Interface News Reporter | Wu Yangyu
As the iPhone 16 series officially goes on sale, Apple has unveiled more details about its Shanghai Application Research Laboratory for the first time.
This is a laboratory dedicated to providing support for the reliability, quality, and material analysis of its products, which is referred to as the "secret weapon" by Ge Yue, the Managing Director of Apple Greater China. What kind of task it is performing and what role it plays in the iPhone 16 series were previously unknown.
In March of this year, Apple announced an expansion of its investment in applied research laboratories in China, including the expansion of its Shanghai laboratory and the addition of a new Shenzhen laboratory.
Among them, the Shanghai Applied Research Laboratory is Apple's largest laboratory of its kind outside the United States, with a failure analysis laboratory, reliability laboratory, product safety laboratory, product design laboratory, and environmental science laboratory, supporting relevant testing and analysis of all product lines.
Around the testing stage, there are random drop testing machines, vibration testing platforms, and waterproof testing equipment. The random drop testing machine can generate multiple random drop angles within a specified range in advance, edit the drop order of these angles, and then perform random drop experiments using a robotic arm. The common real-world environment is simulated using three types of material surfaces: wooden board, granite board, and asphalt board. All drop tests are controllable and reproducible, so it is possible to accurately analyze the failure phenomenon of a certain product.
The main task of the vibration test bench is to test the possible phenomena of screw loosening, solder joint fracture, sealing or adhesive weakening under random vibration, land or air transportation vibration conditions. Its vibration intensity can reach 3G acceleration. The waterproof testing equipment is used to test the sealing performance of the product when it comes into contact with water, covering all waterproof levels from IPX1 to IPX8. The IPX8 testing equipment simulates the state of the sample in water depths of 2 meters, 4 meters, and 6 meters for 30 minutes by applying pressure.
Simply put, the purpose of these laboratories is to ensure that the products are reliable and durable enough. Kaiann Drance, Vice President of iPhone Product Marketing, told Interface News reporters that this can be judged from aspects such as iPhone's value retention, extended product lifespan, and reduced repair rates.
In terms of the development and mass production process of iPhone 16, Kaiann Drance stated that Apple usually improves the durability of its products in various aspects every year, such as the ceramic crystal panel used in the iPhone 16 series and the selection of Grade 5 titanium metal with better scratch resistance and durability for the Pro series, instead of ordinary titanium metal.
This year, the iPhone 16 has added a camera control button, which has also brought new water resistance challenges to the product. The application research laboratory needs to continuously provide feedback and verification through various relevant tests to ensure that the implementation of this new feature will not have any impact on the stability of the product.
Kaiann also mentioned that the screen size of the iPhone 16 Pro series has become larger, which has an impact on the phone's center of gravity and weight. In this case, the laboratory needs to ensure that the product meets various standards during random drop testing.
In addition, whether it is the addition of sensors to the lens or changes in battery size, the iPhone 16 series must pass relevant vibration tests and random drop tests. That is to say, the Applied Research Laboratory is responsible for the final effect of every product design change from research and development to mass production implementation.
But the existence of this laboratory is not only to ensure quality, but also to ensure a more efficient feedback mechanism between research and development and mass production.
Ge Yue said that the Applied Research Laboratory has basically participated in the most complex engineering problems of all product lines. For example, when a new module arrives from upstream, the laboratory first needs to complete quality inspection before assembly, and then encounters many reliability issues during the assembly process. During this period, Apple's designers and engineers worldwide may participate in discussing solutions to ensure product implementation in terms of efficiency and results.
After the whole machine product enters the mass production stage, in order to continuously improve production capacity, new adjustments may be made to the product, and the application laboratory is also responsible for this.
Currently, Apple has invested over 1 billion yuan in its application research laboratory in China. Ge Yue emphasized that the reason for investing in applied research laboratories in China is because China is a very important production and manufacturing base for Apple, accounting for 98% of Apple's global supply chain expenditure. Among the 187 suppliers, 157 have factories in China producing related products.
Apple believes that the application research laboratory located adjacent to the supplier's production and assembly base can timely share professional knowledge in the production process with suppliers, achieve real-time adjustments, and help suppliers improve efficiency and save time.
At this point, Apple has also implemented certain measures to address research and development challenges. For example, the company collaborates with suppliers to establish internal laboratories within the factory in order to promptly solve basic problems, while most difficult problems are still fed back to application research laboratories in various regions for more concentrated talent and equipment resources to solve.
The iPhone once led the high-end mobile phone market in a fragmented manner, but this leading position has been challenged to some extent due to the joint pursuit of global mobile phone manufacturers. In the competitive trend of high-end models such as imaging and AI capabilities constantly converging and even overlapping, Apple seems to intentionally redirect consumers' attention back to the reliability and durability of the product itself. This helps to enhance the value of hardware products such as iPhone in the increasingly cost-effective consumer sentiment.
Previously, analyst Guo Mingchi from Tianfeng International stated that the estimated pre order sales of iPhone 16 series in the first weekend were about 37 million units, a year-on-year decrease of about 12.7% compared to the first weekend sales of iPhone 15 series last year. The key reason for the reduction is that the iPhone 16 Pro series was lower than expected, and Apple Intelligence, which was considered the biggest selling point by the outside world, could not be launched together with the iPhone 16. Meanwhile, the fierce competition in the Chinese market has also dispersed users' demand for iPhones.
With the official release of the iPhone 16 series, the reliability and durability of the product will also be verified through practical data.