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iPhone X Teardown

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Re: iPhone X Teardown

#61

Post by ForrestN »

wnevets wrote: post #37
mankash666 wrote: post #2

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 ev…

With how buggy iOS 11 is/was, it really does show where their focus has been.

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.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#62

Post by Vogtinator »

mankash666 wrote: post #45
criddell wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 ver…

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.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#63

Post by noncoml »

gehsty wrote: post #20
alvis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

Why do you get so defensive? What in “is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier“ is not accurate?

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#64

Post by calibration263 »

derefr wrote: post #48
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#65

Post by TylerE »

hinkley wrote: post #57
gehsty wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

Fit and finish on many "high end" cars is actually pretty abysmal. Especially basically anything Italian.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#66

Post by doe88 »

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?

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#67

Post by brians »

ForrestN wrote: post #61
wnevets wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With how buggy iOS 11 is/was, it really does show where their focus has been.

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 res…

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.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#68

Post by mankash666 »

Vogtinator wrote: post #62
mankash666 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ver…

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.

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

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#69

Post by pjc50 »

mankash666 wrote: post #2

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 ev…

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.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#70

Post by Qworg »

joering2 wrote: post #26
pat2man wrote: post #3

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

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 bo…

Manufacturing costs are the most likely reason. Prismatic cells are much less costly to produce in a rectangular format vs. an L shape.
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