iPhone X teardown reveals TrueDepth camera system, stacked logic board with 3GB RAM, L-shaped dual-cell 2,716mAh battery, and Qi-based inductive charging coil
Tools Featured in this Teardown — Introduction — Ten years ago, Apple introduced the very first iPhone, and changed the world.
Context & Ripple Effects
The teardown trail leading up to this is consistent: last year's iPhone 7 Plus teardown already showed Apple reallocating the headphone jack's space to a bigger Taptic Engine and holding RAM at 3GB. The iPhone X is the next data point in that series — iFixit finds the notch forcing an L-shaped dual-cell 2,716mAh battery, a stacked logic board, the new TrueDepth camera assembly, and a Qi-based charging coil.
What makes this one matter is confirmation a year later: the iPhone XS teardown shows the notched L-shaped battery carried forward, plus an extended logic board with an Apple-designed power management chip. The X's unusual internals weren't a one-off; they became the template.
First-order effects
- Repair shops and iFixit's audience learn immediately that the X's geometry — dual-cell L-shaped battery, stacked board, TrueDepth cluster — makes component-level repair harder than on the flat-board iPhones before it.
- Accessory makers get hardware confirmation the X charges over the Qi standard, defining the spec third-party wireless chargers must meet.
Second-order effects
- Apple's component suppliers shift to irregular-shaped parts: L-shaped batteries and stacked logic boards raise assembly complexity and lock the bill of materials tighter to Apple's industrial design than interchangeable flat modules did.
- The Qi confirmation pulls the broader Android accessory ecosystem toward a single wireless-charging standard, since chargers built for the X serve every Qi phone.
Third-order effects
- If the XS follow-up is the guide, Apple has institutionalized trading repairability for spatial density — notched batteries and stacked boards as standing design doctrine rather than a notch-era workaround.
- Annual teardowns harden into the industry's de facto disclosure mechanism for Apple's internal choices, since Apple publishes no schematics; iFixit's findings effectively set the public record on serviceability.
The trend: Flagship smartphone internals are being reshaped around sensor arrays and dense packaging at a deliberate cost to repairability, with each year's teardown documenting how far Apple pushes the trade.