Apple iPhone Dissected

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.'"

Comments

Wow

[niceone]

Obviously you can't change the battery yourself, but from those pictures it looks like even Apple couldn't change it. That can't be so, can it?

Re:Wow

[Wdomburg]

Hell, I can't even buy a $2500 COMPUTER that can keep pace with technology that long.

Some people use their electronics to do things, not "keep pace with technology". My last $600 computer lasted me seven years.

Re:Wow

[antime]

Will the data on my iPhone be preserved?

No, the repair process will clear all data from your iPhone.

How much do you want to bet they're not repairing jack shit, just giving you a new phone?

Re:Wow

[fermion]

You would be amazed at how long an Mac can last. Macs tend to be designed for power and durability, not to meet some arbitrary low price point. This means that Apple can pay suppliers for first pick parts, and not just settle for the parts that fell off the truck.

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.

The software

[yohanes]

I am more interested in someone hacking the software (is it really OSX?, can you flash it, etc). But this may provide a good start, because they give quite detailed photos of most of the hardware.

Re:What's that?

[Svippy]

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.

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 battery used. Not until the iPhone becomes popular enough or Apple makes more phones that uses the same battery (and of course make it easy to exchange battery) will any other store consider selling them, and Apple knows that.