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00:00So a couple days ago I dropped a Twitter thread, yes I still call it Twitter, and I
00:07severely underestimated how many of you guys would be interested in it, but then a lot
00:11of the conversation that it drove was really interesting, and a lot of discussions that
00:15happened afterward were fun to participate in, so I figured I would drop even more of
00:19the footage here.
00:20So I'm back with more of my footage and clips from my visit to Apple's secret iPhone durability
00:28testing labs.
00:29If you ever wondered how an iPhone gets water resistance tested, or drop tested, or shaken
00:35like crazy before it gets announced on stage, these are the labs where all of that happens.
00:40And then they have to connect the dots between their test results and how they actually build
00:45phones, which is fascinating.
00:47So the first thing that I saw was the water resistance testing.
00:51So I think a lot of us kind of take for granted at this point most high-end smartphones, most
00:54flagships, have IP68 ratings, but a lot of people don't actually think about it.
00:59That is a code where IP stands for Ingress Protection, and then the first number is for
01:04solids, and then the second number is for liquids.
01:07And so each of these numbers gets higher and higher as it's more protected against ingress.
01:12So some like earbuds or headphones for example, you might see they are IPX4 rated.
01:16That just means they're not protected from dust, but from water they can withstand some
01:21light splashes from any direction.
01:24So sweat.
01:25Great.
01:26So the first iPhones all the way up to the iPhone 6S were not water resistant at all,
01:30at least not rated to be, but then the first water resistant iPhone, iPhone 7, was IP67
01:36water resistant.
01:37And then now we just kind of, we see everything being IP68, meaning it can literally be underwater
01:42for an extended period of time.
01:43And so this is what it looks like to actually test that stuff.
01:47There's literally specialty equipment just to torture phones with water and make sure
01:52they can survive.
01:54Lots of companies have these things, but it was cool to see it in person.
01:57So the lowest level of this test is basically a drip ceiling to simulate rain and splashing.
02:02So there's no real water pressure here, but a pass is good for IPX4 on this test.
02:08But then to simulate some water pressure, they have these jets that rotate around the
02:12device and spray it with water from all angles into the speakers, into the earpiece, into
02:18the ports, everything.
02:20And if it's able to pass this test, that's good for IPX5.
02:24It seems so simple, but it's also pretty cool to see.
02:27I've never actually watched this happen.
02:29To turn it up to 11, they just put the phone on one end and stick basically a literal fire
02:34hose on the other end and just blast the phone with high pressure water.
02:38Kind of looks insane, but if we want our modern smartphones to be able to get splashed from
02:42any angle many times over its lifetime and survive, then it has to survive this and
02:47then it earns its IPX6 rating.
02:49But then finally for IPX7 and IPX8, that's full submersion.
02:53So they have some lockable sealed tanks, but some of you may already know that IPX8 is
02:57supposed to be under deep water for a long time.
03:00So they actually have this pressurized tank where they can turn up the pressure inside
03:04to simulate different water depths and leave phones in there as long as they want.
03:09So now, ideally today, if you drop your phone in the toilet or spill water on it or drop
03:14it in a lake, whatever, for as long as it's down there, it should survive.
03:19Which again, we kind of take it for granted, but that's all the seals and the gaskets
03:22and all the adhesives and things that go into getting it to pass those tests are what get
03:26it to pass the real world tests.
03:28Now, there is an entire separate type of testing that you might have already seen on YouTube
03:33that is drop testing.
03:34And it turns out Apple has been doing their own internal drop testing for years now.
03:40So it turns out in the same building, Apple set up this full on industrial robot by Epson
03:45that they've programmed to be a drop test robot.
03:48And then they've set it up in front of these ultra bright lights and super high speed
03:52phantom cameras pointed at the exact spot on the ground where the phone will land.
03:57So the idea here is they can program the robot to pick up the phone and drop it onto any
04:02surface.
04:09And then they can have it repeat that exact motion and that exact same drop on the exact
04:14same angle over and over again, but with different surfaces and they can AB test them
04:19and take a look at exactly what happens.
04:22And then those of you who are camera nerds, you already know these phantom cameras are
04:24pretty serious.
04:25I don't remember the exact frame rate they told me they were shooting at, but it's pretty
04:30incredible.
04:31You can actually see the titanium on this iPhone 15 pro wobble on its first impact with
04:37the ground and its second impact too.
04:41So yeah, they had all kinds of different materials to do drop tests from granite countertops
04:45to marble to cork board and wood, et cetera.
04:49They even had this massive block of asphalt just sitting there, just waiting to see how
04:53the iPhone reacts to being dropped in the streets, you know, but this is a fascinating
04:58setup.
04:59Now, of course, the fact is most phones still just break immediately when you drop them
05:02on the ground.
05:03So I kind of wonder how much of this data is actually getting translated into real changes
05:08of phone design, but it's still cool.
05:10That I got to see all this stuff.
05:12And then the hardest one to capture for me anyway, is the shaking tests.
05:17Yeah, that's exactly what it sounds like.
05:20Shaking tests.
05:21Apple has rooms full of machines that are literally trays of devices strapped to a surface
05:26that's being shaken thousands of times at a specific frequency.
05:31It's actually kind of hard to record because if my shutter speed is at the right number,
05:34it doesn't even really look like anything's moving, kind of like how car wheels don't
05:38look like they're spinning if you have the right camera settings.
05:41But I did get a few clips where like I put my hand on it and you can see it's moving
05:44a lot.
05:45They're using this machine to try to simulate years of wear and tear out in the real world.
05:50Apparently, they can program in the frequency of a certain motorcycle engine or car engine
05:56or subway car or whatever constant vibration that they just want to check up on to make
06:00sure everything holds up to exposure to it over a very long time.
06:04But I really think the most fascinating thing about all this testing is they are trying
06:08before the phone even comes out, they're trying to simulate years of wear and tear
06:11in the real world with real customers in a small room under the basement of Apple Park
06:17with like the machines that they've designed.
06:20It's a fascinating connection they've got to make.
06:22And I spoke to John Ternes, who's the head of hardware engineering at Apple about this
06:26process and he mentioned apparently they go through sometimes 10,000 iPhones prototypes
06:34before they actually ship a final phone with all this durability testing.
06:39Which sounds crazy, I don't know what number I thought it was in my head, but it seems
06:42insane that they'll make 10,000 phones to break before they ship one.
06:46And actually, while I had John there, I felt like this was a unique opportunity to ask
06:50because I've never really heard people from Apple actually speak out about the durability
06:57but also the repairability of the iPhone.
07:00Like we all know Apple's reputation for repairability.
07:03It's not great, like the iPhone is notoriously very difficult to repair.
07:07But also now it's a little clearer because the more I've thought about it, the more it
07:11feels like, I mean, Apple's just shown me a ton of durability labs and durability feels
07:16like it's directly at odds with repairability, like it actually feels like it's basically
07:22a sliding scale with durability on one side and repairability on the other.
07:27And the more durable you want to make your thing, the less repairable you're making your
07:32thing.
07:33And all these decisions that go into making and designing a product are kind of pushing
07:37it back and forth along this scale.
07:39So take a listen to this.
07:40But sometimes, for me, I find it helpful to kind of think about the bookends.
07:43Like if you imagine a product that never fails, right, that just doesn't fail.
07:48And on the other end, a product that maybe isn't very reliable, but is super easy to
07:52repair.
07:53Right.
07:54A product that never fails is obviously better for the customer, it's better for the environment.
07:57Okay, it's interesting you put it that way because on one end you have the product that
08:00never fails.
08:01On the other hand, you have the product that can be replaced infinitely, but it's not as
08:05reliable.
08:06Yep.
08:07That downside of being not as reliable comes from being infinitely repairable.
08:10But I think some would argue that the downside of being really hard to repair comes from
08:15being almost infinitely durable.
08:18Sure, but they're not always mutually exclusive.
08:22Like those are kind of the bookends.
08:23So let me give you like a couple of examples.
08:26I think of battery on an iPhone as being an important one.
08:31On an iPhone, on any phone, a battery is something, if you want to extend the life
08:34of the product, that's something that's going to need to be replaced, right?
08:38Batteries wear out.
08:40But as we've been making iPhones for a long time, in the early days, one of the most common
08:44types of failures was water ingress, right?
08:47Where you drop it in the pool or you spill your drink on it and the unit fails.
08:52And so we've been making strides over all those years to get better and better and
08:56better in terms of minimizing those failures.
08:59I don't know how many years it's been now, but we got to a point of IP68, which is kind
09:03of a rating for water ingress, which is really impressive.
09:06And I think you get to see some of these tests, right?
09:09And it's great because we get these stories of people, you know, literally I dropped my
09:13phone in the lake.
09:14I couldn't get it for two weeks.
09:15I fished it out.
09:16It still works.
09:17They're super excited.
09:18That said, to get the product there, you've got to design a lot of seals, adhesives,
09:23other things to make it perform that way, which makes it a little harder to do that
09:27battery repair.
09:28Right.
09:29You still need to do the battery repair.
09:30So we need to make sure we have solutions for customers to do that, which we do.
09:34But it's objectively better for the customer to have that reliability.
09:38And it's ultimately better for the plant because the failure rate since we got to that point
09:43have just dropped.
09:44It's plummeted, right?
09:45The number of repairs that need to happen.
09:47And every time you're doing a repair, you're bringing in new materials, you know, to replace
09:50whatever broke.
09:52So you can actually do the math and figure out there's a threshold at which if I can
09:56make it this durable, then it's better to have it a little bit harder to repair because
10:01it's going to net out.
10:02Okay.
10:03So, yeah, that checks out.
10:04I found that kind of interesting.
10:05We've never really heard anyone from Apple speak directly about this.
10:08Now, of course, in a dream world, if Apple's goal is to make the ultimate phone that never
10:13ever breaks, then they probably shouldn't be making it from glass because in the words
10:18of Jerry everything, glass is glass, glass breaks.
10:22But still, they're trying to push as far towards that end as possible.
10:25And it is interesting to hear a little bit of the behind the scenes on the philosophy
10:29there.
10:30But yeah, that's been it.
10:31That's my behind the scenes look at Apple's durability testing labs that we've never seen
10:33before.
10:34Make sure you subscribe to see more stuff very cool like this coming up soon.
10:38And let me know what you think about this sliding scale of durability versus repair.
10:44Catch you guys in the next one.
10:46Peace.