iPhone 17 Pro Teardown Reveals Apple's New Approach to Thermal Management and Repairs

[MacRumors]

iFixit today disassembled the iPhone 17 Pro for one of its teardown videos, showing the device's internal components, like the new vapor chamber cooling system that distributes heat from the A19 Pro chip throughout the aluminum frame.

The iPhone 17 Pro's battery is attached to a battery tray, and the battery tray is connected to the iPhone 17 Pro's aluminum frame with Torx Plus screws. iFixit says that if Apple sells replacement batteries in the tray, there won't be any adhesive to deal with when doing a battery swap.

The battery tray is on top of the A19 Pro chip, and the chip includes the vapor chamber cooling system. Heat from the chip is directed to the vapor chamber, which spreads it throughout the unibody aluminum frame. iFixit used a thermal camera to compare the iPhone 16 Pro Max to the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The iPhone 16 Pro Max would get to 37.8 degrees Celsius and experience throttling, while the 17 Pro Max stayed cooler at 34.8 degrees Celsius, resulting in no throttling.

iFixit found that Apple's cooling system uses a lattice between two plates to distribute water throughout the vapor chamber. The water next to the A19 Pro chip boils and turns to steam, then the steam collects on the other side and cools down, condensing back into droplets that are sent back through the lattice structure.

iFixit conducted a scratch test on the iPhone 17 Pro's aluminum frame, and found the camera plateau to be an area that's prone to scratching. The site spoke with David Niebuhr, a mechanical engineering professor at Cal Poly. Niebuhr said that the damage is called "spalling." The sharp, flat edge of the camera plateau doesn't allow for the anodized finish to adhere as well, so the color can rub off when exposed to hard objects like keys.

The iPhone 17 Pro models have a less repairable design than the iPhone 16 Pro models because Apple did away with the dual-entry design that made repairs possible from either the back or the front of the device. It's only possible to repair the wireless charging assembly or replace the back glass from the back of the iPhone, and replacing the battery, a camera module, or the USB-C port requires removing the iPhone's display.

The battery tray that's only held in with screws makes the battery easier to replace once you get to it, plus the battery is encased in metal, which makes it safer. Replacing the USB-C port requires removing 22 screws, a process that iFixit found tedious.

Considering all of the changes, iFixit says that the iPhone 17 Pro is slightly less repairable than the iPhone Air, but Apple is providing day-one repair manuals and Apple's engineers appear to have taken repairability into account when designing the device, so it earned a repairability score of 7 out of 10.

Make sure to watch iFixit's full video to get a better look at the vapor chamber cooling system and the scratching experiments.

Article Link: iPhone 17 Pro Teardown Reveals Apple's New Approach to Thermal Management and Repairs

 

[ethanwa79]

Wild to me that my phone has water in it.

 

[F23]

Next year the plateau will become a highland. Tim you're so courageous.

 

[anthorumor]

Next year the plateau will become a highland. Tim you're so courageous.

with a titanium edge

 

[coolfactor]

Wild to me that my phone has water in it.

I wonder if they experimented with other fluids, such as coolants that have a different boiling point?

Never thought we'd see the day when an iPhone needed such advanced cooling, but proof that we are now carrying super-computers in our pockets.

 

[coolfactor]

Next year the plateau will become a highland. Tim you're so courageous.

Physics would like a word.

If Apple kept the camera flush, photos would actually be worse, giving people yet something else to complain about. Depth is needed (somehow) for a camera to capture good images, particularly far away.

 

[Ash Pole]

A ‘water cooled’ iPhone? Is there a way to check the coolant level like there is in every car produced over the last 130 years?

 

[TheDailyApple]

A ‘water cooled’ iPhone? Is there a way to check the coolant level like there is in every car produced over the last 130 years?

If there's a coolant leak, overheating isn't going to be your primary problem.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

Next year the plateau will become a highland. Tim you're so courageous.

iPhone 18, Highlander Edition

 

[segfaultdotorg]

Will it be supported longer than the FairPhone, though?

 

[zenmacx]

Years behind various Androids, finally Apple takes action to resolve warm to hot running iPhones. Living in a warm climate area the one most annoying aspect of my iPhone 16 Pro Max is running warm and throttling.

There those here who vehemently deny this issue but finally Apple has faced it and taken action. Even better is the likelihood that next years Pro & Pro Max models will benefit from further improvements to Apples new thermal management system.

 

[AlexESP]

Will it be supported longer than the FairPhone, though?

The idea behind the FairPhone might sound good, but I bet *in practice* iPhone users keep their phones for longer.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Water - steam - water - steam …

James Watt would be proud.

So basically the little engine that could…

“Give me some steam, get alive with the dreamer’s dream…” - Peter Gabriel.

 

[TVreporter]

Wild to me that my phone has water in it.

So if we suddenly get many complaints of overheating … we will call it…

Watergate…

 

[MothJab]

Years behind various Androids, finally Apple takes action to resolve warm to hot running iPhones. Living in a warm climate area the one most annoying aspect of my iPhone 16 Pro Max is running warm and throttling.

There those here who vehemently deny this issue but finally Apple has faced it and taken action. Even better is the likelihood that next years Pro & Pro Max models will benefit from further improvements to Apples new thermal management system.

It sounds like you should be buying android?

 

[Martin Bland]

proof that we are now carrying super-computers in our pockets.

The iPhone 4 had more compute and far more memory than the Cray-1 supercomputer.

 

[GraXXoR]

Wild to me that my phone has water in it.

And if it leaks you know you'll be on the hook for water damage.

 

[GraXXoR]

There those here who vehemently deny this issue but ...

I see this kind of "Everyone denies this..." or "people here always..." comments quite often. Yet how come I invariably see the people complaining about these so called deniers before I ever see the actual people compaining?

weird, huh.

 

[JohannesO]

That's why you should always buy uncoloured iPhones.
#scratchgate

 

[svish]

Very nice to see this teardown. Good to hear that the phone now runs cooler. Expecting the screen brightness not to dim automatically in bright outdoors. Also hoping that it does not heat up when taking photos or videos for longer period continuously.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

The battery tray is on top of the A19 Pro chip, and the chip includes the vapor chamber cooling system. Heat from the chip is directed to the vapor chamber, which spreads it throughout the unibody aluminum frame.

The A19 chip doesn't include the vapor chamber cooling system, since the vapor chamber is a separate part. The upper end of the vapor chamber isn't in direct contact with the A19 Pro chip, since the A19 is embedded inside the two-circuit board sandwich, soldered to the inner surface of one of these two boards. The upper end of the vapor chamber seems to be in direct contact with the circuitry on the other, outer surface of the board that the A19 is soldered to, though directly in-line with the A19's location, directly on the opposite side of the board (if that description makes sense). In other words, the logic board sandwich isn't the A19 chip, since the logic board contains a lot of other parts besides the A19, like the modem and wifi chips, etc. But it seems this level of contact is good enough.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

I wonder if they experimented with other fluids, such as coolants that have a different boiling point?

Water is the ideal fluid for a vapor chamber. Other fluids like isopropyl alcohol, ethanol, methanol, acetone, etc. have been tried but found wanting, with lower heat storage/transport capacity. From the least technical standpoint, water's latent heat of vaporization is very high, at about 2257 kJ/kg, so it carries a lot of heat per gram. Its specific heat capacity is also very high, at about 4.18 kJ/kg·K, so it absorbs heat better before boiling. All those other fluids have much lower figures. Their boiling points are also too low, so they boil too early, or too high, preventing them from boiling at phone temps. There's also safety concerns with some of these fluids (toxicity, flammability, and/or corrosion), some are more costly than water, and some degrade or leak more easily.

 

[Isentropic]

I really like my iPhone 13 mini. Stays cool and can use it one-handed.

 

[sunapple]

iPhone Air is easier to repair, who would have thought.

 

[uacd]

Ifixit was late this year, this blogger did teardown 4 days earlier. What I had seen: AWFUL. Unrepairable single-use item. If battery bloats, it will kill vapor chamber. Phone requires to be partially disassembled to get to the battery. No wonder if Apple asks 200$ to replace that. And people even say that "EU shall not command Apple to have replaceable batteries". At this point, this is what I consider anti-consumer behavior and it is a major reason why I am not upgrading this year again (apart from blurry, lackluster cameras)