Say Goodbye to the Screen

With the motherboard itself pulled apart and inventoried, we turned to the multi-touch screen:


Will it ever work again? The picture below has this part flipped over as the first stage of dissection

Below is a depiction of the stages of dissection:

The leftmost picture is the LCD and layer immediately behind it, followed by the middle two layers and then the final piece of the screen assembly.


From left to right, the parts of the screen starting with the piece closest to the user and moving further away

Here's a closer look at the backside of the iPhone's outer screen layer:

A closer look at the middle layers of the iPhone screen setup:

The final piece, the one closest to the motherboard, has a faint pattern of dots laid out in a grid which you can sort of see in the picture below:

The grid continues down the entire panel, once again necessary for the multi-touch screen.

The iPhone's Motherboard(s) The Aftermath
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  • js2007 - Sunday, July 1, 2007 - link


    Any signs of a hidden GPS chip on the iPhone? Could it be in the ARM package?
  • js2007 - Monday, July 2, 2007 - link

    I really think that GPS is in there somewhere on an unmarked chip.

    No one noticed when Apple introduced the MBPRO with the 802.11.n only to be activated later for $1.99?
    ;-)
  • psychobriggsy - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link

    I really thought that there would be an ATI Imageon or an nVidia GoForce inside the device driving the (extremely smooth and high-end for a mobile) graphics. I guess there isn't, so that ARM CPU is doing a load of work - unless Samsung licensed a mobile core from somebody (Imagination?). Maybe it is one of the other chips...

    The sad thing is that the coverflow on the iPhone looks to be far more smoother than coverflow in iTunes on a Windows PC...
  • Kensei - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link

    It the Apple iPod Video (80 GB) Black supposed to be showing up in the AnandTech Deals area under the article's header?
  • JarredWalton - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link

    The deals basically come from a short text search. I don't think the iPhone shows up in the pricing engine, so Apple iPod gets pulled up instead. As you may or may not have noticed, the AT Deals area doesn't necessarily have links to the product being reviewed. :)
  • Kensei - Sunday, July 1, 2007 - link

    Before I wrote the OP, I thought about it being a new product and not in the pricing engine, but then I noticed that the recently reviewed ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 had nothing in the AT Deals area. I guess there are no other ASRock products in the pricing engine (although I haven't actually looked).

    Anyway, I don't think any of this is a big deal, I just found it all kind of curious.
  • Googer - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link

    I am surprised the iPHONE does not have or support 1394 for on the go video/data transfers. After all, Apple is the biggest proponent of the standard.
  • CrystalBay - Saturday, June 30, 2007 - link

    How much does this phone cost to build ?
  • JAS - Friday, June 29, 2007 - link

    Interesting. You guys are fast. But it's sad to see a perfectly good iPhone put to death.
  • bossman - Thursday, December 27, 2007 - link

    hi yes i have an 8gb iphone and screwed it up i was wondering if anyone who has an iphone would like to sell me the top layer of the pcb board where the battery is connected too thanks renaldo30@aim.com

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