iFixit Gives Us a Peek Inside iPhone XR With New Teardown

Apple's new lower-cost flagship smartphone, the iPhone XR, launched today, and iFixit picked up one of the new devices to take it apart for one of the site's traditional teardowns that are designed to give us a peek inside Apple hardware.

An x-ray provided by Creative Electron offers a look inside the fully assembled iPhone, showing where each component is located.

iphonexrxray
Opening up the iPhone XR is similar to opening up the iPhone X, with Apple using its standard pentalobe screws that can be bypassed with iFixit tools. iFixit says that surprisingly, the screws don't match the color of the iPhone XR, and compared to the iPhone XS, the SIM slot is lower.

In fact, the SIM tray in the iPhone XR is modular, which is a first for an iPhone. iFixit says that this will allow for faster swapping of a dead SIM reader and a reduction in cost when replacing the logic board.

iFixit says that it's not entirely clear where the iPhone XS got its extra IP-68 water resistance from, given the fact that opening the XR and the XS is similar.

iphonexrtakenapart
The internals of the iPhone XR look like a cross between an iPhone 8 and an iPhone X, according to iFixit, with a rectangular battery and a rectangular logic board.

The iPhone XR has an 11.16 Wh battery, larger than the 10.13 Wh battery in the iPhone XS, but smaller than the 12.08 Wh battery in the iPhone XS Max. Despite the smaller battery, the iPhone XR gets the best battery life out of Apple's three new iPhones. There's an included Taptic Engine, which provides the Haptic Touch feedback that's available in place of 3D Touch, and a single-lens rear camera module.

The TrueDepth camera system is, unsurprisingly, identical to the TrueDepth camera system in the iPhone X and XS.

The XR is equipped with an LCD that's 0.3 inches larger across than the AMOLED display in the iPhone XS, and it's also thicker and heavier because it requires a backlight. According to iFixit, the larger display is the reason why the Lightning connector is off-axis.

Like the iPhone XS and XS Max, the iPhone XR features a copper wireless charging coil, which should allow for faster wireless charging speeds due to less heat produced.

iphonexrcomponentsifixit
iFixit gave the iPhone XR an overall repairability score of six. A broken display can easily be replaced with minimal hardware removal, says the site, but Pentalobe screws and waterproofing complicate things.

Tag: iFixit
Related Forum: iPhone

Popular Stories

iOS 26 Feature

iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps. More features and changes will follow in future ...
ios 26 1 liquid glass opaque

iOS 26.1 Beta 4 Lets Users Control Liquid Glass Transparency with New Toggle

Monday October 20, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass. The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted ...
iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

New iPad Pro Has Six Key Upgrades Beyond M5 Chip

Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more. With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
iPhone Siri Glow

Some Apple Employees Have 'Concerns' About iOS 26.4's Revamped Siri

Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings. iOS 26.4 will...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
maxresdefault

Here's How the iOS 26.1 Transparency Toggle Changes Liquid Glass

Monday October 20, 2025 1:55 pm PDT by
With the fourth beta of iOS 26.1, Apple added a toggle that makes Liquid Glass more opaque and reduces transparency. We tested the beta to see where the toggle works and what it looks like. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. If you have the latest iOS 26.1 beta, you can go to Settings > Display and Brightness to get to the new option. Tap on Liquid Glass, then...
m4 macbook air blue

M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development

Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year. Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...

Top Rated Comments

twocents Avatar
91 months ago
What comes to mind when I see this was the quote by Steve Jobs along the lines of how the inside of Apple products should look better than the outside that of the competitors. Happy to see that’s still true
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
44267547 Avatar
91 months ago
iPhones are so clean on the inside. The design is incredible.
Indeed. In retrospect, if you look at the first iPhone back in 2007, look how the sloppy assembled internals compare to how neat and organized everything is in today’s current iPhone internals:



Attachment Image
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Baymowe335 Avatar
91 months ago
iPhones are so clean on the inside. The design is incredible.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
pweicks Avatar
91 months ago
3D Touch is dead. Get over it bruh.
No it’s not.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Pelea Avatar
91 months ago
Ah good old apple. Making 2 phones with the exact same water resistance and marking one As ip67 just for $$
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
lec0rsaire Avatar
91 months ago
That’s a pretty damn big battery. As dies keep shrinking, the battery will eventually make 95% of the total volume of the phone.
[doublepost=1540586410][/doublepost]
What comes to mind when I see this was the quote by Steve Jobs along the lines of how the inside of Apple products should look better than the outside that of the competitors. Happy to see that’s still true
Even if 90% of folks will never see the guts themselves. This is the approach that manufacturers of luxury Swiss watches use as well with the movements as well as exotic car manufacturers with their engines.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)