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iPhone X Teardown

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Re: iPhone X Teardown

#201

Post by dawnerd »

damnyou wrote: post #172
valuearb wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, but that OS is everything. They barely make any software outside of it. And it's the best mobile OS by far.

iOS is a toy OS. The notifications alone make it useless for office productivity. The limitations on background processing break, say, Plex or Netflix sync. You can't watch a YouTube video while doing something else. Apps like FB Messenger can't display useful overlays on the screen. You can't even do basic things like set a system-wide default browser. Android O is light years ahead of iOS.

Found the android fanboy.

Sounds like you haven’t used iOS recently.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#202

Post by mcescalante »

> 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.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#203

Post by mschuster91 »

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…

Thats the problem with Windows - it still does not carry a decent Bluetooth stack and depends on the vendor shipping one. And all of them I have seen so far are more or less crap.

Linux on the other hand is exclusively Bluez which works fine... but god forbid you want to do something like BLE communications or more complex sound stuff, the docs are horrid.

The OS X BT stack is... well I dont have any issues with it per se but it, too, lacks features like a file explorer or an easy way to send files via BT.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#204

Post by cjsuk »

abritinthebay wrote: post #132
cjsuk wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re shit. The inrush current is so high it actually damages the plugs with arcing!

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.

No you are completely 100% wrong. This was one that came with a MacBook Pro from the Apple Store actually in the sealed box when I bought it. Don't assume I'm stupid. I'm actually a qualified electrical engineer and I know switching power supply topologies and design very well.

Don't assume that because 90% of the charger is well designed, the rest of the 10% is.

There is no or insufficient inrush protection in the charger. This results in a hefty current flowing the charge the primary DC cap in the switching power supply when you plug it into the wall (step response of a capacitor at DC is high instantaneous current if the source impedance is low such as rectified AC - derived from I=C(dV/dt), dv=350, dt -> 0, C~10mF, I->infinity in an idea model ignoring parasitics and series resistance of capacitor). This damages the pins and stresses the diodes terribly reducing the time to failure. Google inrush current protection.

You do NOT get this on decent industrial switching power supplies that actually cost less. They either have NTCs or pre-charge.

The Chinese ones are a whole different story. Some of those are absolutely abysmal and are in no way even comparable to the Apple ones.

The Apple ones certainly don't rank that high really in the scale of things, regardless of all the love spread over the Internet. If you're comparing them to a lowest bidding turd from China, then of course they're going to look good.

Here's a picture of the burn marks on the pins: https://i.imgur.com/aaHV1kX.jpg

I'm not going to even go into the three left IO boards I've replaced on MBP's where the magsafe connector has burned out.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#205

Post by cjsuk »

artursapek wrote: post #120
cjsuk wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re shit. The inrush current is so high it actually damages the plugs with arcing!

You must have bought yours on Amazon :)

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.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#206

Post by ikurei »

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.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#207

Post by QAPereo »

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.

I've never seen anything remotely like it... is there anything else like it on the mass market?

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#208

Post by j-walker »

kuschku wrote: post #170
aliasxneo wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a lot of openly available networking hardware on the Open Compute Project.

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#209

Post by scott_karana »

ikurei wrote: post #206

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…

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)

Re: iPhone X Teardown

#210

Post by general_pizza »

mschuster91 wrote: post #203
jrs95 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thats the problem with Windows - it still does not carry a decent Bluetooth stack and depends on the vendor shipping one. And all of them I have seen so far are more or less crap. Linux on the other hand is exclusively Bluez which works fine... but god forbid you want to do something like BLE communications or more complex sound stuff, the docs are horrid. The OS X BT stack is... well I dont have any issues with it p…

Hmm, I've got both Bluetooth File Exchange.app and Bluetooth Explorer.app on my mac which are both from Apple and I think what you're looking for. Not sure if they came default or when I downloaded the bluetooth dev kit years ago. I remember using it to transfer mp3s onto a ZTE bar phone back in the day.
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