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Iphone Air...
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00:00There's going to be some fire later. We're going to need it to separate the iPhone Air's
00:04titanium exoskeleton from the frame, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Rumor has it that
00:09for the first time Apple is using 3D printed titanium near the charging port. I've previously
00:15said that Apple doesn't innovate, but this iPhone Air durability test and teardown has proven me
00:20wrong several times over. Tim Cook has absolutely been cooking. To get inside this time around,
00:26let me first introduce the greatest crossover in history. The new JerryRig Everything portable
00:30iFixit tool kit, which has a lifetime warranty. This guy's got all the bits you need to work on
00:36everything from iPhones to Nintendos to your grandma's glasses, and every kit includes one of my
00:41classic JerryRig razor knives. It's also got a solid anodized aluminum driver, 32 precision bits,
00:47and of course a beautiful selection of pry tools. If any of your bits ever break, we will replace it.
00:53That warranty of course does not extend to your fingers. Steve Jobs might have not approved of
00:57repairing your own stuff, but we know that when you do it yourself, 60% of the time it works every
01:03time. Grab your pre-order in the description and we'll start shipping these tool kits on December 10th,
01:08just in time for Christmas. Lucky for us, some of the opening of the iPhone Air's back glass occurred
01:13during my bend test. And while I wish I was an air bender, it actually withstood all my attempts at
01:20bending and only gave up the ghost after 216 pounds worth of pressure was applied with an engine hoist,
01:27snapping it in half. It's a ridiculously strong phone, but thanks to that engine hoist and a little
01:32bit of heat from my heat gun, and the removal of two pentalobe screws at the bottom, we get our first
01:38look at the insides. And this might come as a surprise, but the iPhone Air is in fact not made of
01:44air. The wrinkly battery has seen better days, but the new metal battery enclosure Apple is using
01:51probably helped the air survive as long as it did. With the wireless charger unscrewed and un-clipped
01:56from the motherboard, it's nice to see how easy to swap the back glass is now. Huge thumbs up for that.
02:01The back glass still has the wireless charging magnets installed. These are 100% recycled, which is
02:07also pretty awesome. The copper coils on the back of the iPhone Air are also made from 100% recycled
02:12copper and in my opinion should be 100% visible from the back of the phone. I'm not sure why
02:18they always hide this stuff away on the inside. Speaking of recycled, 95% of the lithium in this
02:24battery comes from recycled sources along with 100% of the cobalt and 80% of the steel enclosure,
02:31which needs to be unplugged very quickly. The screen of the iPhone Air is also pretty easy to remove and
02:36replace. Normally I'd use a suction cup and some heat while dripping in some isopropyl. But today we're
02:42performing more of an autopsy than a repair and I'll just peel it off. There is a hefty amount
02:47of adhesive around the edges, probably to help with that IP68 waterproof rating. There's one
02:52additional tri-point screw and two ribbons holding the screen to the body. A technician could probably
02:58swap out a broken iPhone Air screen in about 5 minutes if they really wanted to. I'm a fan of this
03:04design. The iPhone Air is actually pretty repairable. That's the last joke, I promise. We'll get to the
03:11sensor shift in the main camera unit here in a second, along with the single speaker, single
03:15vibrator, and the 3D printed titanium USB-C port after we get this battery out. Bent batteries can
03:22blow up at any time. To remove the battery we need another battery. And while I do applaud Apple for
03:28having a removable battery system, using electrically releasing adhesive is a bit of a hassle. I think
03:34Samsung still does it better with their pull tabs. There are two positive flaps on either side that need
03:39to be electrocuted individually. Adhesive isn't really rocket science, at least not for inside
03:44of a smartphone. And short circuiting a strip of adherent for 90 seconds on each side, while effective,
03:50seems a little excessive. I do appreciate how zero force is needed though to get the battery out.
03:56And maybe that's worth the slightly more complex removal procedure, but let me know what you think
04:01down in the comments. The metal enclosed iPhone Air battery is 3149 milliamp hours, and interestingly enough,
04:08iFixit has found that the exact same battery is used in the iPhone Air's wireless battery pack,
04:13which is a super smart way to optimize the supply chain. Why make two different batteries when you
04:19only need one? And you might be asking, Hey Jerry, if they're the same size, why does the wireless
04:24charger only give the iPhone Air 65 percentage points worth of additional charge? And I'm glad you asked.
04:30That just shows how inefficient wireless charging actually is. 35% just kind of gets lost in the ether,
04:36making our way up to the singular non-stereo loudspeaker. It's on the opposite side of the
04:41singular camera unit. And at first glance, there does not appear to be any balls inside,
04:45which is brave of Apple. The Air only has one speaker. So that one speaker needs to sound really
04:51good. The little gold springs rest up against the motherboard to receive its communication.
04:55However, if I grab some needle nose pliers and snip the loudspeaker right down the center,
05:00it turns out the iPhone Air does have balls inside. And that single speaker will indeed sound as good
05:06as a single speaker can sound. Nice. One of my favorite innovations Apple has brought to the
05:11smartphone world has to do with the optical image stabilization. It's not new, right? Apple's been
05:16doing it since the iPhone 12 Pro. But instead of mechanically moving the lens of the camera unit to
05:22stabilize video or pictures, Apple is shifting the sensor. This allows for more precise and reactive
05:28stabilization since the sensor is lighter than the lens barrel and can be more rapidly and accurately
05:33adjusted up to 5,000 times a second, 5 times faster than the traditional lens shifted OIS found in
05:40every other smartphone. The sensor kind of floats, suspended on a spring of copper strands while the
05:46coils in the corners interact with the magnets in the upper half to make those sensor adjustments.
05:51It's really nifty stuff. Larger premium DSLR cameras have been doing this for a while,
05:56but Apple is the first one to miniaturize the technology and stick sensor shifting into a
06:01smartphone. So while indeed the iPhone Air only has one 48 megapixel camera, that one camera has
06:07some rather premium internals. Busting out our fourth screwdriver bit for the motherboard standoff
06:12screws. Apple kind of throws different sizes and shapes of screws in here willy nilly. We have a few
06:17more Lego style ribbon connectors that also need to be unplugged. And finally the motherboard is released.
06:22This has the new A19 chip inside and it's kind of wild that the entire brain for the iPhone Air sits
06:29inside this tiny little hunk of circuitry. 100% of the gold and tin in this board has been recycled,
06:35but there is no thermal paste or cooling system. Apple added a new square sensor to the front facing
06:408 megapixel center stage camera. So I'll pop off that sensor. It's tied to the same unit as the Face ID
06:46scanners. And while I did kind of crush out the glass, the sensor itself is indeed square. Or it
06:52was square. Now I have more blue crystal on my desk than Walter White. Don't do it. Before we can get a
06:58microscopic look at the 3D printed titanium, that vibrator needs to come out. Rumor is that this
07:04vibrator isn't quite as strong as on the iPhone 17 Pro, but I do have a full dedicated vibrator review video
07:10coming out soon and we'll find out for sure how these things work. Hit that subscribe button so you
07:15don't miss it. Now the charging port is probably the least repairable part of the iPhone Air. There
07:20are at least 13 different size screws down here in all kinds of weird perpendicular places. So if
07:25anyone asks you to repair the charging port on this thing, just say no. The rest of the phone is great,
07:31but for some reason Apple can't figure out how to consolidate this specific component. It's been
07:36chaos since the iPhone 4. With all the screws gone, I can pull the USB-C port away from the USB-C housing,
07:42and you can see the little black gasket that waterproofs the union. The ribbon snakes all the
07:47way up to the motherboard. But now that I look at it, maybe I didn't need to remove all those screws
07:52after all. And I could have gotten away with just removing the two perpendicular ones. Maybe Apple has
07:57had a change of heart or maybe I did something wrong. We'll never know. Either way, this cute little
08:02part isn't the part that's 3D printed in titanium. If we take a really close look, the 3D printed
08:08titanium is found in the USB-C housing. Samsung on their ultra thin phone just milled a slot into
08:14the edge of the S25 edge. Apple here has chosen to use a separate procedure made entirely with 3D
08:20printed titanium. I don't think it's 3D printed in the sense that they have a roll of titanium filament
08:26extruded out a hotend. I imagine it's more of an SLM or selective laser melting process. Still additive of
08:32course, but it involves firing a laser into titanium dust to fuse layers of the powder together to
08:38create more complex and intricate parts. You can see the layers of titanium build up here in this port.
08:44Apple uses 100% recycled titanium for this part, and they say this printing procedure uses 33% less
08:50material than forging. They could also be using a binder jetting process, but either way it's definitely
08:56not 3D printed conventionally. Apple says their new Apple Watch is also entirely 3D printed in
09:02titanium, so let me know down in the comments if you want to take a microscopic look at that one as
09:06well. Finally, we get to the bare frame of the iPhone Air. Apple let the cat out of the bag when they
09:11said the iPhone Air has a 100% recycled aluminum on the interior structural portion, which means just
09:18like the other previous titanium iPhones, the titanium is only on the exterior skeleton. Still,
09:24obviously providing a massive amount of strength through the thin walls, but if we torch the
09:29titanium we should be able to melt or burn away any of the other layers
09:33while leaving the premium exoskeleton intact.
09:45And look at that. I can chip off the crusty slag and reveal just the titanium that's been left
10:09behind. Not a bad thing obviously to have an exoskeleton. Samsung built their titanium phones
10:15in the exact same way, and it's obviously still stronger than me. If you want to see the insides
10:20of your own phone without the chaos of actually taking it apart, I highly recommend snagging one of
10:24my teardown skins from dbrand. You can see all the sensor shift hardware along with the wireless
10:29charging magnets and of course the vibrator down in the corner, which is just a preview. And of course,
10:35if you want to become the ultimate handyman that your mom thinks you are, I'll leave a link for my
10:40new tool kit down below as well. Thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.
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