Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iPhone X Teardown

ifixit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 372 posts

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#161

Post by jug »

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.

iOS 11.1 fixes the glaring ones from what I can tell, including the added battery drain.

But yes I'd agree with that this is what iOS 11.0 should've been.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#163

Post by AmVess »

devonkim wrote: post #129
hinkley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

And despite all that engineering their reliability was terrible due to various plug design problems with the predecessor to MagSafe or the cords getting damaged from point stress. Meanwhile, Dell and HP make mediocre stuff that somehow hardly has such a problem by using much thicker gauge wiring and tougher rubber / plastics.

Apple has the best liability in the business.

Dell's three year failure rate is almost 20%. Apple's is 10.

fwiw, I use Dell XPS boxes.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#164

Post by aliasxneo »

marcell wrote: post #160
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…

> 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.

As a datacenter technician for Google, this makes me happy to see other people recognize this.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#165

Post by hinkley »

devonkim wrote: post #129
hinkley wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

And despite all that engineering their reliability was terrible due to various plug design problems with the predecessor to MagSafe or the cords getting damaged from point stress. Meanwhile, Dell and HP make mediocre stuff that somehow hardly has such a problem by using much thicker gauge wiring and tougher rubber / plastics.

Yeah but you could kill a bear with the Dell power brick.

Now, maybe that bear needed killin. Who am I to judge? But maybe there are better tools for the job.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#166

Post by panopticon »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #98
Illniyar wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

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, b…

I'm the inverse of you I guess. I'm not a huge fan of macOS or iOS (iOS's notification story is an absolute nightmare), but their hardware is always among the best, if not the best. Apple might not appear to be the best if you're just comparing line items on a spec sheet, but the whole package always seems more solid than their competition.

I'll never buy a non-Apple laptop anymore after dealing with flaky PC laptops for years, and the only reason I haven't bailed on Android is because of how bought into the ecosystem I am... but I'd buy an iPhone in a heartbeat if I could reliably run Android on it.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#167

Post by nunez »

marcell wrote: post #160
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…

> 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.

Absolutely. The servers in their production racks are nearly 100% custom down to the silicon and involve serious amounts of engineering to make happen.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#168

Post by cortesoft »

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…

A company absolutely has a zero-sum 'focus' just like a person. You dismiss the idea that resources are the limiting factor, but that is absolutely what the limiting factor is.

You really think that with unlimited money they couldn't have better software? They could, but they don't because it does not have enough of a return on investment. They 'focus' their resources on areas that will return them profit.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#169

Post by nimish »

asteli wrote: post #46

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.

Yeah their product engineering is just off the charts. That PCB layout alone is insane.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#170

Post by kuschku »

aliasxneo wrote: post #164
marcell wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

As a datacenter technician for Google, this makes me happy to see other people recognize this.

It’s just sad that we’ll never see any of that openly available, or described.
Post reply on HN