GG1

AppleInsider said:

Right back at the very start, when Mark Zuckerberg started "The Facebook" in Harvard, he described all users as being "dumb f***s." He's since said he regrets it...

I'm guessing he regrets getting caught saying it rather than actually changing his mind about his "users."

rrrob said:

tmay said:

Soli said:

At least the Pixel phones have a better industrial design than the Moto X.

• https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola+Moto+X+Teardown/16867

Well, the daughter board of the (HTC) Pixel is still poorly designed and archaic compared to what Apple has been doing since the start of the iPhone.

• https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Google+Pixel+XL+Teardown/71237

In case you don't you don't look at teardowns here's the iPhone 8 logic board for comparison. Can you spot the difference?

• https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+8+Teardown/97481

Strictly speaking, none of the above is industrial design, albeit the industrial design of the external package has a great influence on these circuit board designs, especially at Apple. 

There are pros and cons to both the Moto X and Apple circuit board designs. TL;DR—in my opinion, they reflect their companies' respective economic situations, i.e., Apple can afford to use a smaller circuit board because it's making a premium-tier product with a high profit margin, and because that product sells in high volume.

Moto X Pros:

• (Mostly) single-sided. The vast majority of the parts can be attached to the board in a single pass through placement and reflow (soldering), putting less thermal stress on the components. It also provides additional volume for the battery under the circuit board and better physical isolation of RF-sensitive circuit blocks.

• Slightly more surface area, even given the single side used for most parts. This permits the use of larger and easier to place—and hence, cheaper—components. It could also act as a larger heat sink for heat dissipation.
• Fewer board layers. A number are still needed to accommodate pinout from high pin density parts like the Snapdragon, but there's more area to work with on each layer to route traces. And fewer layers make for cheaper panels.
• Good balance of the phone in the hand is easier to achieve since the mass of the battery and circuit board are more evenly distributed across the surface of the phone.

Moto X Cons:

• Fewer circuit boards per panel. This means a greater number of circuit board panels must be processed to build an equivalent number of circuit boards, which could reduce factory throughput. The effect this has on price per circuit board is unclear without knowing the exact stack-up of the Motorola and Apple boards.

iPhone Pros:

• Double-sided panel with tightly packed components enables an incredibly small circuit board. More boards per panel means better factory throughput. The narrower the board, the more volume that's available for the battery, too.

iPhone Cons:

• Doubled-sided. Two major passes through component placement as well as reflow required.
• Intra-board trace layout must be a nightmare. There are hundreds of traces coming out from the pins of the A11 alone which much be routed to memory, SIM, Lightning connector, cameras, display, Touch ID, etc. This also complicates resolving RF desense issues during development (as in, "Why can't you just move that part/trace/via over there?")
• More board layers to accommodate the traces for those high pin density components like the A11. More layers equals higher cost circuit board panels.
• High part density and small components necessitate high-precision solder masking and part placement, i.e., newer, more expensive factory equipment. Heat dissipation also becomes more of an issue.
• Phone balancing becomes trickier with the circuit board and the battery side-by-side.

iPhone Cons:

    Doubled-sided. Two major passes through component placement as well as reflow required.
    Intra-board trace layout must be a nightmare. There are hundreds of traces coming out from the pins of the A11 alone which much be routed to memory, SIM, Lightning connector, cameras, display, Touch ID, etc. This also complicates resolving RF desense issues during development (as in, "Why can't you just move that part/trace/via over there?")

>>>>True, but obviously Apple engineers have succeeded repeatedly year-after-year with highly density iPhone & iPad PCB's. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple are using one of several special (extra cost) PCB construction techniques to achieve the equally high density inner trace routing.

    More board layers to accommodate the traces for those high pin density components like the A11. More layers equals higher cost circuit board panels.

>>>>And Apple don't mind paying a premium for it, either. It achieves their goals of a thin phone.

    High part density and small components necessitate high-precision solder masking and part placement, i.e., newer, more expensive factory equipment. Heat dissipation also becomes more of an issue.

>>>>Samsung and others use the same small components necessitating the same high-precision parts placement. Solder masking isn't even used anymore in very small components (it is printed directly on the PCB).

stevegee said:

former Apple Genius here. this is NUTS. nobody in their right mind is going to do this when there are easier, less-expensive routes. I don’t believe Apple has gone out of their way to complicate DIY repairs, it’s just a complex process because the devices themselves are complex, a fact all the self-repair advocates conveniently overlook. 

mjtomlin said:

The BIGGEST difference (and arguably the most important), between the blue and green bubbles… is that it shows which messages are end to end encrypted and which are not. All blue bubbles are encrypted. Green are not.

DAalseth said:

I mentioned on another article on the same subject earlier today that I’ve come around to agreeing with Right to Repair, to a plint. Our devices are for the most part boxes containing modules. A battery module, a motherboard module, a screen module and so forth. I agree with the article that it’s unlikely, indeed a bit silly, to demand schematics to allow people to do their own board level repairs. Almost no one is going to want to do that. On the other hand Apple and other’s insistence that the devices are sealed for your protection is too much as well.

If battery and screen replacements were easy and available at more 3rd party shops, then I suspect most of this Right to Repair hoopla would die away. Anything above that should go to Apple, but that would cover the vast majority of repairs people want. 

dk49 said:

Connecting to Starlink requires a big dish. How will the iPhone overcome that? 

Japhey said:

I’m pretty much in awe at how perfectly Apple has timed things up with TV+. For the longest time it was just a new show here, a new documentary or film there. Then, all of a sudden, boom! They put out arguably the 4 best shows* (imo) on all of television at the exact same time that CODA wins Best Picture? To me, that’s neither luck nor coincidence. What it is is damn impressive. 

*Severance, Ptolemy Grey, Pachinko, and Slow Horses.