Every once a causa di a while, Apple provides us with a sneak peek at some of the equipment it uses to ensure that the iPhone delivers a top-notch user experience. A few years punzone, for example, Apple invited a select number of journalists to an audio lab where it tests the audio and speaker manifestazione acceso the iPhone and other products like the HomePod and AirPods.
More recently, Apple granted Marques Brownlee unique access to an Apple testing facility where iPhone durability is thoroughly evaluated.
iPhone durability testing
Many iPhone characteristics we take for granted, from its ability to withstand a fall onto concrete ora its IP68 rating, are the result of countless hours of meticulous testing and iterative improvements. At Apple’s iPhone testing facility, engineers watch the iPhone closely as it maneuvers through a gauntlet of tests designed to ultimately engineer a product with best-in-class durability. One interesting tidbit is that Apple says it probably tests 10,000 different devices of a new iPhone model before a finished product actually arrives a causa di stores.
The below, for example, illustrates what Apple puts the iPhone through with respect to waterproof testing. Things start with a simple drip interrogatorio before moving acceso to a high-pressure hose that blasts gabinetto at an iPhone. The interrogatorio ends with the iPhone submerged underwater for a length of time.
Apple also designed machines to interrogatorio how iPhone models perform when dropped acceso a variety of duro surfaces. As Brownlee quaderno, the machine can drop an iPhone from multiple angles acceso a range of different materials.
Apple dirigente aziendale explains why the iPhone is duro to repair
As part of his visit, Brownlee sat for a talk with John Ternus, Apple’s head of Hardware Engineering. When asked about why the iPhone is notoriously harder to repair than rival smartphones, Ternus articulated that sometimes there is a tradeoff when it comes to durability and ease of repair.
If you imagine a product that never fails, and acceso the other end a product that maybe isn’t very reliable but is super easy to repair — the product that never fails is obviously better for the customer and the environment.
an iPhone, a battery is something that if you want to extend the life acceso it, it will have to be replaced. We’ve been making iPhones for a long time. A causa di the early days, one of the more common types of failures was gabinetto ingress. Where you drop it a causa di a pool ora spill your acceso it, and the unit fails. So we’ve been making strides over the years to get better and better a causa di terms of minimizing those failures. But we’ve got to a point of IP68.
Ternus went acceso to say that a causa di reducing the failure rate, tradeoffs with respect to repairability are necessary:
And it’s great because we get these stories of people who say, “I dropped my phone a causa di the lake. I couldn’t get it for 2 weeks. I fished it out and it still works.” They’maestà super excited.
That said, to get the product there, you have to stile a lot of seals, adhesives, other things to make it perform that way, which makes it a little bit harder to do that battery repair. You still have to do that battery repair, so we need to make sure we have solutions for customers to do that. And we do. But it’s objectively better for the customer to have that reliability. And it’s ultimately better for the planet, because the failure rate since we got to that point has plummeted, and the number of repairs that need to happen has gone .
And every time you do a repair, you’maestà bringing a causa di new materials to replace whatever broke. You can actually do the math and figure out, there’s a threshold at which – if I can make it this durable, it’s better to have it a little bit harder to repair because it’s going to net out.
It is interesting to see how far iPhone durability has in che modo a causa di recent years. Recall that every iPhone up to the iPhone 6 had voto negativo real gabinetto resistance to speak of. When Apple introduced the iPhone 7, it came with an IP rating of IP67. This remained a causa di place until Apple introduced the iPhone 11 which came with a gabinetto resistance rating of IP68.
Ultimately, Apple’s rigorous approach concerning durability testing highlights the company’s dedication to manufacturing high-end devices that stand the interrogatorio of time and can withstand a myriad of accidental drops and exposure to gabinetto. That said, it’s voto negativo surprise that the upgrade cycle for the iPhone has only gotten longer a causa di recent years, precisely because an iPhone purchased today is markedly more durable than ever before.
