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iPhone 5 Teardown Shows Boost To Repairability
iFixit has posted a detailed teardown of the new iPhone 5. While the casing still uses Apple's proprietary pentalobe fasteners, the good news is that Apple has made the screen much easier to remove. Once the fasteners have been removed, the screen will lift out easily through the use of a suction cup. The screens are by far the most common parts of iPhones to break, and this change turns a complicated 38-step procedure that takes about 45 minutes at minimum into a quick, 5-10 minute job. The teardown also shows the iPhone 5 battery to be very similar to the iPhone 4S's, suggesting that the improvements to battery life come from other hardware and software changes. We get a look at the new A6 processor running the phone, which is a custom design based on ARMv7. iFixit also looks at the Lightning connector assembly; unfortunately, it includes the loudspeaker, bottom microphone, Wi-Fi antenna, and headphone jack as well, so fixing any one of those parts individually will be difficult. Whatever you think of Apple's decision to move to Lightning instead of micro-USB, it seems their switch away from the 30-pin connecter was necessitated by size constraints.
Not considering the above mention of score, data comm speed are the same and multimedia roughly the same.
The inclusion of LTE alone marks that statement wrong.
Oh and playing music and sound quality? Hasn't changed much since the 3S
Which is why some people buy better headphones.
It's a phone, not a movie theater. The built in speakers are always worse than better headphone options.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The real point behind the directive is that over time people just have USB chargers they can use with anything, right?
Well the iPhone ships with a USB charger. Sure the port at the other end is different but in the end you can have one charger for many devices, with just a few cables.
An important point to consider is that if you just stick yourself with pure USB end to end, you cannot get as much power through the system to charge quickly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So are you saying that nothing should ever change about the iPhone connector? Once god-awful 30-pin, always god-awful 30-pin? So that nobody ever has to buy new peripherals?
Or are you saying that it's okay if they change it (and force everybody to buy new peripherals) but only if they change it to something "compatible"? Note that micro USB isn't doesn't support the functionality the iPhone needs. See http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-lightning-vs-micro-usb-2012-9
No, you only need to remove it with a suction cup if you want the thing to stay in one piece. Not a problem if it's already broken.
Note that micro USB isn't doesn't support the functionality the iPhone needs. See http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-lightning-vs-micro-usb-2012-9
Neither does the Lightning connector. No ipod controls. No analog audio out. No 12-volt charging.
So why is it that we need this new connector again? One that does less than the previous one but will require all new cables and accessories?
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I believe it can also be inserted either way. Micro USB is a horrible design. (And USB as a whole). Someone completely failed Poka Yoke design when designing it. Micro-USB is just slightly different when flipped upside down. Sometimes with MicroUSB I can't tell if the connection is just snug or if it's being inserted backwards. I often have to double check visually. Something my parents wouldn't be able to do because of their eye sight.
You're thinking about it the wrong way. The new screw in each case is a challenge, a hurdle, an intelligence test. If you haven't got what it takes to figure out how to open the device then perhaps you shouldn't.
No, it doesn't.
You're right, because it ALSO results in a connector you can insert without having to look to see if it's in the right way, vastly superior for real people.
You honestly believe that inventing an entirely new connector takes less work that taking an existing standard form factor and adding pins to suit your needs?
Obviously not since my point is that people who believe Apple invented the new connector just to screw people, do not realize the amount of work that goes into building a whole new connector vs. simply overlaying functionality on top of an existing connector.
Apple would not go to extra work just to screw people over, as much as Apple haters would love us all to believe the opposite. Apple is doing what they have always done, taking people off an obsolete system (old iPhone cable, Micro-USB) before people have quite realized the old system is obsolete - as was the case for floppy drives or internal CD-ROM drives.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mini-USB is a set of standards.
Being a set with more than one element means there's always room for one more.
I actually meant micro-usb 5 pin. That as far as I can tell all android phones use.
What about people that do not have any Android phones? It's just as weird for them to have to get the five-pin as it is for an Apple user to have to get an Apple cable. I didn't have ANY micro-usb five pin cables until my camera came with one; it went missing and I had to get another even though I had a slew of OTHER micro-usb cables from connecting hard drives and the like to my computer. I have a box downstairs with a huge number of orphan computer cables and for me the five-pin was the least common USB cable I had.
Nothing about the Apple cable is any more annoying than the horrible USB situation for normal non-technical consumers. At least with the Apple cable you can tell which one is for the phone at a glance.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley