Regardless of a smooth design, Apple’s merchandise boast spectacular sturdiness. And now, for the primary time ever, the corporate supplied a glance into certainly one of its 200 sturdiness labs, the place it rigorously assessments its merchandise.
Apple conducts a number of forms of testing on its gadgets, together with environmental, liquid, drop, and vibration.
Rigorous testing entails various excessive situations
Apple hardly ever ever supplies an inside look into its testing labs to the media. In late 2023, it gave the press a sneak peek into its Apple silicon lab. This time round, the corporate supplied the Counterpoint Analysis staff with a tour of its sturdiness lab.
As a part of its environmental testing, Apple creates the “worst-case” eventualities in its labs for its gadgets. These assessments cowl a various vary of maximum situations, retaining in thoughts the vast availability of Apple merchandise.
This consists of “salt publicity assessments working for so long as 100 hours, excessive gentle depth publicity, and publicity to mud from the Arizona desert to research what occurs when tremendous sand particles enter the iPhone’s audio system or the charging port.” For the AirPods, Apple even creates synthetic sweat and earwax for testing.
iPhones and Apple Watch carry an IP68 score, making them mud and waterproof. Apple has a particular IPX chamber to simulate difficult rain and water situations for testing mud and water ingress safety. As a part of this, the corporate topics its gadgets to high-pressure water from a distance and even places them in a pressurized tank to simulate depth.
Moreover, the gadgets are additionally uncovered to on a regular basis liquid gadgets, like sunscreens, juices, and sodas.
Apple assessments a minimum of 10,000 iPhones earlier than launch
For drop testing and to simulate various eventualities, Apple has developed a specialised robotic. It drops gadgets from completely different angles and on completely different surfaces — like granite, asphalt, and particle boards — to evaluate the influence of every fall. Plus, Apple engineers analyze each drop via a particular app.
Lastly, there’s a vibration chamber, the place Apple places its gadgets via completely different vibrating frequencies to evaluate their influence. A lot of them simulate a real-world situation, like being on a bike, to make sure there’s no undesirable harm. The corporate even places the Imaginative and prescient Professional via the vibration assessments.
Impressively, the report highlights that Apple assessments its merchandise at scale, placing a minimum of 10,000 iPhones via these chambers earlier than launch.