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iPhone 7 Teardown Reveals 'Incredibly Thin' A10 Chip With 2GB RAM, Intel Modem

TrueBlou said:
I'm also really looking forward to a complete tear down, including the audio adapter. I'm really curious as to how they are handling the analog.

I mean, when the Lightning to 30 pin adapter surfaced way, way back in the iPhone 5 days, it included it's own DAC to convert the digital signal from the Lightning port because Lightning was apparently unable to output an analog signal by itself at that time.

It's possible I suppose in theory that since then they have included an onboard DAC for the Lightning port to now somehow directly put out its own analog signal, thereby simplifying the whole 3.5mm adapter business. I'm just less than convinced that's what they will have done, there's probably more benefit to the DAC being separated from the iPhone (in Apples eyes) despite the inevitable cost.

Or have they crammed a teeny weeny little DAC into that 3.5mm adapter? Off the cuff I'm inclined to think that's probably what they're doing. If I remember rightly all of the Lightning headphones so far have their own DACs so who knows.


Of course I could be bleathering utter arse gravy. I've had less than an hours sleep, my nerve damage is acting up something rotten and I've literally had enough morphine (among other things) this morning to kill a cow. So me poor wee brain isn't at it's best and before someone else says it, is it ever at it's best :D
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No, Lightning could always output an analogue signal. It could from the beginning as it was designed that way, and I believe Apple said as much. But they didn't allow it -- they wanted Lightning to be an all digital connector.

And it's not a separate DAC of the Lightning port, but rather possible its own amp. The iPhone only needs one DAC. But just because Lightning now offers an analogue output, doesn't mean it won't offer a digital output as well. In fact I'm sure it will. However, if Apple really is offering analogue over Lightning, it's going to cause real confusion in the marketplace as a consumer won't know what they're actually getting with a "Lightning" equipped audio device.

But it does seem Apple has modified their MFi specs to the detriment of their previous licensee's products.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...“bricked”-set-of-lightning-earphones.1992848/

When I plugged my adapter into my SE, I got the message it was incompatible, until I updated to iOS 10. That shouldn't have been necessary if Apple was using their published Lightning audio device specs. So this seems to further confirm they changed them.

There's no problem putting a DAC and amp into the adapter and EarPods, as they put them inside the airpods along with a battery and BT radio and antennas. So that's not the problem. What may be a problem is the too-good-to-be-true price of $9 for a digital adapter. What seemed like a deal, may instead be one of the most expensive port converter dongle every made.

I really hope Apple hasn't done this ...
 
LordVic said:
The A10 is an absolutely fantastic SoC. But we're starting to hit the law of dminishing returns for mobile phone CPU performance. An A9 to A10 is not likely going to yield significantly large performance gains in everyday life because the A9 itself was already blazingly fast. when your App load times for most normal apps is in the miliseconds, a 10% increase isn't going to be really noticed.

Take away the most commonly used port in the world for audio, and people are going to notice.

So no, it's not amazing that the focus is on a functionality removal, and not an incremental update thats not going to be noticed by most.
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App times are NOT yet in the milliseconds, so pretending they are is silly.
There are still plenty of places where I have to wait for a noticeable amount of time on my iPhone.
Network waiting is substantially out of Apple's hands, but CPU waiting they control AND IO waiting they control.

In addition to faster CPUs, the next leap forward is moving storage off flash and onto the DRAM bus. Intel seems to have stumbled SUBSTANTIALLY with their plans to do this through 3D XPoint (the promises last year are very different from the promises this year) but Intel/Micron are not the only game in town regarding this technology.
We may even see it on the Watch first, because that simply needs smaller storage, and ships in smaller volumes. Either way, something to get excited about in two or three years.

The point is, buying a product like an iPhone is not an MBA calculation of "how much does it cost me to wait an extra half-second once a day"; the point is "if phone A makes me wait more often than phone B, then why would I buy phone B if I can afford phone A"? Every time you have to wait you break the illusion of the perfection of the device, and that is what matters, not the "smallness" of how long you have to wait.
Your argument is like saying "well who cares about a few dropped frames? what about all the hundreds of frames that weren't dropped --- aren't they just as important?" No they are not --- breaking the illusion of perfection is what matters.
 
Mac 128 said:
No, Lightning could always output an analogue signal. It could from the beginning as it was designed that way, and I believe Apple said as much. But they didn't allow it -- they wanted Lightning to be an all digital connector.

And it's not a separate DAC of the Lightning port, but rather possible its own amp. The iPhone only needs one DAC. But just because Lightning now offers an analogue output, doesn't mean it won't offer a digital output as well. In fact I'm sure it will. However, if Apple really is offering analogue over Lightning, it's going to cause real confusion in the marketplace as a consumer won't know what they're actually getting with a "Lightning" equipped audio device.

But it does seem Apple has modified their MFi specs to the detriment of their previous licensee's products.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...“bricked”-set-of-lightning-earphones.1992848/

When I plugged my adapter into my SE, I got the message it was incompatible, until I updated to iOS 10. That shouldn't have been necessary if Apple was using their published Lightning audio device specs. So this seems to further confirm they changed them.

There's no problem putting a DAC and amp into the adapter and EarPods, as they put them inside the airpods along with a battery and BT radio and antennas. So that's not the problem. What may be a problem is the too-good-to-be-true price of $9 for a digital adapter. What seemed like a deal, may instead be one of the most expensive port converter dongle every made.

I really hope Apple hasn't done this ...
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Odd, although to be fair I'm only basing the Lightning wasn't doing analog back then based on confirmed statements from Apple and reported on by sites like MacWorld such as here

On the Lightning to 30 pin adapter......
"Apple has confirmed to Macworld that these adapters support analog and USB audio-out, as well as syncing and charging. However, the adapters don’t support video-out or iPod mode, the latter a special mode that lets particular accessories, such as car stereos and some whole-home-audio systems, display your iPod’s menus on the accessory’s own screen. More cryptically, the online Apple Store’s product pages note that “some 30-pin accessories are not supported.”

Astute readers may have noticed that the Lightning connector does not support analog audio-out, but the 30-pin adapters do. That’s because hidden away inside each 30-pin adapter is a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that converts the Lightning connector’s digital audio signal to an analog version. (The inclusion of a DAC explains at least part of the price of the adapters.)"

Now I'm not saying that it may or may not have been technically possible. Just that they didn't do it, so if they are now then they've definitely changed things up.
 
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TrueBlou said:
Odd, although to be fair I'm only basing the Lightning wasn't doing analog back then based on confirmed statements from Apple and reported on by sites like MacWorld such as here

On the Lightning to 30 pin adapter......
"Apple has confirmed to Macworld that these adapters support analog and USB audio-out, as well as syncing and charging. However, the adapters don’t support video-out or iPod mode, the latter a special mode that lets particular accessories, such as car stereos and some whole-home-audio systems, display your iPod’s menus on the accessory’s own screen. More cryptically, the online Apple Store’s product pages note that “some 30-pin accessories are not supported.”

Astute readers may have noticed that the Lightning connector does not support analog audio-out, but the 30-pin adapters do. That’s because hidden away inside each 30-pin adapter is a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that converts the Lightning connector’s digital audio signal to an analog version. (The inclusion of a DAC explains at least part of the price of the adapters.)"

Now I'm not saying that it may or may not have been technically possible. Just that they didn't do it, so if they are now then they've definitely changed things up.
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Yes that's what I'm saying is potentially possible since they discovered a third amp, the iPhone 7 has the same DAC as the 6s, and the 3.5mm adapter is so cheap.

Your articles confirm that the adapters don't support analogue out, not that Lightning isn't capable of it.

Phil said something curious during the keynote which was that 'Lightning was always capable of being used for audio', as if it wasn't being done -- but Apple published Lightning audio specs 18 months ago, and of course there have been Lightning audio products on the market since then. So one almost wonders if Phil wasn't alluding to "analogue" audio when he said that. If so, it's a MAJOR change to MFi specs.
 
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Man I wish somebody would tear the adapter and EarPods down already ...
 
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FliccC said:
As a proud iPhone 4 user, I can say that I feel the lack of RAM in my device.

When the iPhone 4 came out it had double the amount of RAM than it's predecessor, the 3GS. A whopping 512MB!

I never had any troubles with my device until Apple pushed iOS 7 which, for some reason, completely slowed my device down. Literally everything now requires more time to load. Had they sold the iPhone with 1GB of RAM I might still be able to use it, like it was new and straight out of the box. And I don't think 2GB for the iPhone 7 will be better future proofing than what they did with the iPhone 4.

My point is, Apple's business is selling technological advancements to their customers. Now by cutting down on RAM they make sure, their customers will be coming back sooner in order to get the next tech advancements from them. I think it would've been possible to put double the amount of RAM into both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus. Both in terms of price and space. And they didn't do it.
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Interesting theory. Even though Apple chip design and software design is so advanced that their phones don't need as much RAM, benefitting every user, Apple should put in more RAM than is necessary in every phone that every consumer will have to pay for but never need. And, Apple should do this to "future proof" every phone for the extreme case where someone complains that, six generations later, "literally everything now requires more time to load." Another perspective, more healthy, positive and realistic, might be that it is amazing that Apple builds such quality in its phones that six years later, you have a working iPhone where your chief complaint is that it is sluggish! I have a 2008 iMac that still works great, never an issue, but alas it no longer has the innards to install the latest operating systems, so I just use it one room for some web surfing, videos, etc, but marvel at how it has never had an issue in almost nine years!

Look for joy, not pain!
 
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Mac 128 said:
Here's another clue. The fact Belkin, working with Apple, needed a bulky adapter to allow charging and listening at the same time. If this were an all digital solution, there would be one data stream for the audio. Take a look at the Lightning connector from Wikipedia:


Notice that if this were simply a pass through connector on the Lightning port, that Lightning would need 5 pins to connect for standard charging and USB data. That leaves 3 open pins for digital audio, which at most would require only 2, and probably just 1. But analogue audio needs 4 pins.

So, the Belkin adapter likely allows charging only while listening, and no other functions, like backing-up/synching at the same time. The reason I say this, is that the adapter likely only merges Pin 1, and Pin 5 for power, along with pin 2,3,6 & 7 for analogue audio. And, it does not seem to split the the audio between the two ports, nor does it seem to be compatible with anything other than the EarPods or Lightning Adapter. So that means other Lightning accessories won't be useable with this adapter either since they will have to pass data.

Man I wish somebody would tear the adapter and EarPods down already ...
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We definitely need a tear down to see, curiosity more than anything. Regardless of what Lightning is or isn't doing the iPhone obviously will have a DAC, it does after all have two built in speakers to cater for.

But I've never found anything to suggest that the Lightning connection itself is capable of anything but digital signals. Or at the very least that it's been used to pass an analog signal itself. Well that's not true actually, a while back I found one single website which suggested that analog may be possible over Lightning without external assistance. But that's been the only mention of that I've come across.

The pins are dynamically assignable, that much we know for sure. But thus far that's only been used in connection with a variety of controller chips embedded in the external devices, regardless of what that device type is. As best as we can figure anyway.

In the case of headphones and adapters we've had so far, that boils down to two options. Both of which require a chip to sync and assign the pin functions in cooperation with the Lightning controller and crucially an off board DAC which bypasses the iPhones and processes the pure digital signal from the Lightning port.

The iPhone Wiki is a good jumping point to read about that and following the links from there and from then an on and on down the line, there's lots of information on that process.

I may have to end up buying a cable and pair of phones and tearing them asunder myself if none of the usual places do it. Just to satisfy my curiosity :D And I've had too much morphine now, I'm starting to confuse myself :p
 
oplix said:
iphone 7 teardown reveals it's at least 5 years behind development compared to S7
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How so? The A10 is miles ahead. The phone outperforms the S7. The S7 has the better screen, more RAM (but worse RAM management), wireless charging, quick charge, a better design, larger battery.

Pretty sure 2011 didn't have QHD AMOLED tech, wireless charging, Qualcomm Quick Charge, the water resistance body profile the S7 posses, and a 3000 mAh battery size. Go troll somewhere else.
 
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nviz22 said:
How so? The A10 is miles ahead. The phone outperforms the S7. The S7 has the better screen, more RAM (but worse RAM management), wireless charging, quick charge, a better design, larger battery.

Pretty sure 2011 didn't have QHD AMOLED tech, wireless charging, Qualcomm Quick Charge, the water resistance body profile the S7 posses, and a 3000 mAh battery size. Go troll somewhere else.
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Ah c'mon, it's hardly trolling is it, the S7 is an extremely capable device deserving of some respect.
In general it has to be said that Samsung have really upped their game the past couple of years. Putting out beautiful, powerful devices it's just a shame they run Android :p
But joking aside you can't take their achievements lightly. Look at their most recent device, the Note 7, it's red hot and could really blow you away if you gave it the chance.
 
TrueBlou said:
Ah c'mon, it's hardly trolling is it, the S7 is an extremely capable device deserving of some respect.
In general it has to be said that Samsung have really upped their game the past couple of years. Putting out beautiful, powerful devices it's just a shame they run Android :p
But joking aside you can't take their achievements lightly. Look at their most recent device, the Note 7, it's red hot and could really blow you away if you gave it the chance.
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I was firmly in Samsung's corner for years. I give them credit for their S7 since I am using one now, but the safety issues are something I cannot live with. I rather go with a reliable company that I have used before (6+ and 6S+ user). Saying Apple is 5 years behind is a troll statement. If he/she said "a year or two behind," that is more objective, but not exactly true.
 
nviz22 said:
I was firmly in Samsung's corner for years. I give them credit for their S7 since I am using one now, but the safety issues are something I cannot live with. I rather go with a reliable company that I have used before (6+ and 6S+ user). Saying Apple is 5 years behind is a troll statement. If he/she said "a year or two behind," that is more objective, but not exactly true.
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Yeahhhh, I was actually just typing all of that sh*** as the lead up to the punchline at the end. Too subtle? :D
 
dukebound85 said:
seeing if those that care about the 3GB now will most likely want to upgrade every year, I don't think it is future proofing at all
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Nothing in the mobile industry is really future proof. With the rumors of a 4k display, expanded VR, HDR Amoled Tech, for the S8? A person can argue that a 1080p is yesteryear tech.

To me, if you can get a phone with a processor that will be good enough (A9, A10) for 2 yrs, tons of software updates, get major apps, and doesn't have major bugs, you have a device that is good for awhile. Apple does that even if the spec wars go to Android devices.

What I want in the iPhone 8 is 4 or 6gb RAM (doubt on 6, but 4 is realistic), QHD AMOLED Tech, End to End Display, Quick Charge, Wireless Charging, and whatever else Apple can add in there. Technically 3D is still "future tech" since not many companies offer that with their devices. So I could see 3D Touch being more useful in iOS 11/iPhone 8.
 
LordVic said:
The problem with limiting RAM without any real reason too is that of "future proofing".

Is 2GB fine for the iPhone 7 running iOS10 today?

what about in you years running the iPhone 9 with iOSx15?

By providing "just enough for today", you don't give a lot of room to grow for tomorrow. As time goes on, we always have added functionality to our devices (its very rare that a newer version is less functional than a previous one). As new functionality, hardware, devices, get added, it means more stuff has to get loaded into that RAM to support it. Drivers into memory. OS features and functionaltiy, ETC, ETC. So it's always possible that in 2 years from now, iOS base memory usage will go up. Leaving less memory space for applications, which is when you start to notice the sluggishness, constant app closing, Reloads of browsers, etc.

this is exactly what has happened in the past to apple hardware. Rememeber when the iPhone ran on 1gb of ram and Apple refused to update? Remember how sluggish and terrible iOS7 ran on 4(s)? Remember how many times your safari pages would reload when you switched tasks / tabs on the 1gb iPads? this was all side affect of "just enough RAM" when sold, but not enough ram for "next year"

If Apple is perfectly capable of fitting 3gb ram into the 7+, they are perfectly capable of fitting it in the 7. This is an up sell tactic. that's it.
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So that in return the bigger phone, that needs more power which you guys apparently dont understand at all, is suddenly underpowered?
 
TrueBlou said:
It is a delightfully descriptive term isn't it. Admit it, you'll be using it at some point, it's very handy for shouting at the television :D
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I wouldn't describe it as delightful, but I certainly will find the opportunity to put it to good use :D
 
cdmoore74 said:
If the regular sized iPhone had the spec's of the larger model it would have been my dream phone.
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Sadly Apple denied those who love the 4.7" model the same improvements in specs that the Plus buyers enjoy. That's a rather arrogant petty decision. You're not alone, I'd bet a huge number of iPhone buyers would love to have an iPhone 7 with the same specs as the larger model.

Frankly even though I prefer larger displays, if Apple had made the two equal I'd seriously be interested in the 4.7" iPhone as a nice addition to the selection of smartphones I own.
 
TrueBlou said:
We definitely need a tear down to see, curiosity more than anything. Regardless of what Lightning is or isn't doing the iPhone obviously will have a DAC, it does after all have two built in speakers to cater for.

But I've never found anything to suggest that the Lightning connection itself is capable of anything but digital signals. Or at the very least that it's been used to pass an analog signal itself. Well that's not true actually, a while back I found one single website which suggested that analog may be possible over Lightning without external assistance. But that's been the only mention of that I've come across.

The pins are dynamically assignable, that much we know for sure. But thus far that's only been used in connection with a variety of controller chips embedded in the external devices, regardless of what that device type is. As best as we can figure anyway.

In the case of headphones and adapters we've had so far, that boils down to two options. Both of which require a chip to sync and assign the pin functions in cooperation with the Lightning controller and crucially an off board DAC which bypasses the iPhones and processes the pure digital signal from the Lightning port.

The iPhone Wiki is a good jumping point to read about that and following the links from there and from then an on and on down the line, there's lots of information on that process.

I may have to end up buying a cable and pair of phones and tearing them asunder myself if none of the usual places do it. Just to satisfy my curiosity :D And I've had too much morphine now, I'm starting to confuse myself :p
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Finally!!!


dirk gently said:

a couple people have finally hacked into them. Looks like a DAC. Well, it must technically be a stereo dac, stereo amp and a mono-adc in that chip. The IC on the reverse side is the standard one that all lightning cables have, i guess.
Click to expand...
 
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