Apple places its merchandise by lots of exams in the course of the improvement course of, meant to make sure they’ve a protracted and dependable life even in difficult situations. The corporate exams no less than 10,000 iPhones previous to launch in an try to cowl all of the bases.
It’s not typically the iPhone maker lets outsiders into its labs, however Apple invited a few of these attending WWDC 2025 to go to one to see for themselves the situations it expects its devices to outlive …
To be clear, it’s not the primary time Apple has let outsiders have a look round one in all its sturdiness testing labs. MKBHD final yr acquired his personal tour, and shared some movies from that. However Counterpoint has this yr supplied a extra detailed description of what these exams contain.
They fall into 4 classes:
- Environmental
- Water
- Affect
- Vibration
Environmental
These exams are meant to duplicate the local weather challenges confronted by gadgets that are utilized in 175 nations all over the world.
We witnessed salt publicity exams operating for so long as 100 hours, excessive mild depth publicity, and publicity to mud from the Arizona desert to investigate what occurs when superb sand particles enter the iPhone’s audio system or the charging port. Some exams within the case of AirPods contain producing synthetic variations of sweat and earwax. These exams are additional tweaked to consider a few of the gadget utilization knowledge Apple has entry to, which highlights the labs’ advanced efforts to align with altering environments.
Water
Safety in opposition to water and dirt is measured by IP scores, requirements set by the electronics trade with particular standards for every.
For instance, the iPhone 16 Professional has an IP68 score, the best out there. This implies it should present no ingress of mud in any respect in any of the exams, and should proceed working usually after being submerged in water to a depth of six metres for one hour.
Apple’s water exams begin gently then ramp up.
The IPX chamber check begins with a primary drip ceiling check to simulate rain and primary water ingress. That is adopted by simulated water stress by jets round all corners of the product. As soon as the product passes this check, it turns into eligible for the IPX5 score.
Then comes the high-pressure water splashing at a distance, which provides the product IPX6 score, and at last, a pressurized tank simulating water depths provides the product IPX7 and IPX8 scores on its profitable submersion as much as one meter and 6 meters, respectively.
The IP scores relate solely to mud and water, however Apple’s exams additionally embody different commonly-encountered liquid hazards, like sodas, juices, sunscreen cream, and fragrance.
Drop exams
YouTubers may perform a small variety of unscientific drop exams for enjoyable and views, however dropping your iPhone in the actual world is a really totally different matter. Each drop is totally different, relying on the peak, the fabric it lands on, and the exact angle of affect.
Apple goals to duplicate this huge number of drop hazards throughout its testing.
To get nearer to the real-life situations, Apple has developed a robotic that drops gadgets at totally different angles and even on totally different surfaces, together with particle, granite and asphalt boards. Furthermore, every drop is analyzed by an app that’s accessed by Apple engineers.
Vibration
Whereas a much less apparent hazard, an iPhone wants to have the ability to survive issues like sitting within the pannier of a bike travelling over tough floor. Once more, the variety of variables concerned is big, so Apple’s exams intention to show gadgets to a variety of frequencies.
These frequencies are simulated by a vibration desk to create totally different shaking environments and impacts {that a} product might even see throughout transit or different real-world situations, together with for various producers of bikes. The vibration desk had merchandise tied on high of it for an prolonged time period and was subjected to totally different frequencies.
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