Sony has some new unofficial competition when it comes to water-resistant smartphones. Apple isn’t touting the feature, but the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus appear to protect against water immersion. Zach Straley has posted a YouTube video demonstrating the phones" capabilities by dunking the two handsets in bowls of water for an hour, to no detrimental effect.
Apple appears to have taken a minimalist engineering approach to protect against water intrusion, compared with previous efforts by rivals. Instead of aggressively sealing the outer case and holes such as headphone jacks and speaker grills, Apple is providing protection against key internal elements that might cause catastrophic failure if soaked by water.
According to iFixit’s teardown, detailed in an interview with Wired, the key protection is a thin material that covers the main logic board. The black layer feels spongy and appears to provide a tight seal around the area. Apple has also added a light gasket between the back housing and the front LCD panel. Although this seems to protect against some exterior intrusion, there is still some water that leaks inside the phone, as 9to5Mac reported earlier by posting a video by iFixYouri.
Head over to Wired to see lots of detailed images showing the protective guts of the new iPhone.