iPhone 7 Plus Teardown Confirms Longer-Lasting 2,900 mAh Battery and 3GB of RAM

[SeaFox]

Look at the SE versus the 5s. Same battery size (practically), same screen size, but the SE has almost double the battery life of the 5s.

What? Citation, please.

iPhone 5S:
Non-removable Li-Po 1560 mAh battery (5.92 Wh)
Stand-by Up to 250 h (2G) / Up to 250 h (3G)
Talk time Up to 10 h (2G) / Up to 10 h (3G)
Music play Up to 40 h

iPhone SE:
Non-removable Li-Po 1624 mAh battery (6.21 Wh)
Stand-by Up to 240 h (2G) / Up to 240 h (3G)
Talk time Up to 14 h (3G)
Music play Up to 50 h

 

[a.gomez]

There was room in there to fit flash support in there too.....

Look guys. Yes - they could have fit one in there but they chose not to. Why? Yes it saves a bit of space and yes it makes waterproofing a tad easier - but you're all still missing the big point.

The real reason they didn't put it in there is to strong arm the rest of the industry into focusing on wireless tech, otherwise they will just sit on their laurels as they have been doing for years because the jack is "good enough".

Thing is I don't want "good enough", I want better than that, and wireless will very soon be the better solution, and now Apple is forcing it that transition will happen even faster.

This has happened many times over the decades, as soon as Apple drops something the rest of the world rushes to fill the gap it has made, and every time without fail, given a couple of years to sort itself out, that gap has been filled with something better than was there previously.

Not sure what you mean that an analog signal over a jack is "good enough" unless You just dislike any type of wires. Or that wireless will soon be a better solutuion - seeing how right now we are looking at hardware with 5 hr battery life with 256-Kbps AAC encoding (so still at lossy) over BT4.2 (with still no APTX support) - that "soon" will not be this hardware cycle (there is nothing new here).

Love how now apple is ignoring its own marketing. The big deal about AirPlay was that is could do Lossless audio streaming with a 36mbps bandwith for cleaner audio over what Bluetooth's could achieve. Bluetooth was the original wireless audio "good enough"

 

[Pakaku]

Looks like they could have put in a headphone jack if they wanted.

We all know it was intentional to get people to spend a lot of money on dongles, expensive apple headphones, more dongles and royalties from manufacturers for licensing the lighting port.

Well, I'd imagine if $9 is too expensive for you, you probably couldn't afford an iPhone in the first place.

 

[a.gomez]

Speaker looks like it goes there.

Ok, fine... I guess we need that

 

[Dead0k]

Such courage... A plastic bumper covering the fake speaker where the headphone jack should be.

yes, and now we have a brick using a lot more space which is called Taptic engine.
Why do we need it in iPhone? What is the purpose?

 

[Jimrod]

yes, and now we have a brick using a lot more space which is called Taptic engine.
Why do we need it in iPhone? What is the purpose?

To make the non-physical home button feel more like a physical home button. A problem Apple created by removing the physical home button, but they had to to free up space for the Taptic Engine somewhere... (oh and that pesky headphone jack was in the way too!)

It's understandable if it's in preparation for next year's rumoured buttonless iPhone... But this isn't next year's iPhone.

 

[Jsameds]

Not sure what you mean that an analog signal over a jack is "good enough" unless You just dislike any type of wires. Or that wireless will soon be a better solutuion - seeing how right now we are looking at hardware with 5 hr battery life with 256-Kbps AAC encoding (so still at lossy) over BT4.2 (with still no APTX support) - that "soon" will not be this hardware cycle (there is nothing new here).

Love how now apple is ignoring its own marketing. The big deal about AirPlay was that is could do Lossless audio streaming with a 36mbps bandwith for cleaner audio over what Bluetooth's could achieve. Bluetooth was the original wireless audio "good enough"

The quality will get there in the end, it will, but what I'm really saying is that getting rid of the tether is the big jump. Apple is focusing on wireless, if we have to take half a step back temporarily in order to leap three steps forward then so be it, I'm happy to do that. I've done it before, I'll do it again.

 

[^Tripper^]

They could already do wireless. They could have had water resistance. They did not need to remove the headphone jack to do these.

 

[sw1tcher]

Doesn't look like there's any metal shield protection along the whole logic board to protect the touch IC chips. Will the iPhone 7 suffer from the "touch disease" like the iPhone 6?

 

[zen]

Looks like they could have put in a headphone jack if they wanted.

We all know it was intentional to get people to spend a lot of money on dongles, expensive apple headphones, more dongles and royalties from manufacturers for licensing the lighting port.

Oh, absolutely, 100%. There is plenty of room. Removing the jack is nothing to do with space inside the device.

 

[arekm]

Is that iphone 6s plus gray bar / touch screen problem likely not repeating in 7 (based on these teardowns) ?

 

[a.gomez]

The quality will get there in the end, it will, but what I'm really saying is that getting rid of the tether is the big jump. Apple is focusing on wireless, if we have to take half a step back temporarily in order to leap three steps forward then so be it, I'm happy to do that. I've done it before, I'll do it again.

True, and agree that it is just a matter of time for wireless to improve. I just feel that there is a certain level of dishonesty on how this is all being presented (on the audio side - the SOC seem like a solid upgrade). But we will have to wait and see (I for one will sit this one out)

 

[Neodym]

It's interesting how people hype the battery on the 7(+).

Being nearly identical to the old 6+ (non-S) in capacity, I'm amazed the 7+ "only" gets the same standby time of 16 days, while achieving 3 hours more internet via WLan (15 hrs vs 12 hrs), but only 1 hour more via 3G/LTE and even 3 hours less talk time (21 vs 24) on 3G.

Seems the new modem supplier (Intel iirc) is significantly worse in terms of power consumption, compared to the former supplier (Qualcomm?). Will be interesting to see if the Verizon models with Qualcomm inside are offering a better battery time - in that case I better hurry to have my popcorn ready for the incoming complaints ...

 

[TechJunkie4Life]

Be the first to take an early look inside the Apple iPhone7 teardown http://bit.ly/2cBycAY

 

[jimbo1mcm]

They could have put a sub-woofer in the taptic engine spot, that would rattle your teeth. Nice fake speaker hole.

 

[2457248]

That Taptic Engine is a beauty...


but part of me wishes that it was smaller like the 6s plus, which would leave a LOT of room for more battery without the headphone jack!

exactly my thought, with all the space saving measures, it's hard to believe so much space is dedicated solely to the "vibration" unit. does it really need to be that huge?!

 

[Ries]

There was room in there to fit flash support in there too.....

Look guys. Yes - they could have fit one in there but they chose not to. Why? Yes it saves a bit of space and yes it makes waterproofing a tad easier - but you're all still missing the big point.

The real reason they didn't put it in there is to strong arm the rest of the industry into focusing on wireless tech, otherwise they will just sit on their laurels as they have been doing for years because the jack is "good enough".

Thing is I don't want "good enough", I want better than that, and wireless will very soon be the better solution, and now Apple is forcing it that transition will happen even faster.

This has happened many times over the decades, as soon as Apple drops something the rest of the world rushes to fill the gap it has made, and every time without fail, given a couple of years to sort itself out, that gap has been filled with something better than was there previously.

You just made something up to fit your agenda right? Because wireless audio functions just fine with a jack included. Also you still have a jack and wired head phones called earPods. Nothing changed except you now have an Apple proprietary lightning jack, the "firewire, omg, why is there nothing to plug into it" Apple audio jack...

 

[steve62388]

but let them lose that dongle a few times. Let their BT headphones run out of a charge in a moment they need private audio most. Let them lose their BT earbuds

There isn't any less of a chance of these things happening if the i7 had a headphone jack. Keep your dongle plugged into your headphones, but if you're the sort of person that loses headphones a jack makes no difference to that possibility. You can lose your BT headphones now and you can get caught short without a charge now, the absence of a 3.5mm headphone jack does not alter that fact or make it any more likely.

 

[Scottsoapbox]

The more important battery number is the watt-hour not amp-hour.

It amazes me that bloggers can't seem to grasp this. It's like same as reporting the iPhone 8s screen height and believing you've fully described its size.

 

[steve62388]

Does anybody see any changes in the design to help prevent 'touch disease'?

 

[Michael Goff]

Looks like they could have put in a headphone jack if they wanted.

We all know it was intentional to get people to spend a lot of money on dongles, expensive apple headphones, more dongles and royalties from manufacturers for licensing the lighting port.

No, it would have extended into the Taptic feedback engine.

So the headphone jack was replaced with literally nothing. That's so ridiculous.

Courage!

A larger, and more accurate, Taptic feedback engine is now nothing?

Do people not understand how business works? Apple owns their lightning port technology. Removing the headphone jack FORCES more $ in royalties, right to their coffers. New headphones, dongles, adapters, etc. will be made, and Apple will receive $$$ on each and every one of those sales. Let's not be naive here - clearly there was space for the jack. They chose not to include it for false and misleading reasons, and I for one will continue to pray that it blows up in their faces.

Is this why they're pushing wireless? Royalties?

yes, and now we have a brick using a lot more space which is called Taptic engine.
Why do we need it in iPhone? What is the purpose?

According to them, it's more accurate than last year's. it allows the button that isn't a button.

exactly my thought, with all the space saving measures, it's hard to believe so much space is dedicated solely to the "vibration" unit. does it really need to be that huge?!

Taptic Engine is more than just a vibrator.
[doublepost=1474015473][/doublepost]

Does anybody see any changes in the design to help prevent 'touch disease'?

Touch disease was prevented with the 6S already, simply by moving the IC chip somewhere else. I doubt they'd move it back.

 

[Wowereit]

Really impressed that we have all of these engineers on MacRumors offering their wisdom on the headphone jack. So many people on here are apparently capable of engineering the iPhone 7 with a headphone jack- I'm shocked that Apple doesn't start and end their employment search right here.

Do you really believe getting rid of the jack was done for engineering purposes?
Apple did not need to remove it, they wanted to.

 

[Michael Goff]

Do you really believe getting rid of the jack was done for engineering purposes?
Apple did not need to remove it, they wanted to.

So the fact that it would have gone into the Taptic Engine is a lie? My eyes are lying to me?

 

[vajrakagyu]

Such courage... A plastic bumper covering the fake speaker where the headphone jack should be.

You should learn to read: as iFixit says:"In place of the headphone jack, we find a component that seems to channel sound from outside the phone into the microphone... or from the Taptic Engine out."

 

[Jimrod]

So the fact that it would have gone into the Taptic Engine is a lie? My eyes are lying to me?

I don't think people are arguing that, perhaps more to the point why is the taptic engine such a "vital" feature? Because they removed the push button? Was that necessary? Maybe not when a full-screen buttonless iPhone comes out but this isn't that phone. We've quite literally got solutions put in where there was no problem in the first place and lost some functionality (3.5mm jack) for it - also some fake holes that needed additional waterproofing components (and cost) for nothing, quite literally nothing.