With its larger screen and rounded edges, the iPhone 6 is Apple's first major redesign of their phone's exterior since the iPhone 4.
But they also made lots of change son the inside, which make the 6 faster, able to store more data, and as I'll show you, easier to open and repair.
I'm Bill Detwiler and this is Cracking Open.
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Unlike the similar looking iPhone 5 and 5s there's no mistaking the iPhone 6 for one of Apple's previous handsets.
Its 4.7 inch display is larger than anything Apple has released before.
Its case is much thinner, and the rounded edges give it a distinctive look.
Now unfortunately, they also make it harder to hold than any other iPhone, but I digress.
Now thankfully, cracking open the 6 is actually easier than opening previous iPhones.
And you still need to remove the two Phillips 00 screws along the bottom edge with a special screwdriver.
But Apple relocated the ribbon cable on the Home button, which means you no longer need to worry about tearing it when popping open the front panel.
Now with the front panel open, the first thing we're going to do.
Is to remove several metal plates which cover the connectors for the battery, front panel, and other components.
Then we'll disconnect the battery and remove the front panel.
The overall hardware layout is the same as on the iPhone 5s.
There's a speaker and lightning connector assembly at the bottom,.
Battery along the left side.
Mother board along the right.
And, the camera assembly at the top.
Now, attached to the front panel are the display, front camera and sensors, ear piece speaker and the home button.
There's also a new metal plate that sits behind the screen.
While I would usually begin our teardown by removing the battery.
I'm going to leave it place as I remove the other components.
Now this will keep me from having to glue it back in later.
So the first component to come out is the new rear facing camera.
It has the same eight megapixel count as last year, but with improved autofocus and exposure control.
A small antenna is next,.
And then after removing a few screws and stand offs and detaching the remaining connectors, we can lift out the motherboard.
Now unfortunately, the shield's that cover the iPhone 6's motherboard are soldered in place, obscuring our view of the new A8 processor, M8 motion tracking chip, and its NFC chips.
As I wanna put this phone back together in working order.
I'm going to leave the shields in place.
The last pieces to come out are the speaker assembly and the vibration mechanism.
Which is different than the one in the iPhone 5S still attached to the case are the headphone and lightning connector assembly.
Volume buttons.
Ringer switch, power button, and a slew of connector wires.
Now, most of these components are held to the case with both screws and adhesive.
If any of these components were damaged, removing and replacing them wouldn't be too difficult.
But I don't want to risk damaging them during removal, so I'm going to leave them where they are.
Despite it's bigger screen and new case design if you just look at the iPhone 6 on the outside you definitely miss some of the most interesting design changes Apple made.
And I'm glad that Apple actually made the phone easier to open and repair.
Kudos for that.
Now if they would only settle on a single size **** for attaching the internal components, I'd really be happy.
For a complete list of specs, pricing and real world performance tests, check out Scott Steins full CNET review.
To see more tear down photos and read my full hardware analysis go to techrepulbic.com/crackingopen.
I'm Bill Detweiler, thanks for watching.
