Visual history of the iPhone's guts


Bloomberg and iFlixit collaborated on a cool site documenting the significant components of all the major new iPhones. The site promises to include minor versions such as the iPhone S and future devices such as the soon-to-be-released iPhone X. Each entry offers an overview of changes, noteworthy component changes and estimated component costs. Also offered is the not very relevant build cost adding up estimated component costs.

The story of the device's evolution is readily available to anyone willing to crack an old phone open and look at what's inside. To understand this, we partnered with iFixit, the website known for publishing detailed "teardowns" of each phone, and IHS Markit, which produces estimates of the cost of electronics components. Then, with an EBay account and a little help from Sunny Lin, the founder of Simple Mac, an iPhone repair shop in New York, we got our hands on each iPhone model and opened them up. Here are the results.