Apple's iPhone Dissected: We did it, so you don't have to
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 29, 2007 10:17 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
We have only had the phone for a few hours but we needed to get inside its casing, what follows is our dissection of the Apple iPhone. 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. Do whatever you wish to your iPhone, but do so at your own risk :)
This is the iPhone that most of Apple's customers will be seeing:
Special thanks to Olivia Marsh and Manveer Wasson for help with the disassembly and photographs for this article
And this is one of ours, on the operating table:
Chances for survival? Slim
The first step to disassemble the device is to remove the lower black plastic piece; heating it up and squeezing a razorblade in there made it not only possible, but easy:
Then came the process of removing the brushed aluminum cover, which wasn't nearly as easy. After a lot of bending, pulling and other unfathomable things one would do to a brand new iPhone we were left with this:
Ignore the slightly bent iPhone casing, we swear it came this way
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Che - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Slice it up!! Great article guys, would love to see a video of the effort used to get in that phone.Oakenfold - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Thanks for the fast scoop!Not sure I need one of those phones yet but I really enjoyed seeing how they are constructed. Perhaps the forthcoming review will tell me the marketing hype is real and that I need one of these devices...
tuteja1986 - Friday, June 29, 2007 - link
Mm... thats an expensive iphone to dissect. $500 + $30 + (60x24) = 1970. so if you killed the iphone through your dissection operation do you still have to pay for the 2 year contract your are signed on or can you get a replacement iphone some how ?LukFilm - Friday, June 29, 2007 - link
They don't pay $60 for 24 months, they can just cancel the service for $175 fee.Devo2007 - Friday, June 29, 2007 - link
Actually, considering the iPhone is activated after purchase (at home), they may not have even signed a contract to begin with. (In other words, the pic at the beginning showing it's activated might be a different iPhone).DerekWilson - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
the activated phone was in fact a different one. we never had service for the disassembled one.TA152H - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Have you considered telling Apple that the battery inside exploded? It might work, right after you convince them it was a nuclear battery.All kidding aside, how the heck is someone supposed to change the battery in this thing? I'm not a big fan of cell phones (my fiance wants one, that's the only reason I'm even asking) so I don't know much about them, but the batteries still go bad on them, right? Seems like a lot of money to keep spending if the battery doesn't last so long.
Also, when I see something like this, the first thing that crosses my mind is scratching the screen. It looks like replacing that would be out of the question too. Is the screen made out of glass? If not, is it very scratchable or very resistant to it?
Griswold - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Yes batteries do go bad. And no, you're not supposed to change it by yourself. Of course you can try and void your warranty... but apple really wants you to send it in and have it changed by them, probably for a small fee somewhere around the $200 mark. Sony is/was the same with their PDAs...michael2k - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
Why do you think would they charge that much? It only costs $59 for an iPod battery replacement from Apple, $79 for the iPhone:http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html">http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html
There is a $6.95 shipping/handling fee, so that's really $66 and $86, respectively.
PrinceGaz - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link
I love the ironic/sarcastic (depending on intent) way you used "only" :)