Teardown reveals iPhone 15 to be series of questionable design decisions

The launch of the iPhone 15 may have been underwhelming – there's only so much one can do with the standard smartphone formula – but now iFixit has stuck its screwdrivers in a Pro Max, are there any big surprises inside? Well, no. Not really. Just like the iPhone 14, the teardown terrors noted that the 15 can be opened from …

[elsergiovolador]

Fine

Why repair it? Just grind the phone into a very fine powder and scatter in some remote area where people rarely step foot.

In 100 million years, the next generation of whatever wins the evolution lottery, will be pleased with the deposits of rare earth metals and other goodies.

[BebopWeBop]

Re: Fine

It looks as though there are going to be increasing areas of the globe where people rarely step foot in the near future. Wins all round.

[Youngone]

Re: Fine

You could cut out the grinding into a fine powder bit and just chuck it into a volcano.

Do it when you're sacrificing a virgin to save time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fine

A virgin you say?

* hears entire reg readership shifting nervously in their basement swivel chairs *

[Paul Crawford]

Re: Fine

A virgin you say?

In which orifice?

[XSV1]

Re: Fine

Where do we find a virgin?

[ArrZarr]

Re: Fine

We exist.

Depending on the day we probably wouldn't even mind being thrown into a volcano. At least it would be quick.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Fine

Well, start with a list of Apple fans.

[Ignazio]

Re: Fine

Fine grinding? Remote location? Waste of energy.

Chuck them in a spare steel container and leave it wherever. In a hundred million years it'll be a nice lump of easily mined minerals, with lower chances of poisoning the local ponds.

But if you wanted to finely grind DRM proponents, I shall start carving out the millstones.

[teknopaul]

Anti trust?

Surely there is anti-trust law to prevent...

"Apple simply bought out the entirety of TSMC's capacity for the year."

[doublelayer]

Re: Anti trust?

No, there isn't, because this isn't what antitrust does. Apple doesn't manufacture chips, and TSMC doesn't make phones, so they wouldn't be counted as in the same industry. All Apple is doing here is buying all the capacity that currently exists, but TSMC is free to create more and will certainly do so since they want to keep having the most advanced manufacturing capacity they can. Other phones won't be able to make their chips on that process right now, but nothing stops them making them on the next best one that TSMC also has or waiting until Apple's contract expires, because Apple's contract simply means they've bought a lot of capacity, not that they've forbidden TSMC from helping a competitor.

[mattaw2001]

Re: Anti trust?

Note, for the USA, legal monopolies are fine under the law as long as the monopoly comes about through providing an excellent product or service. It only becomes illegal when the monopoly is used to force competition out and interfere with other businesses or business relationships.

So I believe Apple would have to have used its purchasing power to bully TSMC (unlikely, NVidia tried and failed!) to to not sell to other companies, which is not happening here AFAIK. They also do this to various ICs like sensors or high capacity flash chips.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Anti trust?

Yes, it's not a problem if Apple want and need all that capacity to produce their product. But if it can be shown they bought all the capacity up simple to deny it to others, that could be a different matter.

[DS999]

Re: Anti trust?

TSMC chose to limit to their capacity to what Apple needed, because no one else wanted the problematic N3B process used for A17. The reasons why it is problematic are too long to detail here, but everyone else (including Apple) is eagerly awaiting mass production of N3E which fixes the issues with N3B. It won't be available until next year.

So this wasn't a case of evil Apple buying out capacity so no one else could get it. If TSMC had brought the capacity online they had originally announced for N3, there would have been far more than what Apple needed. Its just that when the problems became clear everyone else decided they were willing to wait another year.

[Wzrd1]

Re: Anti trust?

...but everyone else (including Apple) is eagerly awaiting mass production of N3E which fixes the issues with N3B. It won't be available until next year.

So, in other words, get one now, then replace your iThing when it breaks next year with the one with less problematic chip.

Or wait until next year and save a bit of change.

[43300]

" iFixit questioned the wisdom of this decision "not just because it's expensive but because it's notoriously hard to work with," and asked why the midframe was still made from aluminum, which then has to be thermo-mechanically bonded to the titanium."

Surely the use ot titanium is purely a marketing gimmick? It the context of a phone, which has a more-breakable glass screen on one side anyway, it offers no advantage over aluminium but adds several problems.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Ti is element 22 which is nearly twice as good as Aluminium (no Google, do not underline that)

Pity that 15 is Phosphorus, or we could have an entire periodic table based iPhone range

[MrDamage]

> Pity that 15 is Phosphorus, or we could have an entire periodic table based iPhone range

Samsung got there first with the Note 7

[doublelayer]

The iPhone 84 was launched today by the Russian military manufacturing division, but it is only available to certain people with a historical link to Russia who will be receiving their free models shortly. The iPhone 82 is available for the average consumer, and it will run rather well although it's strongly recommended that you carry the device in a sturdy bag as its characteristics are similar to the earlier, unpopular iPhone 76. Experts are still recommending against the use of the iPhone 80, released early last year, but iPhones 78 and 79 have been very popular among those who own them and holding their value strongly, especially after the recent warnings about what iPhone 85 will look like and general customer distress at the ideas of iPhone 86 and 87 due to release shortly. We asked a chemist about the risks of iPhone 88, and while she admitted that it had ended badly before, she was planning to be on a different planet by the time of its release because, in her words, "you should know about Apple's manufacturing practices by now". She went on to say that, if only someone could make an Android device that would stay supported longer than it took the iPhone 43 to stop being deadly, maybe we would have stopped them before we had the calamity that resulted from the unexpected release of a large shipment of iPhone 55 prototypes whose cases had not yet oxidized.

[Wzrd1]

<Pity that 15 is Phosphorus, or we could have an entire periodic table based iPhone range

Yeah, but who'd want iPhone 92?

[Michael Wojcik]

Have you met iPhone fans?

[43300]

They get excited about how light the new shiny is. iPhone 92 would be rather heavy!

iPhone 94 for those who need to find them in the dark, perhaps?

[Peter Ford]

That explains the missing iPhone 9 and 10, at least: 9 would be scary and 10 would float away.

[Kristian Walsh]

It cuts Apple’s costs, so they do it.

Because of the company’s insistence on not pre-filling the retail channel before a launch, and its almost exclusive use of manufacturing in China, Apple ends up needing to air-freight a lot of iPhones in the days around a new model launch. Air freight is the most expensive way to deliver goods, and air-freighting millions of anything gets really expensive, really quickly.

A fully-loaded 747 cargo holds about 500 cubic metres of cargo, which is about 500,000 boxed iPhones (not exact numbers, but that's the magnitude involved). Most of the volume being carried is air, with the phone being the biggest contributor to the overall mass, so every gramme you shave off those phones’ weight equates to half a tonne of payload weight that doesn’t have to be paid for. (once you get to surface transport, volume is the what costs you money, not weight).

Around the time of the iPhone 5 launch, someone who was involved with this operation gave me the real numbers for the air-freight savings figures from moving to the relatively heavy 4S to the cheaper-feeling, but 28 grammes lighter design of the 5... I can’t remember the exact figure, but it was in the high millions of dollars, and that was just for the 90 days after launch.

Regarding Titanium itself, yes, it’s light, but it’s a horribly expensive metal to work with, and it scratches really easily. The normal approach to the scratching problem is to plate the metal surface, but the best-performing kinds of protective plating for titanium include nickel: a metal which can cause skin rashes in a significant portion of the population - not ideal for something that people hold all day... as Apple itself discovered in 2001 when customers complained that their brand-new titanium PowerBooks were making their palms red and itchy.

[Lurko]

Re: It cuts Apple’s costs, so they do it.

I think you'll find that the overwhelming majority of high value density products are moved by air freight. IIRC from industry and government analysis, in the UK about 50% of imports (by value) come by air, and I'd imagine the same is broadly true for most developed markets. There's also a small but material consideration that the steady cheapening of set level of technology means there's a small but appreciable value loss if it's stuck in a four week factory-ship-shop logisitics chain.

People only use surface freight for things too big, too heavy, or too low value to be worth air freighting.

[Kristian Walsh]

Re: It cuts Apple’s costs, so they do it.

The “by value” statistic is skewed by pharmaceutical imports, which have enormous value-to-volume metrics, but yes the point is taken that in general, light and expensive things tend to go by air. The difference is that Apple is in the rare situation of having a product with high value per kilogram that it also sells in huge volumes (230 million last year). For this reason, Apple also uses surface freight for iPhones - sending every phone by air would cost a fortune, especially when manufacturing capacity exceeds demand after the first couple of months on the market.

The product stays on sale for 12-24 months after launch, with reasonably high demand after the first 3 month peak, and is sold into a price-fixed market, so the depreciation argument does not apply either. This allows Apple to send shipments, by ship, leaving China at the same time as the initial air transports, to arrive later to fill in demand. When you’re moving 200+ million units of a product whose pricing is not time-sensitive, the low cost and high capacity of shipping containers is hard to overlook.

That volume means that if Apple had large manufacturing bases in the USA or Europe, rather than China, it wouldn’t need to rely so much on air-freight. China’s advantage for Apple has been that its very low wages and short supply-chain (especially for displays) more than overcome the higher transport costs of finished goods out of the country.

Never forget that Tim Cook’s path to CEO of Apple was via Logistics.

[dinsdale54]

Re: It cuts Apple’s costs, so they do it.

Agreed.

A pilot at DHL told me that the cargo needed to cover the cost of the flight was half a palette.

Planes are expensive compared to most ground transport but for high value items it's still noise on the bottom line.

[collinsl]

Re: It cuts Apple’s costs, so they do it.

Was that just in fuel or did it include the pilot's time, insurance, ground handling etc inside the airport, plus airport charges, ATC charges etc?

If so they were really raking it in.

[DS999]

They did it because it is lighter not because it would supposedly avoid scratches. Every metal scratches if exposed to a harder material, and ordinary sand is harder than the hardest stainless steels so you can't escape that issue since sand is everywhere. Since it is lighter around on the outside of the phone where the band is, it reduces the moment of inertia and "feels lighter" when handling it by more by than the amount of weight reduction.

Reportedly Apple is working on 3D printing of titanium, which would be something almost no one is doing - definitely no one on the scale Apple would require. That would allow them to make the frame and band as a single unit from titanium and save further weight. Then the greater strength of titanium will come into play since the frame is what gives the phone its strength (i.e. prevent another bendgate) so not only will the metal be lighter they won't need to use as much of it for the same strength.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

3D printing of titanium, which would be something almost no one is doing -

Titanium is one of the most common metals for 3d printing. Got one of the machines here.

[Dan 55]

No no, Apple will definitely be the first at whatever it is, whenever they release it.

[Lord Elpuss]

"Surely the use ot titanium is purely a marketing gimmick? ... it offers no advantage over aluminium but adds several problems."

Did you read the linked article? It mentions a number of reasons for using it.

[Michael Wojcik]

True, because three is a number. The advantages that iFixit cite are:

1. It's lighter. Maybe this translates to an overall savings on air freight as someone claimed in an earlier thread, but since it adds to manufacturing cost and that savings could easily be absorbed in the price of this Veblen good I find that a bit dubious. And I don't believe that it makes much difference to anyone's purchasing decision either, because I strongly suspect smartphone buyers are primarily motivated by OS loyalty and other subjective factors.

2. It's harder. Very useful for people who accidentally put their phone in a drill press. Upside down.

3. It has a lower moment of inertia. The iFixit page gets this from someone named Drang and calls it an "interesting theory". I call it true but irrelevant. Again, I don't see any way a small change in moment of inertia, of all things, is going to have any significant effect on sales. "Well, I was going to buy a Samsung, but twisting this iPhone around is much easier on my wrist!"

In short: bullshit. The titanium case is a marketing gimmick.

[Lord Elpuss]

Yes it's a marketing gimmick - in the same way that thinner bezels are a marketing gimmick. My issue is with the terms in bold;

"...purely a marketing gimmick? ... it offers no advantage over aluminium but adds several problems.""

It's not purely a marketing gimmick, and it does bring some, admittedly small, advantages over aluminium. It's harder so scratches less easily, it's lighter which is always a good thing on a big phone, and the moment of inertia thing has merit as a consideration. I have an iPhone 14 Pro Max and it's a big beast; anything that makes it less unwieldy is welcome. Will it change the planet? No. Is it the single most important reason to buy this phone? No. It's an incremental improvement, like practically every other headline feature of the iPhone 15.

[Plest]

Apple PR:

"It's simple, 'titanium' just sounds cool! Now fork over the cash if you don't want people to think a bloody little poor person who can't afford one!"

[NXM]

question ...

... will it blend?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI

[DS999]

Re: question ...

I'd be more interested in what they've run into that WON'T blend!

[wolfetone]

Re: question ...

Chuck Norris.

Video

[ecofeco]

Other side of the same coin

Both Apple and M$ have become moribund and recto-cranially inverted.

A pox on both their houses.

[Lurko]

Re: Other side of the same coin

I'd hardly call Apple moribund - a titanium bezzle will be just the thing to dazzle the faithful. As usual they'll be throwing their money at Apple, complete oblivious to the expense, or the horrible Fisher-Price interface, or battery life that hasn't improved materially in years. The material is only there so marketing can puff it up as "innovation" to those who can't think. Sadly most other phone makers will follow this lead, and come up with gimmicks instead of the one week battery life most of us want.

Now, on your second charge of being r-c inverted I have to agree with you. Apple's corporate head is so far up its own bottom that it probably catches its tonsils on the leading edge of its front teeth. Saint Steve would be disgusted at the mobile phone revamper that Apple Corporation now is.

[Scott 53]

Re: Other side of the same coin

I assume a titanium bezzle is just an extremely reliable stage dancer.

[Zack Mollusc]

Re: Other side of the same coin

Saint Steve would be overjoyed at Apple's continued focus on the three core values of Money, Profit and Cash.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: Other side of the same coin

You need to be careful to distinguish recto-cranial inversion from its close relative, olecrano-rectal agnosia.

Hickham's dictum (the opposite of Ockham's razor) also applies here: they can have as many diseases as they damn well please.

[Snowy]

Apple

Is doing what Apple does the tech can be great but it is the Apple way or the high way.

[Anonymous Coward]

They want how much for one?

These are just phones people.

Get some perspective.

Don’t be daft.

[43300]

Re: They want how much for one?

I suspect that the type of Apple fanboi who queues up to get the new shiny as soon as it's released is probbaly in a small monority among readers of a site like this!

[Norman Nescio]

Re: They want how much for one?

Is a monority a minority of one?

[Huw L-D]

Re: They want how much for one?

I think it's a typo for moronity.

[willyslick]

Re: They want how much for one?

They are just phones - agreed.

But lets give Apple credit for doing something no-one else has achieved: creating a mass-market luxury product. Until Apple such terms were a contradiction....

[gerryg]

Re: They want how much for one?

Bought mainly by oxymorons?

[doublelayer]

Re: They want how much for one?

I don't know about that. How many people bought diamonds, for themselves or someone else? Those were and are expensive, even though there's no real reason for that, and really quite popular. It might not count as a single mass-market product, but if it doesn't, it just consists of a few subproducts all of which have diamonds as a central component.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: They want how much for one?

Or luxury cars. Or fancy watches and handbags. Or McMansions. Hell, where I grew up, yachts would qualify (about 1 per 20 residents).

Depending on how "mass-market" is defined, there have been plenty of mass-market Veblen goods.

[Plest]

Re: They want how much for one?

"SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!"

[Lord Elpuss]

"Teardown reveals iPhone 15 to be series of questionable design decisions"

Utter shite. The iFixit article mentions what they call a number of GOOD design decisions that they are happy with. In fact, the article literally states it’s a GREAT design.

Oh and Tetraprism doesn’t mean 4 lenses. It means 4 prisms. Prism != Lens.