Popular tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee visited an Apple lab recently to see up close how the company tests the durability of new iPhone handsets.
Brownlee shared video clips showing an iPhone facing a slew of different tests. Admittedly, they’re not as brutal as those you get with folks like JerryRigEverything, who likes to scrape, burn, and bend (sometimes to destruction) smartphones that come his way, but they’re nevertheless carefully designed to allow Apple to ensure that a new handset meets certain standards before setting it free.
The initial videos show how Apple tests its iPhones for IP ratings. First up is a drip tray that simulates a rain shower, followed by another test using a low-pressure jet spray. The apparatus for these first two tests feature a simple elegance and seem to have been designed with much care and thought, rather like the iPhone itself.
The third test, however, dispenses with such gentility and restraint and simply blasts a powerful jet of water at the handset through a firehose. Finally, we see the iPhone in a container full of water to see how it copes with an extended period of time submerged. Over the years, there have been some extraordinary tales about how iPhones have survived waterlogged scenarios that Apple could not realistically have tested for.
#2: There's an entire room of machines for water and ingress testing
Level 1: A drip tray simulating rain, no real pressure. IPX4
Level 2: A sustained, low-pressure jet spray from any angle. IPX5
Level 3: High pressure spray from a literal firehose. IPX6
Level 4: Locking the… pic.twitter.com/5R38I6QVmW
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) May 29, 2024
Brownlee also showed Apple’s special robot, which spends its time picking up iPhone and dropping them from various heights and angles to see how well the handset’s frame holds up. Cameras trained on the phone also allow engineers to watch the impact moment in slow-motion, which may surface structural issues with the design.
#3: Apparently Apple has also bought and programmed and industrial robot to be their own drop test machine – to simulate hundreds of different drop angles onto different materials
Then they hit it with some ultra bright lights and a high speed camera to watch them back in… pic.twitter.com/EsNJbVQrbO
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) May 29, 2024
An interesting but important durability test also involves shaking the phone at computer-controlled frequencies to simulate things like a motorcycle ride or subway trip. This is particularly important when you consider reports from several years ago about some bikers were experiencing issues with the iPhone’s camera after using it on a smartphone holder while riding. An Apple support page still warns against exposing iPhones to vibrations, “like those generated by high-powered motorcycle engines.”
#4 Ok this one was hard to capture on camera – it’s literally shaking everything at computer-controlled frequencies. They can program in the frequency of a certain motorcycle engine or subway car to simulate how well a device will hold up to sustained exposure to that frequency… pic.twitter.com/K981NzQhhk
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) May 29, 2024
For all of the videos shot by Brownlee during his visit to Apple — including a chat with the tech giant’s head of hardware engineering — check out the entire thread on his social media feed.
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