Beyond all the usual teardown detail, there are two things of note worth a look in the iFixit article:
– In Step 6, you’ll see a modular SIM card reader, much easier to replace and not requiring a logic board swap. Small thing, but interesting.
– Much more interesting to me, take a look at the image in Step 3. There are two major differences between the iPhone XS, on the top, and the iPhone XR, on the bottom. One difference is obvious: The XR has no antenna band. But can you spot the other difference? It’s quite subtle.
Rather than spoil it here, I’ll post about it in a few minutes, when I get to the Daring Fireball iPhone XR review roundup.
Speaker holes?
“But can you spot the other difference?”
Alignment of speaker holes, screws, and Lightning port. Much more subtle than the speaker holes.
I’ve seen a number of people point this out on Twitter (the XR’s lightning port is one or two mm off-center from the screws). But I’ve never seen anyone explain why it matters.
It doesn’t.