Enough about the past—let's get these things open!

Per usual, a couple of pesky Pentalobe screws form the first obstacle—but we're armed and ready.

A couple of suction handles and opening picks should get us in with relative ease—we've played this game before.

Heat and patience are on our side—it's not a totally new opening experience, but different teardown engineers here faced varying difficulties in opening. Maybe the adhesive was reformulated for that extra two meters of immersion protection?

Meanwhile, Apple is making authorized repair centers use heat for the first time in their opening procedure. So Apple's own approach to opening iPhones has evolved, that much is certain.