We performed an iPhone autopsy at Wired News on Friday night. Don’t worry, it’s on Conde Nast’s tab.
Breaking it open was pretty daunting. The iPhone is near impregnable. But we sank a few beers and soon the knife was out.
We learned a few valuable lessons about taking it apart — like don’t drink beer. It’s all detailed here.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
32 responses to “iPhone Autopsy”
Hey ! I like tecate lol
What the hell?
ifixit.com had one disassembled, live and done professionally, hours beforehand.
Bah, What should we expect between you and the hammer idiots on YouTube.
Typical American waste.
I should amend the “hours beforehand” to Friday at 7:43 p.m. PST.
Hey Corny, maybe you should lay off the whiskey before making these posts.
Any fanboi would know that macrumors.com posted the ifixit.com link at 7:43 EST, not PST.
Hey Jameson, meet my stomach.
/drinks bottle.
And the point in that was?
…no, what a terrible waste of an ilife…
Nice! Not that I would have ever bought an iPhone just to take it apart, but you guys just saved me the effort. Beer and mobile devices rarely mix well in my experience.
I’m just wondering what the point is in opening up an iphone? What info was gained?
Dumb. Pointless.
You get to see exactly what you are paying for. You can take a look at the processor to get a good idea of what the future limitations will be regarding software upgrades etc…
You get to see if they are using the same shitty batteries that they foisted on us with the 80GB IPOD’s….
I wonder if they will be setting up a service to take brand new IPhones and replace them with second hand reconditioned units as they did with me???
This seems so pointless! did u break it up more or just tht far?!!
So this expensive toy was designed to be a throw-away! Having a non-replaceable battery really means they don’t have to make the phone last any longer than the battery, hmmmm.
Anyway the whole thing is a couple of years behind other phones that are already available in other countries so it is hard to understand what all the hype is about!
” I’m just wondering what the point is in opening up an iphone? What info was gained?
Terry Scott, on July 2nd, 2007 at 1:42 pm “
The info gained is knowledge that the battery on it cannot be replaced with out voiding the warranty.
All Li-ion batteries loose their capacity over time and when it does on the IPhone users will not be able to replace it and so will have to live with short battery life and constant recharging – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L… – A link for the uninformed
It also seems some people have really have taken offence or been upset over the iphone beening disassembled. Its only a phone after all that has nothing new or ground breaking to offer dispite what Apple say about it, just check out the offerings by HTC.
From what I have heard, best thing to do with the bloody thing. Naught but a fashion item :)
Well, a good experiment but, if the only lesson learned was about the battery.. could just have checked page 23 of the manual.
What’s up with Apple? After having consumers shed $600 + 2 year commitment above basic plan they should at least have respected the owners right to service their own equipment!!!!!!!!!!!
Like, I will shed $150 more (parts, labor and S&H) to have $16 battery replaced? Dishonest or immoral to say the least…