Teardown of iPad 2 WiFi

 Tech Specs:

• 1 GHz Apple A5 dual-core processor
• 512 MB of LPDDR2 RAM
• 16/32/64 GB internal storage capacity
• 9.7" LED-backlit glossy Multi-Touch display with IPS technology(1024 x 768)
• HD (720p) Rear-facing camera + VGA Front-facing camera

•  A thickness comparison. You can definitely see the tapered edge of the iPad 2 when it's side-by-side to the old version.
• Our guess is there are no more clips holding the front panel in place -- now it's glued à la 4th Gen iPod Touch.
• With the iPad's new tapered-edge form factor, big iPod Touch jokes are sure to run wild.
• Apple summarized the changes in 6 short phrases. "Thinner. Lighter. Faster. FaceTime. Smart Covers. 10-hour battery."
• The 10-hour battery life is the same as the original iPad, but it's impressive considering the device is also thinner, lighter and faster.

•  A new model number graces the iPad 2: A1395. Thank you, Apple! That's much nicer of you than the twenty-six billion iterations of MacBook Pros you called model A1286.
• Apparently, the iPad 2 is not as 1337 as the original iPad.
• The sole speaker grate can be found on the bottom-left of the back of the iPad 2. We're not fans of mono, but stereo will have to wait until iPad 3.

•  Without further ado, let's begin tearing this iPad 2 apart!
• Unlike the original iPad, it looks like we need the help of a handy dandy heat gun to remove the front panel.
• With the adhesive loosened after a healthy dose of heat, we go to work on prying up the front panel with a plastic opening tool.

•  And just like that, it's open. No clips, just tons of glue.
• As much as we hated trying to remove the clips in the original iPad, this much adhesive is even more of a pain. Be ready to crack your front panel if you dare open it! We'll be investigating the best way to get inside over the next few weeks.

•  A few screws here and there hold down the LCD screen. Not a problem for the iFixit's 54 piece bit driver kit.

•  Lifting off the LCD exposes the iPad 2's battery; A 3.8V, 25 Watt-hour unit. That's just a hair more than the original iPad's 24.8 Watt-hours, so any improved battery performance can be attributed to software and other hardware improvements.
• Also listed on the battery is a capacity of 6930 mAh, which may appear to contradict the already mentioned 25Wh at 3.8V ((25Wh/3.8V)*1000=6579 mAh), but 3.8V is the listed nominal voltage, not the average voltage. The average voltage of the battery over a full charge/discharge is closer to 3.6V leading to a more accurate calculation ((25Wh/3.6V)*1000=6944 mAh).
• After disconnecting its cable, the display can be removed from the iPad 2.

 

• Disconnecting the touchscreen ribbon cable from its socket on the logic board.
• An Apple device just wouldn't be complete without Multi-Touch. No surprise there.
• Removing the camera/volume control daughterboard connector from the logic board.

 

• Next we disconnect the dock connector ribbon cable from the logic board.
• After disconnecting the dock connector, we disconnect the speaker connector.

•  The logic board comes out without a fuss after removing the Phillips screws securing it to the case.

• After popping off a few EMI shields, we get a good look at the ICs on the logic board. They include:
• Broadcom BCM5973KFBGH Microcontroller used for touchscreen
• Broadcom BCM5974 CKFBGH capacitative touchscreen controller
• This is the same combination as the original iPad - nothing new here!
• Interestingly, the Wi-Fi board is attached to the logic board under one of the EMI shields. It can be easily pried off its socket.

•  The Wi-Fi board; powered by another Broadcom chip, a BCM43291HKUBC. Broadcom has made this Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM tuner combo chip a ubiquitous part for smartphones - lots of design wins.
• This is the same part Apple used in both the first iPad and the iPhone 4.

 

• Notable chips found on the logic board (click here for mega size):
• Apple 1GHz A5 dual-core Processor with a 200MHz bus and 512 MB of Samsung manufactured RAM.
• Toshiba TH58NVG7D2FLA89 16GB NAND Flash
• Apple 343S0542 - this looks like the Dialog Semi power management chip found in last year's iPad - all of those inductors and capacitors surrounding it are a clue.
• Texas Instruments CD3240B0 11AZ4JT G1 touchscreen line driver, working with the Broadcom BCM5973 and BCM5974 chips shown above.
• S6T2MLC N33C50V Power Management IC
• The A5 processor has manufacture dates of late January and mid-February 2011. Production was clearly ramping up through the last minute. It looks like the A5 processor is the APL0498, replacing the A4/APL0398 seen in the iPad 1 and iPhones.
• Apple-branded 338S0940 A0BZ1101 SGP. This looks like the Cirrus audio codec Chipworks found in the Verizon iPhone, but they'll have to get it off the board to make sure.

•  Backside of the logic board.
• That's it. Nothing to see here, move along!

•  Prying up the 3.8V 25 Watt-hour Li-Ion Polymer battery from the back case.
• The iPad 2 uses three massive Li-Ion cells to provide an impressive 10-hours of battery life.

•  Removing a screw that secures the volume control board to the case.

•  Rear-facing camera comes out of its recess.

•  Removing the board containing the volume control and silent/screen rotation lock button.
• On this little board the AGD8 2103 gyroscope rears its pretty little head, next door to the LIS331DLH accelerometer, both by STMicroelectronics.

•  After removing a screw securing the front-facing camera assembly to the case and peeling off a little more adhesive, the assembly can be removed.

•  The front-facing camera assembly includes the camera, headphone jack, and microphone.
• Front-facing camera.
• Microphone.

•  Removing the two screws securing the dock connector to the case.

•  After removing a few screws, the speaker assembly lifts out of the case.
• The speakers are very small, almost as though they were added as an afterthought.

• iPad 2 Repairability Score: 4 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)
• The LCD is really easy to remove once the front panel is gone.
• Only standard Phillips screws were used -- no Pentalobular or Tri-Wing funny-business.
• The front panel is now glued to the rest of the device, greatly increasing the chances of cracking the glass when trying to remove it.
• The LCD has foam sticky tape adhering it to the front panel, increasing chances of it being shattered during disassembly.
• The battery is very securely stuck down to rear case, and you have to remove the logic board to remove it.
• You can't access the front panel's connector until you remove the LCD.

How to Downgrade iOS 4.3.2 to 4.3.1, 4.3, 4.2.1 on iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad 2, iPad, iPod touch

If you upgraded to iOS 4.3.2, and now you want to downgrade back to iOS 4.3.1, iOS 4.3, iOS 4.2.1, simply follow the instructions posted below to downgrade iOS 4.3.2 on iPhone 4, 3GS, iPod touch, iPad 2 and iPad 1 to iOS 4.3.1, iOS 4.3, iOS 4.2.1, 4.1, 4.0.x.

NOTE: This guide will only work if you have SHSH blobs saved for the respective firmware you downgrading to.

Step 1: Download the required old ipsw firmware files.

Step 2: Put your device into DFU mode (not recovery mode).

• Connect your iOS device to your computer.
• Turn it off.
• Start iTunes.
• Hold Power and Home buttons together for 10 seconds or so.
• Release Power button but keep holding the Home button until your computer recognizes a new USB device.
• iTunes will now recognize your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Note: Your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch screen at this time should be blank (black in color), if not, then you are most likely in Recovery Mode, not DFU mode.

Step 3: Now trick iTunes into thinking that it is watching Apple servers, while in real, we are going to change the address to Saurik’s server. To do this:

• Navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\ and locate “hosts” file.

Mac OS X users can get to “/etc/” directory by going through “Go –> Go to Folder” from Finder.

• Open this “hosts” file in Notepad (for Windows) or TextEdit (for Mac OS X) and add this

74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com

line as shown in the screenshot below:

Now simply save this file and you are good to go!

NOTE for Windows 7 and Vista: Start “Notepad” with Administrator privileges by right clicking on “Notepad” app, and click on “Run as Administrator“ option.

NOTE for Mac OS X: Make sure you have full read and write access on your account when you are saving the host file. If it still throws permission error, simply copy the host file to desktop, make the required changes, and then replace it with the original file in “/etc/” directory.

Step 4: Start iTunes, click on your iOS device icon from the sidebar in iTunes. Now press and hold left “alt” (option) button on Mac, or Left “Shift” button if you are on Windows on the keyboard and then click on “Restore” (Not “Update” or “Check for Update”) button in the iTunes and then release this button.

This will make iTunes prompt you to select the location for your iOS 4.3.1, iOS 4.3, iOS 4.2.1 or 4.1 firmware file. Select the desired ipsw file and click on “Open” to restore your iOS device.

Now sit back and enjoy as iTunes does the rest for you. This will involve a series of automated steps. Be patient at this stage and don’t do anything silly. Just wait while iTunes installs the requested firmware on your iOS device. Your device screen at this point will be showing a progress bar indicating installation progress. Once done, it will reboot automatically.

Now in some cases while restoring to iOS 4.3.1, iOS 4.3, iOS 4.2.1 or 4.1, iTunes might throw 1013 error at you as shown in the screenshot below. This is normal, just ignore this error as the firmware has already been successfully installed on the device.

Incase of the above mentioned error, your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch will be stuck in Recovery Mode, showing that “Connect to iTunes” screen.

To exit your device from Recovery Mode, download this program called TinyUmbrella (Windows/Mac), and Fix Recovery (Windows/Mac). Run it and the click on “Exit Recovery” button. Your device will now restart normally.

That’s it, you should now be able to jailbreak and unlock your device on the older iOS 4.3.1, iOS 4.2.1 or iOS 4.1 firmware.

Last but not the least, you must now remove 74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com line from the host file so that you are prompted for future updates from Apple via iTunes.

How to Jailbreak iPhone 4.3.2 on Windows and Mac Using Redsn0w 0.9.6

If you don’t care about baseband upgrade, the current latest version of Redsn0w 0.9.6 can also jailbreak iOS 4.3.2 for both Windows and Mac users on iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad, and iPod touch 4G/3G.

But just like the PwnageTool jailbreak, Redsn0w 0.9.6 too is limited to tethered boot only, which means that you will have to boot your iOS device in tethered state on every reboot.

Cydia running on iOS 4.3.2, iPhone 4 (GSM)

NOTE: Those of you who rely on a carrier unlock MUST STAY AWAY from Redsn0w and stock iOS 4.3.2 firmware. Also, the patches for 4.3.2 are said to be broken on this version of Redsn0w. PwnageTool 4.3 with 4.3.2 PwnageTool bundles is the recommended way to go

How to jailbreak iOS 4.3.2 using Redsn0w on Windows and Mac:

Step 1: Download iOS 4.3.2 and iOS 4.3.1 (required by Redsn0w 0.9.6 for 4.3.2 jailbreak) for your version of iOS device.

Step 2: Update/Restore to iOS 4.3.2 firmware using the IPSW file you just downloaded via iTunes 10.2.1.

Step 3: Start Redsn0w and point it to the official iOS 4.3.1 firmware file (NOT iOS 4.3.2 file).

Step 4: Now select “Install Cydia” and click “Next”. Optionally (if available), you can also select any other option you like.

Step 5: Now make sure your device is both OFF and PLUGGED IN to the computer before you click “Next”.

At this stage you will be presented with a screen where you will be guided on how to enter DFU mode. Quickly hold “Power” button and then while holding the “Power” button, you will now have to hold “Home” button too. Now after few seconds release “Power” button but keep holding “Home” button until installation begins.

Step 6: Sit back and enjoy while Redsn0w does the rest for you. Once done, your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch will restart automatically and you will find it fully jailbroken on the latest iOS 4.3.2 firmware.

Step 7: Now from here onwards, whenever you want to do anything related to jailbreak like SSHing into your device, or running Cydia, you must first run your device in the so called “jailbroken state” on every reboot by using “Just boot tethered right now” option in Redsn0w.

Download iOS 4.3.1 for iPhone 4, 3GS, 3G, iPad, iPod touch 
Download iOS 4.3.2 for iPhone 4, 3GS, 3G, iPad, iPod touch 
Download Redsn0w 0.9.6rc12 for Windows 
Download Redsn0w 0.9.6rc12 for Mac 
Download iTunes 10.2.1 for Windows or Mac