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iPhone X Teardown

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Re: iPhone X Teardown

#181

Post by dannyw »

foolfoolz wrote: post #152
fermienrico wrote: post #90

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?

the sim is no piece of plastic. SIM cards are computers! they have a CPU. they have memory, a file system. they run applets, yes Java applets. sims are one of the most secure pieces of technology out there, part of the Secure Element standard. the sim is responsible for a lot of your phones security. lots of encryption keys live on the sim and nothing can access them at all. I am much much happier to trust the hardwa…

On a dumb phone yes contacts are stored on your SIM maybe using some kind of weak crypto, yes. On an iPhone X, it’s completely unused for crypto or security, or for any other purpose other than carrier authentication.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#182

Post by doctoboggan »

timthelion wrote: post #85

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?

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.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#183

Post by MikeKusold »

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.

I'll take a skinny MagSafe plug over a Dell or HP plug any day. A power brick costs ~$80 to replace, a laptop costs much more.

The main issue with Apple's power brick is that people wind the cord too tightly and don't leave slack. HP/Dell's main problem is that the female power adapter inside the laptop takes a lot of stress. In college, I had two roommates that broke their laptops due to the power connector.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#184

Post by r00fus »

selectodude wrote: post #105
gurkendoktor wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Apple killed the clones because the clone program wasn't profitable enough to compensate for the fact that MS had already won the OS wars.

It was either Apple or the clones, and so the clones got axed.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#185

Post by beams_of_light »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #36
valuearb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to look at it. Just like when you use it.

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.

I've been critical of Apple's choices in the past, mainly the headphone jack removal, as an Android/Windows/linux guy. The iPhone X looks stunning, and I think the design decisions they've made (aside from not bringing back the headphone jack) are actually very future-looking and cool. My vision of the future is one in which we use the screen a lot less, and use our voices and AR more. Once the gestures are learned by the user base, using the phone should actually become a less frustrating and time-intensive experience. That said, I've not experienced notifications on the X, but again, as an Android user, I do sometimes just hit the power or main button to see what's on the screen. To do so, I typically do have to move the phone anyway, so as long as the X gives you some notification previews when you tap the phone or something, that's a compromise I could happily make.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#186

Post by timrichard »

jrs95 wrote: post #155
godzillabrennus wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from how bad the software is getting I’d wager they forgot this.

At least it's not Windows. I'm amazed at how something as basic as Bluetooth has been completely fucked for me since I got a PC. On no other platform have my Bose QC35s, AirPods, or wireless Logitech headset had issues. On Windows 10, they hardly work at all. Ironically the only device that works for longer than a few seconds before losing audio is my AirPods, which I still have to reconnect frequently to get the aud…

At least it's not Android, either. I don't use Windows, but for me the Android OTA upgrade to Oreo on my Nexus 6P has been disastrous for use with the QC35s. I have to reboot the awful thing several times a day to get consistent BT audio, and it will happily chew through the battery several times a day too, unless I leave it on charge for periods. Been with Android since the G1, but I'm seriously thinking about switching to iOS because I'm just so frustrated on a daily basis with this awful release, which seems barely tested. I do wonder at which point I switched from the optimist's "oh yay, an update!" to the pessimist's "oh shit, here comes a boatload of careless regressions".

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#187

Post by tigershark »

lovich wrote: post #158
tigershark wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do you mean as soon as it was sold in 1998 to Audi, a German group, right? And what it has to do with the "abysmal" finish of Italian high end car?

Well shit, this thread didn't prepare me for this big a goalpost move Edit: That was overly sarcastic but it went from talking about italian cars, to Ferrari specifically, to implying that the Italian brand is fine as long as it has Italian owners. Discussions are pointless if everyone's going to be arguing different points

I am sorry, but I think you didn't follow properly the discussion. The first quote I answered was exactly: "Fit and finish on many "high end" cars is actually pretty abysmal. Especially basically anything Italian." So, as everyone can see, the discussion was specifically around high end Italian cars, unless I'm missing some tricky and specific nuance of the English language in this context. In that case please enlighten me instead of writing sarcastic comments, it will be appreciated much more. Ferrari, if I'm not mistaken, is the archetype of high end Italian cars. And then when someone starts bubbling about the abysmal quality of 1998 Lamborghini I duly make it clear that they were not Italian for a long time at that point and they have been just acquired by a German automaker. I honestly can't see any contradiction in this very linear reasoning. Please let me know what I'm missing.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#188

Post by KGIII »

lovich wrote: post #156
computerex wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's the best mobile OS by far. And yet Android dominates the market share. I don't think iOS is the best mobile OS, let alone the best by far.

I'm typing this from an Android right now, but it definitely feels like iOS is the majority of the high end market and Android completely owns mid to low end. Apples chosen their niche and fills it well, they shouldn't be compared to a generalist in terms of who is best

It's a very subjective thing, really. I actually like my Windows phone, it's the only Windows I have.

Someone above concluded they are a product company and I was thinking 'appliance.' That's not a negative, they make devices fit for function and they, Apple, are remarkably good at it.

I can't think of an Apple product, and I type this on an iPad, that is truly the best in every aspect. However, they surely aren't the worst and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, I think.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#189

Post by vpribish »

Illniyar wrote: post #72
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…

"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.

I've ONLY heard that "Apple is a hardware company". that's their defining difference from Microsoft, and now Google

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#190

Post by lovich »

tigershark wrote: post #187
lovich wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well shit, this thread didn't prepare me for this big a goalpost move Edit: That was overly sarcastic but it went from talking about italian cars, to Ferrari specifically, to implying that the Italian brand is fine as long as it has Italian owners. Discussions are pointless if everyone's going to be arguing different points

I am sorry, but I think you didn't follow properly the discussion. The first quote I answered was exactly: "Fit and finish on many "high end" cars is actually pretty abysmal. Especially basically anything Italian." So, as everyone can see, the discussion was specifically around high end Italian cars, unless I'm missing some tricky and specific nuance of the English language in this context. In that case please enligh…

The point I found missing was why ferarri was brought up if you could point to 1998 as the time is was no longer high end for a legitimate reason, the foreign ownership. Someone could have conceived a child after that point in time and the child would be able to vote by now, why use it as an example?

It seemed like either you knew what the other poster meant by Italian high end cars, the Ferrari brand, and chose to defend it despite knowing that it was bad for other reasons. Or you thought he was discussing Italian owned Italian brands when it turns out some famous Italian brands are not Italian owned.

Either way that looks like you two were using different definitions for the same words to my third party view

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