“On Friday, we tore down Apple’s two newest iPhones and found something new lurking (quite literally) just below the surface,” Jeff Suovanen reports for iFixIt. “When we opened up the 6s, we discovered some mystery adhesive around a display that’s already secured with screws. Weird. It’s not as if past iPhone displays were in danger of falling out of the phone.”
“So if the iPhone display didn’t need adhesive, what was Apple up to?” Suovanen reports. “We had our suspicions, based in part on Apple patent filings in one particular area: waterproofing. Apple has been investigating a waterproof (or, more accurately, liquid proof) iPhone for at least the last several years. If that strip of sticky goop on the 6s wasn’t put there to hold the display in, then maybe—just maybe—it was designed to keep liquids out. Like a gasket!”
“After disassembling a couple of new iPhones in the name of science, here’s what we found,” Suovanen reports. “First, Apple takes this gasket business pretty seriously: they didn’t just run a strip of glue around the existing display like they were caulking a bathtub. Instead, it appears the iPhone’s frame has been subtly reworked to accommodate the new gasket. We noted a slight, but measurable, increase in the width of the lip running along the perimeter of the frame—it’s about 0.3 mm wider than on the iPhone 6, making it just wide enough for that little gasket to land on. One-third of a millimeter may not seem like much, but given how tight the iPhone’s tolerances are nowadays, the change is big enough to see with the naked eye. And it’s almost certainly enough of a change that other components had to be subtly tweaked to match. Make no mistake, Apple gave this careful thought.”
Read more and check out all of the teardown photos in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Water-resistant, like Apple Watch, not “waterproof.”
SEE ALSO:
Apple is hardening the iPhone as they roll out annual iPhone Upgrade Program – September 30, 2015
iPhone 6s Plus teardown estimated to cost $236 in parts and assembly – September 30, 2015
Apple’s iPhone 6s/Plus may be secretly waterproof – September 28, 2015
New iPhone 6s bend test reveals super-strong aluminum shell – August 19, 2015