“Apple’s gone and skipped its iPhone ‘S’ update, so we followed suit and skipped ahead a couple timezones,” iFixit writes. “We’re here at Circuitwise headquarters in Sydney, Australia, bringing you the iPhone 8 teardown as early as you can get it. Time to find out if Apple’s playing a game of mere numerical catch-up to Samsung’s Galaxy S8 line, or if glass backing and wireless charging warrants skipping ahead a grade. Let’s crack the front and back open it up to see!”
“Drumroll please — it’s chip time!” iFixit writes. “Special thanks to the folks at TechInsights for helping scope out this silicon.”
• Apple 339S00434 A11 Bionic SoC layered over SK Hynix H9HKNNNBRMMUUR 2 GB LPDDR4 RAM
• Qualcomm MDM9655 Snapdragon X16 LTE modem
• Skyworks SkyOne SKY78140
• Avago 8072JD130
• P215 730N71T – likely an envelope tracking IC
• Skyworks 77366-17 quad-band GSM power amplifier module
• NXP 80V18 secure NFC module
• Apple/USI 170804 339S00397 WiFi/Bluetooth/FM radio module
• Apple 338S00248, 338S00309 PMIC, and S3830028
• Toshiba TSBL227VC3759 64 GB NAND flash storage
• Qualcomm WTR5975 Gigabit LTE RF transceiver and PMD9655 PMIC
• Broadcom 59355—Likely an iteration of BCM59350 wireless charging IC
• NXP 1612A1—Likely an iteration of the 1610 tristar IC
• Skyworks 3760 3576 1732 RF Switch and SKY762-21 247296 1734 RF Switch
Much more, including all of the gory dissection photos, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Remember, it’s not how much RAM you have, it’s how you use it. It’s not the size of the boat, it’s the motion of the ocean.
iPhones can do more with less RAM than the iPhone wannabes, also-rans, knockoffs, and roadkill because Apple controls the whole widget; custom hardware + custom software. Only iPhone.
Ya ya ya, size of boat, motion of ocean.
Thats great and all.
But it never hurts to have a bigger boat.
MDN makes me laugh when they speak about the MacBook Pro they recommend always getting the most because it’s not upgradable. How does it differ in the iPhone which you cannot upgrade?
While iOS is a subset (?) of OS X, they seem to manage memory differently.
On my MacBook, every program/app I leave open consumes a certain chunk of memory.
Most iPhone gurus swear until their faces turn blue that the iPhone is better at managing memory and apps left open in the b/g don’t consume extra memory.
*shrugs*
There is the fact that iOS runs specifically on RISC chips. The memory overhead is quite a lot less versus Intel CISC chips. It would be fun to see a comparison.
Also, iOS is a considerably smaller OS with fewer background processes running. As such, the initial RAM demand is less.
Both iOS and macOS also use data compression, which lowers the amount of RAM required at any moment in time.
It’s a fact that Apple has been working on its memory management, for both iOS and macOS, for many years. I remember the bad old days when hitting the RAM ceiling was doom. That is now rarely the case.
Ah. Good point about RISC vs CISC. I totally forgot about that!
Good times, back in the day when the arguments would get all heated up about which was better for Macs 😀
I love oceans.
Qualqomm is mention more than once on that list
Like using Samsung foundries for making some of the components (chips, displays…), when you’re in the business of making the best, you have to use what gives the best balance of quantity and quality, despite any corporate disagreements.
Okay… Just twice? Woo-wee!
I wonder if Apple will use this old design one more time for an iPhone 9/9 plus next year.
There will be no nein… Get it?