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Apple's durability tests are far more than a YouTuber can handle

Apple will drop test thousands of these iPhones (Source: MKBHD)

Apple explained how to actually drop test iPhones and iPads — and are carried out thousands of times in the company's durability testing laboratories.

Youtubers will buy one Apple device and break it into pieces, turning it into pathetic clickbait. However, they always justify this by saying that these devices need to be tested — and now Apple has politely asked them to hold their beer.

Marques Brownlee, MKBHD — who does not break the devices that his YouTube channel covers — was shown in Apple's iPhone testing labs. Every test a YouTuber has ever run on their device was done by Apple first.

In a Twitter thread, MKBHD reveals that Apple labs “have a whole room of water and penetration testing machines.” These range from simulating light rain to “a high-pressure stream from a fire hose.”

There is also a drop test, so beloved by YouTubers. With the exception of Apple, industrial robots perform hundreds of falls, and each fall is monitored in slow motion.

Add to that a shake test that can simulate an iPhone being in the pocket of someone on a motorcycle, and overall Apple is testing to a degree unimaginable to any single YouTuber. Then, if someone manages to pass Apple's own testing, they will also have to buy more than 10,000 devices.

That's how many new iPhone models will undergo absurd levels of durability testing. This iPhone retails for at least half a million dollars — if you chose the cheapest iPhone SE.

Apple's head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, says the company focuses on durability issues after a device ships, but it all helps improve internal testing.

“We've figured out when we're going to pull units off the battlefield, and we're going to find things and figure out how we can build a test that maybe represents this new use case that somebody's doing in the field.” “,” Ternus said, “and then it will become part of our test suite.

Ternus also argued that durability is the best option for the customer and the planet, even if it means making the devices harder to repair.” /p>

“It’s objectively better for the customer to have that reliability,” he said, “and ultimately it’s better for the planet because the failure rate has just dropped since we got to this point.” , it dropped dramatically.”

“So you can actually do the math and figure out that there’s a threshold where if I can make it last that long,” Ternus continued, “then it’s better to have it.” It’s a little harder to repair because it’s going to come out ahead.”

This is a controversial issue, at least according to right-to-repair advocates like iFixit. This firm disassembles one of most Apple devices to evaluate its long-term repairability.

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