iPhone 14 detailed teardown, the secrets Apple doesn’t tell you

According to Apple, the best features of the iPhone 14 are a stronger processor, satellite SOS and a larger camera. But in fact, after dismantling it, we found that Apple has completely redesigned the internal structure of the iPhone 14 to make it easier to repair. It's not visible at all from the outside, but it's important because it's the most significant design change to an iPhone in a long time. However, the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max models still use the old architecture.

If this surprises you, you're not alone. Take us by surprise! The iPhone 14's new features and external changes are so slight that The Verge suggested it should be called the iPhone 13S. They say the iPhone 13, launched a year ago, is still on sale and is nearly identical to the iPhone 14.

But that's actually not the whole truth. Because Apple didn't mention the secret redesign during their keynote. If reviewers took the phone apart, here's what they'd find: The iPhone 14 opens from the front and back.

This is the iPhone 14 reborn as a beautiful butterfly—with a mid-frame in the middle, an accessible screen on the left, and a removable back glass on the right.

This is no small matter. The new metal midframe that supports this structure requires redesigning the entire interior, as well as rethinking the radio frequency and effectively doubling its protective perimeter. In other words, Apple has gone back to the drawing board and redesigned the iPhone's internals to make repairs easier. It's an upgrade so seamless that even the best technology critics in the world didn't notice.

We've written thousands of smartphone repair guides, so before we get into the details of 14, let's take a bird's-eye view of the evolution of smartphones. The iPhone has gone through several major architectural shifts over the years.

The original phone opens the screen first, which makes changing the iPhone 3G screen a piece of cake. But other parts, like the charging port and battery, are much more difficult.

To solve this problem, Apple made the phone turn on first on the iPhone 4. This allows for all kinds of cool aftermarket options, like our transparent back panel (which I still think is terrible), but unfortunately makes screen replacement a real pain. Apple returned to a (more streamlined) front entry with the iPhone 5 and has stuck with it ever since. Opening up your phone's screen first makes screen repairs much easier, and generally works well, except for one major drawback - which we'll address in a minute.

This design stands in stark contrast to the rest of the mobile phone industry. Every Android phone opens from the back. Ever since the Galaxy S6, iPhone competitors have been glued to the back panel. Any repair tech will tell you that screen replacement on a Galaxy is much more difficult than screen replacement on an iPhone. You have to unhook the back panel and then systematically go through the entire process of removing components from your phone. Once the whole thing is basically unmanufactured, you're left with the screen assembly. Then you have to put your whole phone together! Considering screens are the most commonly repaired component, this is quite a project.

From our perspective, the iPhone's design optimizes fast Apple Store service on two key components: screen and battery. Of course, the disadvantage of this front-optimized design is that it is difficult to replace the rear panel. This wasn't really an issue before the iPhone 8, when they switched to radio-clear glass to support wireless charging and NFC payments. Then, with the iPhone X, they welded a bulky camera lens cover to the glass.

If replacing the screen on a Galaxy phone is difficult, then replacing the back glass on an iPhone X (or 11, 12, or 13) is even worse. The easy part is removing every component from the phone. Seriously, you don't want any parts left inside as this process is very rough on the hardware. The adhesive holding the back glass in place is so strong that our usual prying, heat, or chemical methods can't remove it. The repair shop uses a variety of aggressive breaking and scraping techniques to remove the glass while carefully working around the welded camera bezel. The "easiest" method is to use a laser to systematically raster evaporate the adhesive, then use razor blades and cutting tools to smash and scrape away the glass shards. At the very least, you'll need heavy-duty gloves if you don't want to cut your hands open. As a result, this isn't really a feasible process for DIYers.

Back to iPhone 14. The back glass is simply secured with two screws and a connector. Apple appears to be using a slightly less aggressive adhesive, which makes it easier to open than previous screens. As a bonus, removing the exact same screws as the rear glass gives you access to the screen. With just two screws, both the screen and back glass are ready to use, which is great.

It's a dramatic rethinking of the phone, with the new approach affecting most aspects of the design. Adding a completely new opening surface presents its own set of engineering challenges. There's twice the girth to seal against water, many RF "complications", and all the parts changes.

Whenever you glue or weld something together, it's easier to achieve thinness and durability goals. We've long said that if designers put a little more effort into avoiding glue, they can get all the design features and functionality they're looking for, plus repairability. This time, Apple put in the effort.

There is a new mid-frame behind the screen, on which all internal components are mounted. The large number of antennas required to make modern 5G + GPS + Wifi + Bluetooth + satellite signals work in one device requires a lot of grounding. Ten new electromagnetic interference fingers are attached to the contact points that separate the rear panel to maintain the grounding previously achieved by soldering.

Achieving the high levels of durability we all expect is an incredible engineering challenge. When you drop your iPhone 13, its metal frame absorbs the shock, transferring and dispersing the force to the glued battery and securely bonded back glass. The iPhone 14 meets the same challenge but achieves the required torsional stiffness in a completely different way. A new mid-frame sits between the display and the inside of the phone.

Another design challenge is the number of components integrated into the display assembly. Historically, this has included Face ID sensors, speakers, and ambient light sensors. We noticed with the 13 Pro that Apple has moved the earpiece and front-facing camera from the display to the main unit. At the time, we appreciated the move toward incremental modularity, but we didn’t fully understand the rationale. It now appears to have laid the foundation for a vastly improved design.

Flagship features touted by the iPhone 14 include satellite-powered SOS, upgraded cameras and a missing SIM card slot. As shown in the picture below, we see some of the chips in the motherboard.

Apple's pursuit of density is unparalleled. The iPhone 14 Pro Max logic board uses the A16 processor, which has 10-15% performance improvement over the 14's A15.

The US version of the Pro Max logic board has a communications chip and a larger SIM card reader gap on the inside.

We can confirm that satellite connectivity for Apple's new phones is powered by the new Qualcomm X65 modem, which adds new 2.4 GHz n53 band capabilities to support Globalstar. ICJay Monroe, Globalstar's executive chairman, touted this in a press release earlier this year: "We have appreciated our close relationship with Qualcomm since the company's inception and appreciate the work the team there has done to help us deliver on our Band 53 commitments. of hard work.”

The following is the identification of chips on different layers of the motherboard:

The chips corresponding to different colors are as follows:

The chips corresponding to different colors are as follows:

The red color in the picture above is WiFi/Bluetooth Module

The chips corresponding to different colors are as follows:

The chips corresponding to different colors are as follows:

The chips corresponding to different colors are as follows:

The chips corresponding to different colors are as follows:

The chips corresponding to different colors are as follows:

The chips corresponding to different colors are as follows:

The chips corresponding to different colors are as follows:

The red picture above is the Bosch Sensortec 6-axis accelerometer/gyroscope

in:

Red is Satellite antenna

Orange is Patch antenna

Finally, we're hearing reports that Apple is continuing their path of pairing parts with phones where, on new phones, we'll need to activate the rear glass after installation.

The use of software to prevent the use of aftermarket parts is something we strongly discourage. These "shackles" are frustrating and ultimately futile - no matter how hard they try, Apple can't control all the repairs that happen to its products. We'll report more on parts compatibility once lab testing is completed, unless Apple miraculously releases their service manual.

This is the most significant iPhone redesign since iPhone X. It's hard to underestimate what a big change this is. For reference, Samsung hasn't changed their phone architecture since 2015.

So with the biggest update in years, we're bumping up the iPhone 14's repairability score to 7 out of 10. This is the highest score we've given an iPhone since the iPhone 7. This is the most repairable iPhone in years.

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