New iPhone 15 teardown gets into microscopic detail

A brand-new teardown of the iPhone 15 uses a microscope to highlight what's tucked away beneath the shell of Apple's flagship smartphone.

Every year, iFixit does teardowns of Apple's yearly iPhone releases. This year is a little different, thanks to a partnership with Evident Scientific. The teardown now includes footage from a DSX1000 microscope, allowing viewers to get an up close and personal look at the inside of the iPhone 15.

As iFixit notes, the inside of the iPhone 15 doesn't look too dissimilar from the inside of an iPhone 14.

The video notes that the microphone on the base iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus allegedly is now reparable in-store. However, that does not seem to be the case for the iPhone 15 Pro lineup.

When removing the battery, they discover it features a new message that reads "Warning: Trained Technician Serviceable only."

When it comes time to disassemble the camera module, they show off the 48-megapixel image sensor. They note that even though the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro both have a 48-megapixel camera, the quad-pixel buckets in the base iPhone 15 model are 22% smaller. This results in worse performance in low-light settings.

The logic board seems to be easier to repair this year. Often, the logic board must be accessed by removing the screen, but on the iPhone 15, the brackets that hold the board are also accessible from the back.

They wrap up the video by giving the iPhone 15 a preliminary 4 out of 10 reparability score. This is largely due to Apple's tendency to pair parts with software components, limiting which parts can be used to make repairs.