> We are hearing reports that Apple is continuing their hostile path of pairing parts to the phone, requiring activation of the back glass after installation. You really shouldn’t need Apple’s permission to install a sheet of glass on a phone that you already own. Using software to prevent the use of aftermarket parts gets a big thumbs down from us. These locks are frustrating and ultimately futile—Apple simply can’t control all the repairs that happen with their products, no matter how hard they try.

Uh, look at that wonky Qualcomm SDR735 chip.

Actually looking at it a bit closer it seems like the board was destroyed during disassembly?

Hugh Jeffreys made a video interchanging parts on two brand new iphone's and it disabled a lot of things including auto-brightness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2WhU77ihw8

There’s speculation that offering the kits is an attempt to head off right-to-repair legislation. But seeing this redesign, I wonder to what degree the repair program is incentivizing repairability within apple’s corporate structure. Now that “profit/loss per self service repair” is tracked in a spreadsheet - does repairability matter more?

Anyways - it’s great to see some improvement here, for whatever motivation.

On the other hand, this makes stealing an iPhone more and more pointless, as more and more parts cannot be parted out and sold. After activation lock was added, thieves started parting out screens and batteries to sell them and get at least some value out of an otherwise useless stolen iPhone. Want to see how useless an activation locked iPhone is? Check eBay. I assume that for iP14+ it'll be even less. I welcome this move.

(all opinions my own)

I also think that makers should have the freedom to design computers whose software tightly integrate with the hardware. Repairing a broken part with a third-party is exactly the opposite of tight integration. If people didn’t want tight integration, then products that are built specifically for tight integration are just not the right tool for the job that they want to do, and I don’t understand why they can’t simply choose not to buy the product. It’s not like the phone and computer markets are monopolies either. Androids and PCs of all form factors and OSes exist.

It would make more sense to me to call for regulation against pricing abuse for the repairs of tightly integrated products. The Right to Repair movement as it stands just doesn’t resonate much with me, nor do I agree with it, because integrated products that come with everything you need make for great user experiences.

I'm curious to see if this is a 'test' to see if this doesn't have too many downsides, I imagine ingress area increasing this much might be a point of worry (well, there are flexible seals for that now), and instead of having a one-way stack you now have a two-way stack so tooling and workstations around that (even if we just think in terms of assembly and rework) are going to be a PITA to convert or completely replace.

Either this will be a success and allow for the architectural change to be applied to other products, or it's a medium-success in which this only works for specific parts/antenna/power envelope configurations and we won't see this design in other form factors.

What does itch a little is iFixit whining about the parts needing be a signed set to work together. Nobody has come up with a better integrity protection method, and no-protection isn't an option either for the ecosystem. Besides, instead of having a 'safe' and 'unsafe' option for which practically no user will ever be able to make an informed decision, you can simply choose not to buy it if this is a feature you seriously despise.

This puts Apple’s recent “no limit to accidental repairs” policy update in perspective. When I saw that I said, “well I guess this is how they are going to use their cash reserves, because no way will this be net profitable”

To boot, I always wondered why it was so cheap - $200 for AC+ then $29 per screen or back replacement. When considering the employee time and equipment, that’s absolutely a loss.

As someone that just wants good things in the world, this makes my heart flutter. It’s wonderfully aligned with customers and does good for the bottom line.

Sorry to all my fellow repair brethren still slogging it out there. Accuse me of being a fanboy - but this is amazing.

[Edit]: This may potentially eat into the phone case market as well. The feel of a bare iPhone is that much better and you can put the cost of the case toward AC+.

Easier for who? Quote from the video:

"We're hearing reports of Apple continuing on the hostile path of pairing parts to the phone, requiring activation of the back glass after installation. Why in the world would you need permission to install a sheet of glass?! Using software to prevent the replacement of components with aftermarket parts gets a big thumbs-dwon from us."

Let's call it like it is. Apple is not doing you a favor for easier repairability, they're doing their bottom line a favor. If they actually cared, they wouldn't be so hostile to software lock you out of replacing a bloody glass panel.

The internal design is still greatly thought out though. I've been asking myself for years: why can't phone makers make phones with a mid frame that allow both sides to be easily swapped out, instead of one or another. Seems like Apple has cracked it. I hope other phone makers copy this minus the SW locks.

Unfortunately they are not good memories. The slightest, barely visible bend or sub-par repair and the back glass would peel up in one corner and coat the underside of the camera in dust and condensation

I’m not sure I would risk buying a phone with this design again. Apple will have to have worked some serious magic to make it strong and robust

I think it’s bad taste on how he keeps on knocking tech reviewers. Of course they won’t notice because they don’t open phones for a living.

Sometimes I feel like people enjoy piling on because they are the big dog.

Again, please don’t mistake this comment for a blindness to some of its operations. But it’s nice to see them get credit for the good stuff.

This made me chuckle. I'm willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of users care far more about the camera than the repairability. The latter is hardly even something they consider. It will probably help them in unseen ways, like improving resale value.

I find this line hilarious because it's an example of law of the instrument[0]. iFixit and other activist repair shops treat these devices as if their(the iPhones) purpose is getting a repair and all this talk over they years about iPhone repairability was from that standpoint.

I'm happy that Apple is making the new iPhones easier to repair but I never in my life purchased a brand new device with intention or plan to repair it. Why would anyone try to sell me a device by talking about how easy it is to repair it? What I expect is that it would never need a repair and if it needs a repair the vendor will handle it. Also, iPhones were always the easiest phones to repair because specialists who repair iPhones could be found on every corner. Every repair shop repairs iPhones, so repairing an iPhone was never a real issue but something that repair nerds like to speculate on. It's almost as if the happiest they could have been if Apple shipped the iPhones broken but easy to repair using some cheap generic part.

I had my iPhones replaced, repaired or self services by buying the parts online through the years. It's no accident that iPhones always were best at retaining second hand value.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument

"Every Android phone opens from the back."

I have replaced screens an a couple different models of Motorola phones, and the screens popped off the front. Just looking at my Pixel 5a, the screen clearly pops off the front.

This wouldn't bother me as much, except it is on the ifixit web site, which posts videos on screens repairs, that clearly show any number of Android phones being opened from the front.

Disappointing mistake, coming from ifixit.

This is Apple, they totally would have. If the flagship was also similarly repairable.

As it is, this is making the 14 more appealing to me than the 14 Pro.

I mean yeah, it is nice to be able to open it from front and rear. But what good does it make when they pair every single component to the motherboard? Yeah, technically parts are more accessible (physically) but thats only the beginning of the repair process. And unless you can buy genuine parts without hassle and put them in, you are still SOL.

To me it is like cheering that murderer did not also litter I mean I guess it is kinda nice of him, but...

- using no glue or snaps

- all components on one PCB, no thin cables that can break

- standard philips/torx screws

- four screws to open the enclosure, four screws to take out the pcb

- expensive sensor modules on pin sockets for easy reaplacement

- only using components that are certified for longe lifetime -even if they cost a few dollars more (e.g. DC to DC converter)

- not using plastic for packaging and we ask our supplier to not use plastic when sending us the parts (e.g. no bag around the USB cable etc)

We wrote about this [2] and often do presentations for customers and have a slide about this and it gets a great response and I believe gives us an advantage compared to competing products on the market. As the market more and more appreciates this, Apple probably also realized that this can be a competitive advantage and give them positive press.

[1] https://www.airgradient.com/airgradient-one/ [2] https://www.airgradient.com/about/

It's also nice for consumers who get their devices stolen strictly for parts. Preventing someone from basically chop shopping phones. I don't use iphone's but it's a nice feature. If the parts are serialized they could prevent your stolen iphone's camera from working in someone else's stolen iphone. Essentially locking the parts to a iphone that locked by an appleid.

1. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+14+Pro+Max+Chip+ID/15322...

https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2022/09/18133340/iPhon...

To prevent a massive attack on Apple by corrupting the blacklist, the phones would only perform this check if any of the factory parts have been replaced.

Right-to-repair regulation isn't about stifling innovation, it's about giving the consumer leverage in the lifecycle of the product they own. Before now, Apple has gone out of their way to make life as hard as possible on third-party repair shops - that shouldn't be an engineering incentive. Regulation gives us the power to force Apple to put consumers before profit margins, and innovation somewhere in between.

This, a million times. I never understand the take “this product is a runaway, worldwide success, and I want to use it as well because it’s by far the best, but I also want various other of my own, individual priorities factored in” in some sort of mythical unicorn product.

And because many of us are hackers/makers/programmers/tinkerers, one of those priorities is the ability to have all of the above, but also unfettered access to the internals to modify it as we please.

It’s like… this car is perfect for my needs in every way, and far and above the best in its class. But I want it to run on hydrogen, so if they could just do that, it’d be perfect. Why are they forcing me to run on electric?

Dude, don’t buy it?

I want Apple to be allowed to create any device they want, but I think iPhone and Mac repairability can be currently improved without noticably hurting features. Prioritizing it would be the right trade off to do. In that case they should go for it (as they apparently decided to do).

Even without fighting for regulation, we can still celebrate companies when they decide to create repairable products with long term software support and complain about them when they don't.

A regulation that I would like to see would be to perhaps force 'makers' to sell genuine spare parts to anyone (same goes for Tesla and others).

There should be integrity protection on the SoC, and then all other components should be untrusted.

Sure, that means someone can proxy the fingerprint sensor or put on a fake screen that shows a fake consent dialogue. But I think that is an acceptable risk - after all, you can never protect against someone making an entirely new device that just happens to look like an iPhone.

Tradeoffs, unintended consequences.

I think the sanest compromise would be adopting Firefox, Chrome, and/or Edge as second party browsers. I guess we will see what happens in 2024 because I doubt it will be opening the floodgates.

I can imagine Apple doing some kind of hardware-level signing of camera and video data, so that any image shot by an iPhone/iPad would have a signature declaring that is was not edited by the user in any way. Details on whether RAW or any kind of auto-cleanup could be included.

In other words, a chain-of-custody kind of thing so that images can be asserted as real vs. created by a computer.

Depending on how such a system would be implemented, this would require "real Apple hardware" from the ground up.

That dude is looking for problem when there's none. He starts off the article with this

> For people like me who have little experience repairing electronics, the self-repair setup was so intimidating that I nearly wussed out.

Did he expect Ikea like instruction manual to repair an advanced consumer electronic gadgets? That kit is clearly meant for professional (or at the very least hobbyists) repairers who clearly have experience, and know what they are doing.

To be fair he does call out Apple's recommendation and that this repair kit is better used by experts. I also feel that faced with increased regulation and public scrutiny Apple threw the entire kitchen sink as a cruel joke. I mean that 75pound repair equipment requiring $1200 hold on a card should is a big signal to retail users "do not even dream of attempting repair"

No, this still doesn't mean you can go get the cheapest replacement option you can on Alibaba but the repair is STILL easier, even if you still have to buy from Apple. For certain replacement parts I can see this being important, like anything involved in Face ID or Touch ID.

Credit where credit is due, let's hope it continues in the right direction.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/apples-activation-lock-lea...

With the way cameras are going and the use of iPad external docks, it would be a pretty great ultimate mobile device.

Generally insurance is never positive-EV for the buyer unless peace of mind is considered, and to that I say, it's cheaper to find peace with the risk of breaking your phone.