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Apple iPhone Dissected
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Jun 30, 2007 07:27 AM
from the better-them-than-you dept.
from the better-them-than-you dept.
Conch writes "Only hours after the launch, the Apple iPhone has been dissected. The good folks at AnandTech violated one of the first iPhones to still our curiosity about whats inside the aluminum shell.
'Please note that we're doing this so you are not tempted to on your recent $500/$600 expenditure, while it is quite possible to take apart using easy to find tools we'd recommend against it as it will undoubtedly void your warranty and will most likely mar up the beautiful gadget's exterior.'"
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More and more detailed pics (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What's that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Joke's aside - the thing I really noted from TFA was:More planned obsolescence. Pity. I'd like to see Apple go a little greener. A non-user replaceable battery limits the life of a device substantially.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You know as well as I, that Apple likes to keep control of their own things. And besides, it is not like there would be any business in a normal mobile store to sell iPhone batteries, whereas selling for instance Nokia batteries could be a good idea, because a lot of phones from Nokia uses the same batteries. I think even across brand names are the same batt
The battery is not replaceable by design. (Score:5, Insightful)
From the pictures on anandtech, it appears that the iPhone uses a Li-poly battery. That's an interesting choice, but a concerning one. Those typically do not last for as many charges as a plain old lithium ion battery. Apple is probably counting on the fact that the people who will lay out the kind of money the iPhone costs are the sort who won't try to nurse a device on for years, but rather, are the sort that will bin said device as soon as the next greatest thing (Hopefully the next generation of iPhone) comes along.
I suppose in this light it's not really planned obsolescence. Apple just built the iPhone to the minimum specs of the fickle trendy gadget crowd.
Parent
Re:The battery is not replaceable by design. (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's not like we're going to have any real trouble sourcing a battery either, all the usual iPod battery suppliers will have them.
I'm really not sure why people keep whining about the battery thing. That's really the least of the iPhone's problems as far as I'm concerned.
My list of why I won't buy one now, and maybe not ever:
1. I don't know if it will tether. If it won't, dealbreaker.
2. EDGE - I have an EDGE phone now. It's too slow. If 802.11 worked where I needed my phone to access the internet, I wouldn't need my phone to access the internet.
3. Javascript is not an SDK.
4. Not enough storage capacity to be useful as an iPod. I wouldn't mind at all having a hard drive in my phone, I want 80GB, not 8.
5. I don't do 2 year contracts.
6. This thing is useless without activation. If I decide I don't want Cingular, it's not even an ipod, it's a doorstop.
I don't hate Apple, I make Apple computers work for a living. I'm typing this on an iBook. But it looks like my next phone will probably be a RAZR v3xx, not an iPhone. And if the iPhone would do what I want, I'd be all over it.
Parent
Re:The battery is not replaceable by design. (Score:4, Funny)
In my experience there are way too many people who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a soldering iron.
Put down the soldering iron and back away. That's right, back away from the soldering iron.Parent
Re:The battery is not replaceable by design. (Score:4, Insightful)
Here is mine:
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's that? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've had three mobile phones in my life, each of them for about 4 years. I have never replaced a battery in any of them.
Granted, at the end of the 4 years I might need to charge them every three days instead of every five, but that's not a problem for me. And by the time I get rid of the phone it's usually because it has failed in general - broken clamshell joint or broken charger connection, for example.
Most likely Apple has made the battery non-replacable because they have better uses for the space required for a replacable battery; and because user replacement of batteries is a fairly unusual thing.
Just my $0.02
Parent
Non-replaceable batteries are Greener (Score:5, Insightful)
I still have a pile of the various PDA's and cell phones I have had over the years. Most used undersized batteries that reduced the initial cost of the unit (even though most cost about the same as today's iPhone), but also didn't last. This required me to purchase new batteries, extra batteries, and bigger, add-on batteries and battery packs. All of these batteries are in the same pile, waiting for me to find appropriate green disposal (some day).
I would argue that most people eventually just chuck these things away and that they end up in a landfill somewhere. Also the fact that the batteries are generally crap means that the average user goes through more batteries for a non-Apple "replaceable battery" product than they do for the Apple product.
The fact that Apple offers a low-cost, no-hassle, battery replacement option means that the majority of iPod and now iPhone), battery replacements happen through Apple instead of the consumer, and thus the batteries all get properly recycled instead of just being dumped. The main cause of battery pollution from iPods for instance is whatever portion of the populace that does not return them to Apple for replacement or recycling and just chucks the item away when it's dead. That is the consumer's fault, not Apple's.
The only thing that could be done better is that Apple could take back the old iPods so as to alleviate even the worst acts of the consumers of their products. They already do this in a limited way and have announced recently a goal of doing a take-back on every product they make.
How much more green could they possibly be right now?
Parent
Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I have the feeling people who buy high-tech, flashy gadgetry such as the iPhone aren't likely to invest in it for the long term, with a value-for-money approach to buying and owning the product. The battery will probably last long enough for the owner to have another "oh shiny!" purchasing moment and relegate his iPhone to the bottom of some drawer...
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
You'll be surprised. Most Mac people I know are poor, unemployed, and step on toes around their machines. But they were so convinced they should absolutely must get Apple, they would stay away from pot for a month to afford one.
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
They probably weren't poor until they blew all their cash on Apple kit.
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
So I have an Apple cube running a smartboard, a powerbook from around 2000 that is my home entertainment setup, a powermac from around 1998 that isn't used much but still works very well, not to mention sundry mac classics, etc, that had to go away because they were not OS X capable.
My ipods still work, though I never was impressed with the battery life in them, nor do I like the Apple replacement policy, which is why I am hesitant about the iPhone. But the still work, compared to my Nomad, which has little plastic pieces broken off, which means that I paid about the same amount of money for a device that does not work.
The same applies to my high price phone. Battery lasted a year, then had to charge it every day if I used it, then had to pay $50 for a new one. OTOH, a few years on, my iPod battery is still tolerable. Hopefully, like the iPod, I can send in the iPhone for a battery swap. I think the issue is not going to be the value of the phone, but the value of the time to wait to swap out the phone. If one can't be without a phone for a couple days, and I know many people, even children, who can't, then those will be the ones who will have the new phone. The rest of us, trying to get the full value out of the product, will just eventually have two phones. One for every day, and one for sunday best.
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Apple will replace it under their service program, when the phone is out-of-warranty. $85.95 including postage.
http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/batte
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/service/batte
Another point, is that I've sent 2 iPods back to Apple for battery replacement, and both times they came back as (presumably) the same guts but a new battery, and case. So the cost (60 bucks as I recall) was in effect a refurb. Looked like a brand new unit coming back.
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to the scorched Earth.
Lots of people habitually upgrade their phone every time they upgrade their contract - OK that's with free or heavily subsidised phones that don't cost $500 with a contract - but rest assured, those guys who queued all day yesterday are not going to be seen dead using a first-generation iPhone in two year's time. These are the custome
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
From seeing the Think Secret pictures, I agree. A special tool for removing the bottom half of the back, four screws, and a soldering iron and you're in. You probably don't even have to send it back to Apple. I've seen in-store cell phone repair techs perform more complex operations than that.
It wasn't too long ago
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people use their electronics to do things, not "keep pace with technology". My last $600 computer lasted me seven years.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know you wrote that as bait for the kind of response that I'm going to give, but...I'm going to give it anyway.
I'm in the top 5% of incomes in the US (meaning, it wasn't because I couldn't afford a replacement), yet my main computer from 1999-2006 was a $900 laptop. The only reason I dumped it was because the internal power board (the one with the jack for the power supply, and the one that handled charging the battery)
The software (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The software (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Snuff movie (Score:5, Funny)
SIM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SIM (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:SIM (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why not just one chip? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not just one chip? (Score:4, Informative)
It also allows for (eg) 802.11n ability to be added at a later date if a pin compatible 802.11abgn chip comes on the market, or for them to change display vendors (maybe requiring a different driver chip) if they need to.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I would also hazard a guess that some of the components on the PCB would simply not fit into an IC.
That being said, if you really wanted to make an all-in-one-chip iPhone, it's probably possible,
Re:Why not just one chip? (Score:4, Insightful)
Firstly, data speeds between chips might not match; something that's a lot easier to engineer into discreet chips than a single chip with everything on board.
Secondly, it gives the manufacturer the freedom to switch out components at will. If you dismantle anything from a large embedded device manufacturer, you might find that a single "generation" of a product might go through several iterations of chips simply because the manufacturer was able to source chips from different chip manufacturers for better prices.
Hell, I know I've seen a number of devices of supposedly the same generation that have had four or five iterations of motherboard and probably more of the chips themselves. Don't kid yourself; manufacturers of these devices are all about maximizing profits, and they do that by keeping their product lines "nimble"
Third, and as an aside to the second point; fabbing a custom chip is expensive, in time, resources and cost. Most manufacturers will use off the shelf components where possible so that they can keep the costs down. Custom chips tend to be fabbed only where off the shelf solutions don't exist or fail to meet some other engineering goal. The custom chips shown in the iPhone are a prime example of this. Although we don't know for sure what's inside that ARM package (the part numbers seem incongruous), we can guess that they did combine multiple discreet components into that chip package. In the case of the iPhone this was probably done to meet the packaging requirements of the entire device; i.e. Apple wanted a slim and compact device and discreet chips may have taken more space than the engineering team wanted.
However, the fact that there are several off the shelf chips on the board as well tells me that they were balancing cost and engineering requirements... this almost certainly took a lot of time and it's a nicely engineered solution. I look forward to version 2... which is when I might consider buying one (sorry, tethering and 3G are a big deal for me as I use them daily).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Lots of proprietary chips from lots of vendors.
2. You lose greater economies of scale when engineering custom silicon. Instead of buying existing chips.
3. It's often easier to contain clock speeds and single-ended capacitance within the boundaries of a chip. Extra electronics is required to buffer the effects of clock/capacitance etc from other components. (I.E. Interference.)
4. If all the chips are together, th
Re:Why not just one chip? (Score:5, Informative)
Ignore all other replies, they are only half truth.
The truth is: Different manufacturing processes are required depending on the function of the chips. There are many different types of integrated circuits in a cellphone: Logic (processor), analog parts (Silicon and exotic III-V semiconductors), Memory (NAND flash, NOR flash, DRAM), Sensors (think MEMS). Each of these require a different process flow. Combining those is often extremely expensive to impossible.
The way it is usually done is to use different circuit techniques to achieve the same functionality in a silicon logic process. However in many situations this is not possible or economical, yet.
Parent
Also just hours after launch ... (Score:5, Funny)
This is indeed an opportunity for all kinds of modern enterpreneurs.
ifixit has a much better takeapart... (Score:5, Informative)
they did it some time yesterday, about an hour after it came out i think.
and by the looks of it, they didn't destroy it.
3G version launch for UK on Monday (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/346
If this is indeed true, it will certainly be what the market needs. I am surprised the US market would tolerate paying so much for a 2G phone.
Sounds like the US market is behind the 8 ball, with a couple of years to wait for a 3G - time will be indeed telling.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No [engadget.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Their OS includes no activation or DRM.
Learn things.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What did slashot do (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, I'd like one of the editors here to take the attitude toward the iPhone that Mika Brzezinski [youtube.com] has towards Paris. This video is quite funny, she was really mad!
Back to Slashdot - you realize you made the problem worse by clicking on and replying to this story? If the editors are looking at what types of stories lead to more clicks, you've just "voted"!
Parent
Re:Almost good enough for me. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
NEO1973 (Score:5, Informative)
It's almost fully open. As in, everything is open except the AGPS daemon, which you don't need for GPS, just AGPS.
And it'll only be $450, for the phone itself. No contracts required.
Parent
Greenphone (Score:3, Interesting)
http://trolltech.com/products/qtopia/greenphone [trolltech.com]
And yes, the software is GPL'ed when you buy the community edition of the phone.
Re:This phone is a 2 HAND device vs 1 HAND device (Score:5, Informative)
More advanced functions such as web browsing and browsing email are far easier with two hands (but if you can be bothered stretching your thumb around, then again you can do it one handed.)
It's silly to suggest that the iPhone is the only phone that benefits from two hands. (E.g. any phone that uses a stylus requires two hands on the go.) Since many phones do already require two hands to operate them, having a multi-touch display represents better efficiency of the hands (that is, it should speed you along a little bit, touch typing and gesture short cuts are good examples of this.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A: You can't. They all have this same characteristic - whether it's a stylus (Treo) or a Crackberry, they all require two hands for effective operation.