First Teardowns Reveal the iPhone 16 Is More Repairable Than Ever
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Apple has been slowly conceding to right-to-repair advocates over the past few years, and now it looks like this year’s iPhone 16 lineup marks a significant step forward in the repairability game.
After years of fighting right-to-repair legislation, Apple made a surprising about-face last year when it officially supported California’s new repair bill. That came after announcing a self-serve repair program in late 2021, a rather pricey way to fix your iPhone that requires renting tools from Apple.
Still, the new program has been expanding rapidly over the years. Now, Apple is making things even easier for both do-it-yourselfers and repair shops with some groundbreaking changes (by Apple’s usual standards) that make the new iPhone 16 models.
While we heard some reports on improved repairability last week, the latest teardowns by iFixit have confirmed that the new iPhones offer “three big leaps for repairkind.”
iFixit has long been one of the most vocal critics of how difficult Apple’s products are to repair. This problem has been exacerbated by a parts pairing process that requires replacement parts to be linked up to devices following a repair. While Apple has opened that up to make it easier for independent repair shops and DIYers, it’s still an extra hurdle.
Thankfully, iOS 18 includes a new “Repair Assistant” that alleviates much of the pain of swapping in new components like displays and batteries. The folks at iFixit felt it was promising for the iPhone 15 but still didn’t feel like it was all the way there; however, when they tried it on the iPhone 16, the process worked flawlessly.
And that’s not even counting iOS 18’s new “Repair Assistant,” which aspires to end the parts pairing software barriers to repair. When we tested it out with the iPhone 15 series earlier this week, we thought it was promising, if not quite ready for prime time. But it worked impressively smoothly on our vanilla iPhone 16: one click to pair and calibrate all components at once, and no bugs to be found. iFixit
However, that’s a bonus feature as far as the iFixit team is concerned. The three things that contribute most to easier repairability are found in the hardware design rather than the software:
- The battery, which has traditionally been glued in and difficult to remove, uses a magical new adhesive that debonds when an electrical current is run through it.
- The iPhone 16 Pro battery has a hard steel case, which makes it much, much safer to repair. It’s much harder to puncture a hard-cell battery with a slip of a screwdriver.
- The iPhone 16 Pro models gain the “enter through either the front or the back” design introduced in the standard iPhone 14 lineup two years ago. This means you no longer have to remove the expensive and fragile OLED display — and risk damaging it — just to get at unrelated components like the battery.
Sadly, the new battery adhesive has only come to the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus; the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max still use the traditional stretch-release adhesive strips, but at least the hard case on the iPhone 16 Pro battery will make it safer to pry the battery out. However, there’s some bad news for iPhone 16 Pro Max users: apparently, nothing has changed with the battery on Apple’s most expensive flagship model.
The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus models technically require a new tool for battery removal — something to pass an electrical current through the adhesive — but iFixit says that’s not a problem as it’s something that anybody should be able to obtain.
The last time iPhone repair required a brand new tool—when Apple began sealing phones with their proprietary five-pointed screw, the pentalobe—we raised a fuss. At the time, nobody outside official Apple repair shops had access to the driver, which effectively blocked repairs until we reverse-engineered it. This is pretty different. Any hardware store around the world will sell you a set of alligator clips and a 9V battery, at a reasonable price. iFixit
The other catch is that the battery’s adhesive isn’t reusable. Reversing the polarity doesn’t rebound the adhesive; instead, it leaves it attached to the frame rather than the battery (so you’ll want to be sure to get the polarity right). Apple’s repair manual suggests new batteries will come with the adhesive pre-applied under a peel-off sticker.
Nevertheless, these changes should not only allow DIYers to replace their batteries more easily on the iPhone 16, but it could also result in cheaper repair costs and quicker turnaround when visiting a shop to have your battery swapped out. The bottom line? iFixit has given the iPhone 16 a 7/10 score for repairability — a considerable leap over last year’s 4/10 for the iPhone 15. The biggest knock is that “Apple continues to use a variety of fussy screw types” and requires heat to get through the display and rear panel adhesives.