iPhone 5s Teardown | Hacker News Reader

iPhone 5s Teardown

ifixit.com

61 pointsjonbaer48 comments

Interesting notes:

The battery is even harder to remove now and is glued in with excessive amounts of adhesive.

There is no "M7 co-processor" [1] chip in the device - possibly it's just marketing for some part of the A7?

The new fingerprint censor is a bunch of small capacitors. Possible cause for concern if you plan to keep using the fingerprint access for the life of the phone.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/15/apples-m7-motion-sensing-co...

> There is no "M7 co-processor" [1] chip in the device - possibly it's just marketing for some part of the A7?

Not sure why the iFixit guys jumped to the conclusion that it was possibly marketing fluff. It is an SoC after all, the M7 doesn't have to be a separate chip on the logic board.

The wording and the slide images at the 5C/5S presentation were definitely calculated to give the impression that M7 was an actual chip with its own package http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZac8af1L4E#t=619 . Phil Schiller even explicitly says "the M7 chip" at 11m52s in the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZac8af1L4E#t=11m52s .

Not really no. And anyway, it’s not like that’s a discussion worth having. Where the M7 is does not matter at all. What matters is whether it’s there or not and whether it does what Apple says it does. It being on the same die as the A7 does not prevent anything Apple said it would do from happening.

Not really? So Phil Schiller saying "the new M7 chip" is not really meant to suggest that the M7 is a chip? Pull the other one. Of course it doesn't really matter, but evidently it mattered enough to Apple marketing for them to lie about it.

The Apple hate is strong with this one.

I thought the M7 was presented as a co-processor, from Apple.com, which has nothing referring to it as a chip:

> Every iPhone 5s includes the new M7 motion coprocessor that gathers data from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass to offload work from the A7 for improved power efficiency. [1]

As a co-processor, its probably embedded in an SoC.

[1] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/09/10Apple-Announces-iP...

I'm not sure they "lied."

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/20/a7-processor-manufacture...

Ok, then they truthfully claimed that the M7 is a separate chip; excellent. Hopefully now we can stop pretending that is not what they claimed.

> There is no "M7 co-processor" [1] chip in the device - possibly it's just marketing for some part of the A7?

The SoC may be a multi-die part (like a Tegra 3). We'll get more info on that when Chipworks or someone gets a look at it.

From Anandtech's digging, it does look like the M7 is a thing with its own processor, at any rate: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/3

It's all just dumbed down marketing speak for "heterogeneous multiprocessing."

There's nothing preventing it from being on the same die, either. The fact that it's a coprocessor just means that it's a separate processing core which the main (general purpose) processing cores must communicate with through a bus. It could even be clocked synchronously with the general purpose cores and it wouldn't matter.

It has a sapphire cover over it, it shouldn't be a problem.

Glue: technology shared with a $1000 and a $5 device but none in between.

I've just replaced the battery on my Lumia 820 after 9 months. They don't last forever. Glue is inexcusable. If they had a half decent mechanical design, foam pads would secure it in place when the device was assembled and allow replacement.

I'd probably buy new Apple products if they weren't held together with glue. I'm not investing lots of money in something intended to be disposable. My last MBP (2010) was at least servicable. Now replaced with Lenovo kit as it's possible to strip it down and replace anything.

"replaced with Lenovo kit as it's possible to strip it down and replace anything."

Spoiler Alert: Lenovo Ultrabooks have glued in batteries. In fact the Ultrabooks from almost every company (HP, Samsung, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo, Acer) have glued in batteries. This is because glued in batteries are a useful innovation.

Yeah I know that. I buy T-series. No glue.

They're not a useful innovation - they are an abhorrent consumerist "disposalism" decision to pump sales, a safety nightmare (isolate it? nope), purely a cost cutting exercise for the manufacturer and make it even harder to recycle the nasty chemicals.

Don't give me the shit about it allowing smaller devices to be made either. You can make smaller devices with removable batteries fine.

I'm a qualified EE for ref.

Just playing Devil's advocate... (because I happen to agree with you that batteries should be user-replaceable, especially with phone battery life as bad as it is)

> I've just replaced the battery on my Lumia 820 after 9 months.

If your Lumia's battery needed to be replaced after 9 months, it was already under warranty and should have been replaced by the manufacturer.

> a safety nightmare

You know what's also a safety nightmare? Batteries. Which is why stopping third-parties from replacing certified batteries with random bought-off-eBay batteries is definitely a good idea.

> purely a cost cutting exercise for the manufacturer and make it even harder to recycle the nasty chemicals

Apple does have a recycling programme where you can bring your old electronics for free (and they'll even pay you for it with some products). http://www.apple.com/recycling/

As for the glue itself, I imagine it's trivially removable by qualified techs (there's probably a solvent that brings it right up?). And the excessive amount we're seeing now could be equally due to initial assembly issues (c.f. thermal paste a few years back) as much as any conscious decision.

I would definitely be interested in hearing more about why glue is bad though!

> If your Lumia's battery needed to be replaced after 9 months, it was already under warranty and should have been replaced by the manufacturer.

It was. Nokia service sent me a new one out for nothing after a 5 minute phone call.

> You know what's also a safety nightmare? Batteries. Which is why stopping third-parties from replacing certified batteries with random bought-off-eBay batteries is definitely a good idea.

The problem is more power isolation. If you get a short when you damage the device etc (compression/impact/waterlogging), your typical LiPoly cell is going to catch fire or at least knock out extremes of heat. This is very hazardous. Removal batteries at least have a chance of power isolation.

My specific example here is my 2010 MBP which the battery was not glued (but inaccessible). This got waterlogged after a drink was spilled on the table. Turning it upside down revealed that capillary action around the base plate had sucked up the water. It rained on the logic board. About 30 seconds later, it caught fire. My only resort was to throw it in the garden and watch my £1249 investment burn up.

> Apple does have a recycling programme where you can bring your old electronics for free

Yes they do but perhaps if you could replace the battery out of warranty, you wouldn't need to recycle it :)

Apple will replace the battery out of warranty no problem. Their laptop batteries are competitively priced (no idea about the iPhones), i.e. replacing the rMBP battery costs $199 (including labor), a comparable battery from Lenovo for T-series laptops costs $179.

Well it's not comparable. I'm sitting on a new 9-cell that cost me $129 equivalent and has 8.5 hours left :)

When that runs out, I can take it out and stick the other one in out of my bag.

Downvoted by an Apple fanboy no doubt!

Well since you're in the UK EU law applies and you get a 2 year warranty on all the Apple stuff you buy. They just keep it on the down-low. Two years is a reasonable life for a device now I reckon before trading up.

My main machine is a Lenovo T61 manufactured in 2006. My backup machine is a T400 from 2009. I have an HP48 manufactured in the mid 1990's still. All work perfectly.

2 years is taking the piss. Seriously. I feel people have been programmed into thinking this is acceptable.

I still have a MacBook from 2006 that's still ticking along fine, naturally it's no longer my main machine. Stuff is gonna fail, and as it ages it's more likely to fail. You could increase the length of warranties but all you end up doing is passing the cost to the end user any way with bumped up prices. I think two years is acceptable. After three years spares for stuff like iPhones/iPads and MacBooks are cheap as dirt on eBay anyway. So repairs are usually easy (people have learned how to do it) and cheap. Also usually if it fails after 2 years I reckon that's probably more down to abuse any way. I know plenty of people who have more money than sense when it comes to looking after their equipment, I had an ex kill a plastic MacBook my continually using it on her bed, it blocked the vents and the thing would cook.

"As for the glue itself, I imagine it's trivially removable by qualified techs (there's probably a solvent that brings it right up?)"

iFixit even mentions their product for doing that using heat for the iPad: http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/iOpener/IF145-198.

Will that work for the iPhone 5? My guess would be "yes". If not, someone will have to find another solution (I guess this knowledge leaks from Apple's repair technicians). I would try cold before I started messing with chemicals.

If it turns out to be not that hard to remove the battery, once you know how, the root of the complaint is "Apple does not tell us how to take apart their stuff, and puts stuff together really tight." The latter is one of the reasons people buy Apple stuff; the former is not something Apple is unique in.

"I buy T-series. No glue."

I respect your preferences but the bottom line is this:

When Apple dropped the MacBook Air to $999 in 2010 to match the price point of the MacBook, they gave users a clear choice: the thin, light, and un-upgradeable MacBook Air or the heavier, longer lasting, more rugged, and more powerful MacBook. Same price, two very different products. At the time, I wasn’t very happy with the non-upgradeable RAM on the MacBook Air, but I respected that Apple had given their users a choice. It was up to us: Did we want a machine that would be stuck with 2GB of RAM forever? Would we support laptops that required replacement every year or two as applications required more memory and batteries atrophied?

Apple has presented the market with a choice. They have two professional laptops: one that is serviceable and upgradeable, and one that is not.

Consumers overwhelmingly voted yes, and the Air grew to take 40 percent of Apple’s notebook sales by the end of 2010.

That's from Kyle Weins, founder of iFixit.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/opinion-apple-retina-...

"not a useful innovation ... Don't give me the shit about it allowing smaller devices ... I'm a qualified EE for ref."

I'm certainly not an EE but I'm sure some of the people that design Ultrabooks for Apple, HP, Samsung, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo and Acer are. The guy from iFixit above certainly doesn't question that the glue and solder allow for thinner devices to be made.

> This is because glued in batteries are a useful innovation.

Please explain (I'm honestly curious, having no experience in EE).

I've had a 4S for two years and have not noticed any problems with battery.

Perhaps the problem is the crap battery that goes bad after 9 months, rather than the way it's attached.

Glue is perfectly fine by me - and by most people apparently.

Not all batteries are made equal which is the problem.

We have 25 people with Lumia 820's that are fine. I just got a bad battery.

Apple would have replaced that for you free of charge, or possibly replaced the whole phone. Within 1 year is still under Applecare.

Foam is a really good insulator; lithium-ion battery abhor heat. Foam holding in batteries is not a good idea.

The sensor technology, developed by AuthenTec and bought by Apple a year ago, reportedly stores your fingerprints locally, so giving your iPhone the finger will not make it all the way back to Cupertino.

iFixit is awesome and they're building a new office right next to mine. Go SLO, go Poly!

As soon as they finish building their new offices, they must do a teardown and score it for repairability.

We're actually fixing up an old, old building. So the project is really the biggest repair we've ever attempted. And we're doing everything we can to leave infrastructure exposed so it's easily repairable.

But the cabinets will be nailed to the wall.

Just don't glue down the flooring.

"Cabinets are nailed to the floor. Repairability 2/10."

They seem to have to just embedded a Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzuRDujwb_A) but cut off the bottom of the video so that you can't jump around in the video or tell that's it's from Youtube. I can't see the bottom of the image or some of the text. Not cool.

If you click on 'read more', right bottom of the video, you'll be able to see the controls.

I didn't see that. Thank you.

Anyone have any explanation for why the different color iPhones (gold vs silver) would have different batteries?

Redundancy of supply. It would be insane for Apple's supply chain to be halted because the supplier of one part failed to deliver for whatever reason. Nearly every major and minor component in an iPhone would be second-sourced, else they'd need to accumulate a month's supply of that part in a warehouse...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_source

It's the same reason MacBooks can ship with displays from either Samsung or LG, with SSDs from either Samsung or Toshiba. It's pretty much a lottery, and you won't know which till you run About This Mac.

I don't see the name of the manufacturer for the display or SSD in "About this Mac". Am I missing something?

hit the 'System Report' button.

Be careful of making eroneous conclusions. It's likely that the same model of iPhone contain different makes of batteries, but since iFixit only had one of each any such variance would appear as a variance between colors.

To kill the TouchID sensor, but keep the home-button functionality intact, and keep the design the same, does anyone know if one can just cut that TouchID cable?

In other words: Where is the physical home switch located, inside the TouchID assembly or below it, on the main board?

I'm very confused by their 6/10 score.

They gave tons of phones and other devices just as difficult to teardown far lower scores than that, some as low as 1:

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/HTC+One+Teardown/13494/1?sing...

Just compare that HTC One teardown with the iPhone 5S, while the HTC One is "worse" there isn't much in it. So if they were being consistent the iPhone 5S should have no more than a 2-3 on their scale.

Then we have the Nexus 4 which got the same score (6) as the 5S but doesn't have things like glue holding the battery in place and a taking it apart requires "minimum effort":

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+4+Teardown/11781/3

The iPhone 5 got a fixit score of 7 which is even more odd. I guess they knocked off one point for the glue, but again seems like Apple's scores are getting bumped by 2-4 points relative to other teardowns they have done.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+5+Teardown/10525/1?sin...

You complain about the other articles but did you even read them or did you just ctrl-f for 'glue' and base your conclusions on that?

"compare that HTC One teardown"

HTC One link:

absence of any exterior screws

remove large foam padding

With no clear path to entry, we decide to get a little more creative with our approach…for a good half hour.

Last time we checked, "gutting" is not a term that shows up very often in the service manual of a repair-friendly device.

We won't lie, getting to this point was an arduous and daunting task. The amount of work required to separate the rear aluminum case and the front case was immense.

copper shielding is a pain to deal with during reassembly

Etc.

"Nexus 4 which got the same score (6)"

TFA: Nexus 4 Repairability Score: 7 out of 10

"Then we have the Nexus 4 which got the same score (6) as the 5S but doesn't have things like glue holding the battery in place and a taking it apart requires "minimum effort":"

Did you read the Nexus tear down or just look at the score? From the tear down:

The battery is stuck to the frame with a lot of adhesive, so removing it without puncturing the battery can be difficult. The glass is fused to both the display and the display frame. So don't crack the glass unless you're good with a heat gun, or you're fond of replacing the glass, display, and frame together ($$$).

> Just compare that HTC One teardown with the iPhone 5S, while the HTC One is "worse" there isn't much in it.

Wait, the same HTC One where they commented that it may be impossible to disassemble without damaging parts?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com