Before the latest model of iPhone even comes out, Apple’s secret testing lab will destroy 10,000 of them using different methods.
The idea is to test the phone’s durability before it gets into the hands of users, simulating how someone will have accidents like dropping their phone or getting water on them.
YouTuber Marques Brownlee visited the site and documented what he saw on his channel.
Once there, he filmed the speciality equipment that is used to “torture” phones with water to make sure they can survive.
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In the video, Brownlee said: “The lowest level of this test is basically a drip ceiling to simulate rain and splashing. So there's no real water pressure here.
“To simulate some water pressure, they have these jets that rotate around the device and spray it with water from all angles, into the speakers, into the earpiece, into the ports, everything. It seems so simple, but it's also pretty cool to see.”
In order to simulate full submersion, the lab has pressurized tanks to determine what would happen to your phone if you dropped it in a deep body of water.
Brownlee added: “Ideally today, if you drop your phone in the toilet or spill water on it, or drop it in a lake, whatever, for as long as it's down there it should survive.
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“We kind of take it for granted, but that's all the seals and the gaskets and all the adhesives and things that go into getting it to pass those tests are what get it to pass the real world tests.”
Other tests see the phones get shaken by a machine to see how it will impact how the devices operate.
During his trip to the testing lab, Brownlee sat down with John Ternus, the head of hardware engineering, who offered his insight.
Ternus revealed that the lab workers have a balancing act of making the phone more durable and easy to repair, saying: “We get these stories of people, literally saying, ‘I dropped my phone in the lake. I couldn't get it for two weeks. I fished it out. It still works’.
“They're super excited but that said, to get the product there, you've got to design a lot of seals, adhesives, and other things to make it perform that way, which makes it a little harder to do that battery repair.
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“You still need to do the battery repair so we need to make sure we have solutions for customers to do that.”
Apple will destroy around 10,000 phones in the process of designing a new iPhone model to make sure it’s a durable and reliable device before it reaches your hands.
Pretty cool!