First iPhone 14 Pro Max teardown reveals internal redesigns

A first teardown of the new iPhone 14 Pro Max shows a redesigned Face ID sensor, plus larger camera system, and a new heat sink.

The first deliveries of the iPhone 14 range are not due until Friday, September 16, but one YouTuber has already received an iPhone 14 Pro Max — and taken it apart.

PBKreviews shared the video, which shows the teardown in detail, and then quickly adds the successful reassembly.

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Perhaps the most visible component change is the redesign that sees the proximity sensor moved beneath the screen. The Face ID system, the TrueDepth camera, have also been slightly repositioned to make the new pill-shaped cutout be lower down than the old notch.

There is also a metal plate, including graphite pads, that are how the new iPhone range dissipates heat. The full teardown also shows the new, larger camera system, and gives a glimpse at the components behind the new satellite connectivity module.

8 Comments

cg27 221 comments · 18 Years

About 2 years ago

Excellent video, which serves to remind that the iPhone 15 design is likely already complete to allow for initial sourcing, testing, FCC approvals, etc.

Anyone keep track of how many screws there are?

tht 5594 comments · 23 Years

About 2 years ago

After watching the video, I can’t believe anyone other than enthusiasts with money and time to burn and repair techs wanting to open up an iPhone and repairing it.

Just looking at the internals of this iPhone makes me think a device such as an iPhone Pro or a Galaxy S22 or Huawei whatever flagship is a rather capital intensive effort, requiring the resources of thousands to tens of thousands of people. So, only really a few companies can do this.

A startup can build a nice phone, but it is standing on the shoulders of these big companies and their supply chains. It truly a global enterprise.

And what you see in the video is only the proverbial tip of the spear. The logic chips and modem chips in of themselves are global enterprises themselves and basically only one or two companies on the planet are capable of doing it and doing it with its performance. Same with the display and other number of components.

That’s the easy part. The software is the hard part. It’s not just happenstance that there are only 2 phone operating systems. There’s a whole set of developer network effects that limit operating systems to 1 or 2 per market, but theoretically modern meta-platforms and tools have ameliorated that. More then ever, this should enable more operating systems in the market.

Getting a novel operating system on to the market now seems impossible. Android built off of Linux and Java. iOS built off of Mac OS X and Obj-C. Those were decades old platforms before they made it on to phones. There’s nothing on the horizon slated to replace the core operating systems. New frameworks, but kernels and userland? No.

radarthekat 3902 comments · 12 Years

About 2 years ago

Impressive tear down and reassembly. He made it look doable, though certainly not easy.

How many more phone iterations before human fingers will be too bulky to get in there and manipulate the individual components out of and back into place? Or maybe the trend will remain more components in each little package, with the packages still able to be manipulated by human hands. An engineering feat, for sure, to plan the positioning of everything in order to fit it all and fully utilize the available space.

michelb76 692 comments · 8 Years

About 2 years ago

I'm amazed at how much technological advances each component has made in the past decade. So much capabilities in such a small space.