function) faster, retains them for longer, and lasts considerably longer on battery, all while charging faster. It's not that hard, I'm sure somebody's done this on video, do the test yourself if you're not convinced, I don't have an iPhone 7 Plus and 20 hours of time on my hands. iOS is a hog, and the A series chips are clearly not competitive in idle power consumption as configured by iOS.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  Once again, anecdotal evidence is not data. We have confirmed reports that Pixel 2's build quality is... questionable: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/google-is-investigating-reports-of-pixel-2-xl-display-burn-in/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/google-is-investigat... edit: keep downvoting. You can't change the facts :)
- matwood 9y ago
abritinthebay 9y ago
> "Apple is a software company that builds hardware". Above is ample evidence of Apple being a hardware-heavy innovation machine. I disagree with both. Apple is a design company that builds hardware and software together so the design works as intended.
marcell 9y ago
> A software company building hardware is Google, and it's Pixel phones show FWIW Google has put a lot of effort in the hardware of their datacenters, and in that sense they're a hardware giant as well. Compared to their datacenter projects, Pixel is a funny hobbby for Google.
- aliasxneo 9y ago
  As a datacenter technician for Google, this makes me happy to see other people recognize this.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    It’s just sad that we’ll never see any of that openly available, or described.
    - j-walker 9y ago
      There's a lot of openly available networking hardware on the Open Compute Project.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        Sure, but that's not even close to the "every board and switch is custom designed" story.
        pyvpx 9y ago
        there isn't as much exotic "stuff" as you might think. they have the same ODMs build switches and line cards to their specifications, with chips from the same vendors (Broadcom, Cavium, etc) only they can easily hire a team and sign the NDA and write/optimize/perfect the forwarding plane and control plane implementations. hell, the IS-IS implementation in Quagga is usable because of Google :)
    - jankey 9y ago
      It's not a lot, but there are a bunch of pictures on google.com/about/datacenters, including a 'street view' inside our DC in North Carolina. There are also a bunch of papers on the network architecture, https://research.google.com/pubs/Networking.html https://research.google.com/pubs/Networking.html . But yes, a lot is closed for the obvious reason that this is really core to the business Google is running. (I'm a datacenter engineer at Google)
mwilliaams 9y ago
Apple is a hardware company that also makes software, and its software shows.
Jack000 9y ago
I think Apple is a Design company, as in that's their main value add. Like Steve Jobs said, design is not just how their products look but how they work - something that requires both software and hardware. On the other hand Google seems to be more of a software company, which reflects in their general culture and hiring practices.
- johnchristopher 9y ago
  > I think Apple is a Design company, as in that's their main value add. Like Steve Jobs said, design is not just how their products look but how they work - something that requires both software and hardware. That's just word redefining. And I have an old iMac 20 that has all its USB ports on the back and every time I have to twist my wrist to plug something I am reminded how Apple isn't that good at functional design. The thing is pretty though.
  - Jack000 9y ago
    those macs had a target user of designers/creative industry professionals. For these people the aesthetics is pretty much a part of the function. Apple's biggest innovation is probably the realization that "normal" people care about very different things than engineers, when it comes to computers.
manojlds 9y ago
Wasn't it always like Apple was a hardware company doing software for its hardware, while Microsoft was the other way around?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

pat2man 9y ago

Amazing to see everything shrink (except for the battery). Reminds me of a quote referencing Blackberry falling behind the iPhone: "Imagine their surprise when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2043613 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2043613

joering2 9y ago
The new concept seems to be dual-battery. I'm sure they investigated designing simply L-shaped battery but for some reason they decided to go with two batteries instead. I wonder if its because one is supplying power to some critical circuits while other one isn't, or since display and battery are #1s replacement on these phones, they simply run some stats and decided that splitting cells into two separate battery boxes will help them cut the costs down the line when it will come to battery replacement.
- Qworg 9y ago
  Manufacturing costs are the most likely reason. Prismatic cells are much less costly to produce in a rectangular format vs. an L shape.
  - joering2 9y ago
    I don't know, but putting 4 cells into one box, versus 2 cells in 2 boxes at the iPhone scale might be more expensive. My take is that still less expensive that constant replacement (warranty, recalls) that they do on daily basis.
    - snewk 9y ago
      it could be related to power draw inconsistencies in cells with concave angles
- kevinchen 9y ago
  Along with the reasons others mentioned, 2 cells means higher voltage, so the battery can deliver the same power using less current.

mavhc 9y ago

iPhone X(Box) 2013: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Xbox+One+Kinect+Teardown/19725 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Xbox+One+Kinect+Teardown/197... 2017: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975?revisionid=HEAD#s182894 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+X+Teardown/98975?revi...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
skeletonjelly 9y ago
FWIW this is v2 of the Kinect, the X teardown mentions Primesense was bought after v1 came out.

djrogers 9y ago

I gotta say, that is a beautiful device!

marze 9y ago

The most impressive thing to me is how similar the iPhone X is to the original iPhone (shown side by side in the second picture). Ten years ago, Apple totally nailed the design. Same buttons, same speaker design, same full panel display. Even design work by a company as talented as Apple, you might expect that a new model ten years into the future may look quite different, but it looks the same.

saagarjha 9y ago
> Same buttons There might be a button or two missing…
- marze 9y ago
  True, but look at the change phones from ten years pre-iphone vs iPhone. http://www.mobilephonehistory.co.uk/lists/by_year.html http://www.mobilephonehistory.co.uk/lists/by_year.html Huge change. But after Apple nailed the modern smartphone design on the first try, ten years later it is remarkably unchanged.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    Remarkably, yes. But this release removing the biggest, most used, iconic button might not be the ideal moment to claim "same buttons!"
    - mikeash 9y ago
      75% the same after ten years is not too shabby!
phinnaeus 9y ago
> Same full panel display What?
- Zee2 9y ago
  I mean, relative to the competition, the original iPhone was certainly rather "full panel"! http://www.techpavan.com/wp-content/uploads/mobile-phone-market.jpg http://www.techpavan.com/wp-content/uploads/mobile-phone-mar... Devoting the majority of the vertical dimension of the profile of the phone to display was definitely not a priority of the market at the time.

diggan 9y ago

Is there another reason than space-saving for the two batteries instead of one bigger one but L-shaped?

gbba 9y ago
Splitting a battery into two cells might mean it can charge twice as fast in parallel.
- pkulak 9y ago
  Unfortunately, no.
  - gxs 9y ago
    Not agreeing or disagreeing - just curious, why is that?
  - biggerfisch 9y ago
    Not that I don't believe you, but could you explain why and educate the rest of us?
  - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
    Hmm, this is what I thought as well. Just like if I have a splitter plugged into the wall and two USB cables attached I can charge those two devices as fast as if there was one item plugged in. So why wouldn't this be faster?
    - kogepathic 9y ago
      > Just like if I have a splitter plugged into the wall and two USB cables attached I can charge those two devices as fast as if there was one item plugged in. So why wouldn't this be faster? Because with your method you are doubling the power. Imagine you have one charger with a fixed output of 10W (2A @ 5V). Now you have a USB splitter cable which allows you to plug two devices into the same charger. What happens? Most likely both devices will charge at 1A (5W) instead of a single device charging at 2A (10W). The power output of the charger doesn't magically increase to 4A (20W) because you plugged in a USB splitter cable. Increasing the number of battery cells is equivalent to adding more splitter cables to the charger. The input power doesn't change, but the power to each cell (device) is decreased proportionally to the number of cells (devices) drawing power.

nsxwolf 9y ago

Do you really need to hold it up to your face like I've been seeing? The reviewers look so awkward and uncomfortable. I was hoping it would see your face laying on the desk and whatnot.

valuearb 9y ago
You need to look at it. Just like when you use it.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  I can't tell if you're being passive aggressive or not. Many, many people have pointed out that looking directly at the phone (as needed by Face ID), is NOT the only way to use a phone. Sometimes one just wants to glance down at the screen to see a notification. Watch Nilay's review and you'll see what I mean.
  - derefr 9y ago
    You look at the phone to unlock it; notifications still display when the phone is locked. I believe waking up the phone just involves raising it a bit (like in the Watch), along with some light-sensor heuristic (like in the AirPods.) Or, y’know, pressing the sleep button.
    - calibration263 9y ago
      You can also wake the phone up now by tapping the display(similar to the watch). Also it might be configurable in settings but the notification content is hidden on the X when the phone is locked, after FaceID they become visible.
    - ClassyJacket 9y ago
      >You look at the phone to unlock it; notifications still display when the phone is locked. Actually, by default they don't display the content of notifications until it recognises your face. But you may be able to turn this off.

jaux 9y ago

> Repairability 6 out of 10 That's a big surprise to me!

duskwuff 9y ago
iFixit has historically rated Apple devices rather harshly for their (non-)repairability. 6/10, from them, is high praise.
- elicash 9y ago
  iPhones have gotten 6's and 7's in recent years.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    mainly, I think, they realized it's a trend and they can't just give every single thing 0/10 each time.
- rconti 9y ago
  I read it as "surprisingly high", actually.

mandeepj 9y ago

Steve Jobs - "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."

alaaibrahim 9y ago
That was Alan Kay Edit: Adding source https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Creative_Think.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...
- jonknee 9y ago
  To be fair, that wouldn't stop Steve from claiming it was his idea.
  - B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
    "I did not say it." "You will." (Oscar Wilde, if memory serves)
noblethrasher 9y ago
He actually attributed that to Alan Kay at the first iPhone event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAfTXYa36f4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAfTXYa36f4

asteli 9y ago

This is an engineering masterpiece. The electrical engineer in me is mind-blown. I love the inter-PCB BGA-style interface. Standoff, connector and shield all in one component. And the component density is stunning. Clean internal layout, relatively serviceable, structured light 3D scanning built in. You can debate whether or not Apple have made good UI decisions, but the hardware design execution here is superb.

overcyn 9y ago
Yeah I don't know the slightest about electrical engineering but the spacer that servers as a connector struck me as super clever.
nimish 9y ago
Yeah their product engineering is just off the charts. That PCB layout alone is insane.
QAPereo 9y ago
I've never seen anything remotely like it... is there anything else like it on the mass market?
- solidr53 9y ago
  they probably got the idea from halt and catch fire :)
rconti 9y ago
Part of me thinks it's absolutely stunning that such engineering is even possible, and frankly, in a way, how much you get for your money. The future is here. Then I realize, the only reason this is remotely possible is due to volume. So it almost says less about technical progress and performance per cubic inch per dollar coming down, and more about how volume makes the above possible.
yodsanklai 9y ago
I'm just wondering, how does it compare to let say a samsung galaxy S8 in terms of engineering? on paper, they seem to be pretty similar devices but Samsung doesn't get nearly as much praise. Is Apple really ahead there?

BinaryIdiot 9y ago

I'm still on the fence about whether this is a great phone or not because I use every one of my phones a significant amount when not directly looking at it. But this hardware is absolutely incredible. I wish there was a clear casing to the phone. Apple has always done a great job design the internals and clearly this is no exception.

manmal 9y ago
IMO it’s even better suitable than previous iPhones for that situation. A tap on the display will wake it up and you can start looking at notifications, swipe to get the camera.. or if you refer to Siri, it’s still a button press.

doe88 9y ago

It seems this is the second times after the Apple Watch 3 in september that the Wifi/BT module is branded with the Apple name. Does someone knows if they have designed their own Wifi/BT chipset or if it is licensed from somebody else?

wmeredith 9y ago
They're def doing something of their own with BT. The airpods use it, but it's been highly modified.

sk2code 9y ago

Hardware company or Software company, we can always debate about it and choose whatever we want to say. In few years Apple will be a "Trillion dollar company" and there won't be any debate or doubt about it.

zaroth 9y ago
More like in a few weeks.

Synaesthesia 9y ago

The video of the infrared dots is quite interesting.

valine 9y ago
The iFixit video doesn't show it very clearly. Seeing the dots up close is crazy: https://twitter.com/reckless/status/926466977413128192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fbgr.com%2F2017%2F11%2F03%2Fiphone-x-face-id-video-infrared%2F https://twitter.com/reckless/status/926466977413128192?ref_s...

timthelion 9y ago

I don't understand, when they got rid of the audio jack and added wireless charging, why does the phone have ports at all? Couldn't they make a port-less phone?

mattnewton 9y ago
Diagnostics, developer experience and backups are all hard to do wirelessly, but I am sure they are thinking about it.
- moduspol 9y ago
  We (developers) can already build and run wirelessly since a year or so ago, and iTunes will back up your iPhone wirelessly, too. It does need to be plugged in once and then enabled, but after that you're off to the races. We're actually pretty close. It wouldn't surprise me if the next iPhone had no ports, although they'll probably save that for a non-S year.
leerob 9y ago
I mean, they could. But does that mean they should? Personally, I don't think so.
sib 9y ago
I personally would not want to have wireless charging only for this device. Given the number of different places in which I want to charge my phone over the course of a week, and how few of them have wireless charging stations, that would be a big problem.
thefalcon 9y ago
As I understand it, Apple committed to X years of the lightning port to certain MFi vendors, which (if true) is just another checkmark in the "why have ports" column.
doctoboggan 9y ago
I heard somewhere, (but have not been able to back it up) that Apple guarantees a certain lifetime for their connectors to accessory manufacturers. This would explain why Apple hasn't switched to USB-C or no port at all.

synaesthesisx 9y ago

Does anyone have any more details/teardown on the new front sensor? Curious if there's a Xilinx chip/FPGA in there....

CamperBob2 9y ago
Given the volumes in which these things are produced, I doubt you'll see any FPGAs. It's full of proprietary ASICs.

fermienrico 9y ago

The SIM card holder's size shows its age. It is literally as big as the A11 package. Such archaic things need to evolve or disappear. What's the status on electronic SIM? We don't need a piece of plastic that holds a numeric key and takes up EXPENSIVE real-estate in one of the most densely packed electronic devices in the world. Apple doesn't have the leverage to sway the standards?

parent5446 9y ago
https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/4/16424740/google-pixel-2-xl-esim-technology-project-fi-first-ever https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/4/16424740/google-pixel-2-x...
- valuearb 9y ago
  The Pixel is a great example of how Google is trying to cast off the constraints of Android's distribution model. I really think they can do it, but it's going to take a long effort. Eventually all the cheap phones will be Android and Google/Samsung/Apple will fight for the premium market. And it's unclear how long Samsung will remain in the fight given their lack of control over the OS and hardware integration.
  - lovich 9y ago
    Will Samsung even want to stay in the fight if they can get themselves as the screen manufacturers for every phone? They make money on every iPhone already selling parts, not sure if they do so for Pixels. No sense digging for gold if you can sell the shovels though
mattnewton 9y ago
They have an electronic sim on the watch- I imagine that’s serving as a test bed for the carriers and for apple.
okanesen 9y ago
They did it with their most recent Apple Watch, which could be a first start to also bring it to the iPhone. They probably want to first get the adoption going, before making it available globally.

hamandcheese 9y ago

> Today, we're taking apart Apple's 18th iteration That seems a bit exaggerated. Original 3G 3GS 4 4S 5 and 5C 5S 6 and 6 Plus 6S, 6S Plus, SE 7 and 7 Plus 8, 8 Plus, X I count 11 iterations. 18 total products.

swang 9y ago
i don't think it's over-exaggerated at all. over exaggeration would be saying, "100th iteration." to them they have to consider each as it's own iteration because they're picking the device completely apart.

karpodiem 9y ago

I've owned various iPhones (starting with the 4 in 2010) and I'm going to take a serious look at the Pixel 3 in 2018. Performance is a feature, and I don't see a compelling reason why I should upgrade my 6S. I have a suspicion that Apple will keep the '6' chassis they've stuck with since the release of the 6 (6/6S/7/8) at 2GB of memory, and will continue to do so with the 9 next year. Pixel 2 performance with 4GB of memory is impressive. And I will not pay $1000 for a phone, that's absurd. Features I focus on when evaluating a phone - how quickly does the device unlock? Does it have a fingerprint reader? How quickly can I open the camera app? How are the photos? (I really hope Android device makers diverge from Apple and pursue a under the front glass fingerprint reader instead of facial recognition). I could care less about AI assistants/animojis. Get the basics down. Google _still_ has significant QA issues nearly six years after designing their first phone (Nexus 4) for OEM manufacturing. RCS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services) still needs to get off the ground. Until then, iMessage will still rule. My family is familiar with the built in messaging app, and I'm not asking my parents to use a separate app for texting. RCS will be able to replace iMessage for us. Apple is a $875 billion dollar company because they figured out how to do customer service/QA/hardware and designed an easy to use OS. I'm not asking Google to focus on ease of use for the OS, just get QA/service/hardware correct, at a $650 price point.

unityByFreedom 9y ago
> I'm not asking Google to focus on ease of use for the OS, just get QA/service/hardware correct Apple does the QA/service well because of their focus on usability. Usability has been a focus since their founding. They spend more money on design, which is why their hardware can cost more than the PC/Android equivalent.
- karpodiem 9y ago
  My comment pertains to the hardware issues Google has had with Pixel - OLED bleeding, phones shipping without an OS, etc. Mostly hardware defects, not OS design choices. There’s quite a few threads on reddit.
9y ago

mcescalante 9y ago

> If the back glass breaks, you'll be removing every component and replacing the entire chassis. oof, sounds like this is in part because of the "camera nub". I know a number of people who have had the back glass panel replaced on their iPhones, almost as many as the front. Sounds like X owners may want to opt for a case or some extra protection for the back glass and chassis to save the pain of getting this replaced/repaired, it sure isn't likely to be a DIY project for most.

ikurei 9y ago

TL;DR: I see that Apple is doing great engineering, but where is this engineering better than Samsung's? Or is it not? --- This was fascinating, but I am not very knowledgable when it comes to hardware and I have a burning question. Everybody here seems to think this was a great feat of engineering. I am looking also at the teardown of the Samsung Galaxy S8. Where is Apple doing a better work than Samsung? Is it just the fact that Apple are "doing it themselves" that is impressive? (not implying it isn't.) The only thing I can see is that the iPhone X seems to devote much more space to battery, by cramming up all of the components tighter together. Does this mean the iPhone X will have a better battery life? I truly have no dog in the fight, and have no interest in starting a flame war. I'm just curious. PD: Yeah, the A* CPUs are fantastic, no doubt. But that doesn't show in this teardown.

scott_karana 9y ago
I only had this quote to go by: > and the OLED is well supported by a frame, unlike some displays we know. "Some displays" linked to the S8 tear down, and "we know" to the Note 4. I too wish they had taken a stronger tack and clearly compared against other flagships. (Including the iPhone 8 too)
developer2 9y ago
Basically, this "cramming up all of the components tighter together" is worth being impressed with. We're at the point in manufacturing where every square millimetre of space saved on a logic board, or within a collection of components, is bringing us ever closer to the limit of what we are capable of producing based on our current understanding of physics. Aside: I'm excited to see how far technology advances in my lifetime. The general consensus seems to be that we are approaching some supposed limit. I'm hoping this turns out to be wrong, and that our technology continues to experience "horse => car" types of leaps. All I've been reading is that we only have "faster horses" in our future. With any luck, this kind of narrative is short-sighted and naive, and we have some incredible technological advances to look forward to.
- bovine3dom 9y ago
  We're nowhere near the theoretical limit. Biological brains are much more energy efficient (up to 100,000x depending on who you ask) than our current offerings, and beyond that one can make an entropic argument as to how much energy information processing should require, to which the answer is "not much". What makes you believe that we are only destined for incremental improvements?

sengork 9y ago

It is interesting to observe that this teardown has been carried out down under (in Australia). Maybe it had something to do with the timezones and release date.