Ifixit Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

iFixit offers transparent rear panels for iPhone 4S

by Chris Rawson (Nov 29th, 2011)

iFixit released transparent rear panels for the iPhone 4 several months ago, which put the surprisingly attractive innards of Apple's smartphone on display. Apple must have tweaked the internals of the iPhone 4S just barely enough for that panel to be incompatible, because iFixit has now released ...

iPhone 4S has a Siri-specific proximity sensor

by Chris Rawson (Nov 9th, 2011)

During iFixit's teardown of the iPhone 4S, the site came across a component that it couldn't immediately identify. After subsequent testing, iFixit has determined that the iPhone 4S has an infrared LED that acts as a secondary proximity sensor, and its functions appear to be tied directly to ...

Daily Update for October 13, 2011

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Oct 13th, 2011)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player ...

iFixit tears down an iPhone 4S

by Kelly Hodgkins (Oct 13th, 2011)

iFixit published an early teardown analysis of the iPhone 4S. This initial report suggests the iPhone 4S closely resembles the iPhone 4 on the outside and the inside. The form factor is the same, the pentalobe screws are the same, and even the logic board looks similar to the CDMA ...

iPhone 4S rumored to offer 512MB RAM instead of 1GB

by Erica Sadun (Oct 10th, 2011)

Despite early rumors to the contrary, TUAW is reading reports from around the Internet that the new iPhone 4S will use 512MB of RAM memory, not the full 1GB many had hoped for. In terms of specs, this falls right in line with the iPad 2's 512MB of LPDDR2 RAM, per that device's iFixit ...

iFixit tears down Apple's Thunderbolt display

by Mike Schramm (Sep 28th, 2011)

iFixit has gone all destructo on Apple's new Thunderbolt display, and the gory details are now available over on their site. They ripped the beautiful monitor apart so you didn't have to, and inside they found the same display seen in the iMac Intel 27" from a couple of years ago, as well as a ...

Intensive surgery on an old MacBook Pro yields huge performance gains (Updated)

by Chris Rawson (Aug 19th, 2011)

Installing OS X Lion on a 3 1/2-year old MacBook Pro made it clearer than ever just how slow my old machine had become. Beachballs left and right, UI lag, incredibly long reboot times, dismal application load times... as someone accustomed to the "instant on" feel of an iPad or iPhone, I was ...

iFixit introduces Dozuki, to provide and share crowdsourced service and repair manuals

by Mike Schramm (Aug 18th, 2011)

iFixit is, of course, the great upgrade and repair community with all kinds of step-by-step instructions for Macs, iPods, iPhones, and almost any other devices you happen to have, Apple or otherwise. Now, the company has introduced a new release called Dozuki, which is designed to make sharing ...

Daily Update for August 16, 2011

by Steven Sande (Aug 16th, 2011)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top stories of the day in three to five minutes, which is perfect for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline ...

iFixit releases kit for a second hard drive in the Mac mini

by Mike Schramm (Aug 16th, 2011)

I just went fiddling around in my old school Mac mini the other day. I put some extra memory in, sneaking inside that tiny extra bit of space to pull out the old sticks and punch in the new ones. But the newer Mac mini is even smaller than mine, which makes it all the more impressive that ...

iPhone 4 noise cancellation chip demoed with comparison video

by Matt Tinsley (Jul 29th, 2011)

Last summer, when the folks at iFixit first did a tear down of the iPhone 4, one of the interesting tidbits they revealed was that the iPhone 4 has two mics (which is more than most other cell phones), and that it has a white-labelled (manufacturers details removed upon request from Apple) ...

2011 Mac mini gets the iFixit teardown treatment

by Steven Sande (Jul 22nd, 2011)

I love the iFixit site. They jump in where wimps like myself fear to tread, and give us the courage (and instructions) to pop open our Macs and see what's inside the Apple-logoed aluminum box. Yesterday we gave you the iFixit details of the new MacBook Air models, and now the site has lovingly ...

New MacBook Air SSDs are replaceable

by Steven Sande (Jul 21st, 2011)

No sooner had the new MacBook Air models shown up in Apple Stores than the iFixit team grabbed one for dissection. The site always does a teardown of the latest in Apple technology for the benefit of repair technicians and for hobbyists who love to see what's inside their Macs. The 2011 13" ...

Teardown reveals why Thunderbolt cable costs $50

by Chris Rawson (Jun 30th, 2011)

When Apple debuted its Thunderbolt cable, I imagine a lot of people said the same thing I did: "Fifty bucks? For a cable?!" However, iFixit did a teardown on Apple's Thunderbolt cable and found that it's not just a length of copper wire with connectors at either end. It turns out the ...

iFixit tears down the latest generation iMac to reveal LG display, removable GPU

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 4th, 2011)

iFixit got its hands on the newly announced 21.5-inch iMac and tore the all-in-one down to its screws and casing. The teardown analysis reveals the latest iMac has the same LG-manufactured LED display used in the previous generation iMac and a Thunderbolt port similar to the port found on the ...