iFixit puts Apple’s new baby on its operating table, reports findings

Sep 20, 2013 15:03 GMT  ·  By

The geeks over at iFixit have been awfully busy this week, flying all the way to Australia to be among the first to put their mitts on Apple’s new iPhone 5s. The reason? As usual, a comprehensive teardown of its inner workings.

iFixit notes very few changes between last year’s iPhone 5 and the new iPhone 5s, from a design point of view.

However, the repair shop does mention that Apple seems to be using more adhesive to hold the battery in place, and the fact that Apple sources its iPhone 5s batteries from more than one company (which was fairly predictable).

The 326 ppi Retina display assembly is unchanged, reports iFixit, and quickly moves to the more interesting Touch ID fingerprint sensor underneath the phone’s sapphire Home button.

“A CMOS chip, the Touch ID is essentially a bunch of very small capacitors that creates an ‘image’ of the ridges on your finger,” explains iFixit.

The iSight camera is also pretty much the same, and while some markings differ, industry sources tell the company “this is Sony's again.”

As some of you will remember, Apple increased the aperture size of the camera module, and said it believed bigger pixels were better than more pixels.

The 5s reportedly shows some “streamlining and optimization in its internal construction,” and iFixit points to the exclusion of some antenna interconnect cables.

Apple is also said to be manufacturing the 5s logic boards at multiple locations, and the M7 coprocessor was nowhere to be found on there. Therefore, iFixit concludes that it must be embedded in the A7 die.

Finally, it awards the iPhone 5s a repairability score of 6 out of 10, with 10 being the easiest to repair. Get the full scoop over at the iFixit web site.