iPhone 13 A Repair Nightmare - Teardown and Repair Assessment
Hugh Jeffreys1 HN recommenders · 2021–2024
4.4M views · demo · dated · Uploaded 2021-09-28
Hugh Jeffreys tears down the iPhone 13 and assesses its repairability, showing how Apple ties parts like the display and Face ID hardware to specific devices. He demonstrates that swapping parts, even genuine ones, can disable features.
HN cites it as evidence of Apple's serialized parts and repair restrictions in threads about right to repair and Face ID disabling.
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5 comments from Hacker News
[VIDEO] It’s not just a warning. Functionality is flat out disabled. Swapping parts between 2 iPhone 13s boinks them.
I can recommend that iPhone video he links to[1]. It shows the switching of the mainboard between two identical Apple phones and goes through all the somewhat surprising consequences, including them both claiming not to be using genuine Apple hardware anymore. 1. [VIDEO]
I'm not convinced by this - if you look at an iPhone 13's screen, it's entirely separate from the face ID hardware. [LINK] (screenshot from [0]) On iPhones X through 12, if you kept the Face ID hardware and only changed the display, Face ID would continue to work. On the iPhone 13 series, if you keep the Face ID hardware and change the display, Face ID stops working. The chip which people are removing seems to serve only to identify the display - nothing to do with the Face ID system. Apple has been using this chip for years to disable "true tone" display functionality when the screen was swapped (unless it was programmed by a proprietary tool, only available to first-party repair shops) - they're now also tying it disable Face ID. [0] [VIDEO]
Apple is not known for good web services. The App Store being a fork of iTunes Store and the Mac App Store building on the same unstable foundation. Sure they are getting better and better, but still... Apple will want to scale this from the web or from on-device apps. Previously we've seen that Apple is detecting each part by serial number, so even mixing genuine parts disable a lot of features [1]. So, now it becomes clear part of their reason: If they can detect all the genuine parts, they can ship for self repair and it will work for the intended customer and not for other devices. This reduces chances of cloning, theft and scams, while guaranteeing quality (and guaranteeing their revenue on replaced parts too). IMO, yes, it would require years for them to announce this. There is all the checkout part, they would need to issue the right part with the correct serial number to the exact customer and charge taxes accordingly. All this logistics is centered on software Apple has a bad reputation at best, and very slow process of development from what is seems from the outside. [1]: [VIDEO]
Do you really think that nearly half of the price of an iphone is the screen? How come competitors are able to offer screens at 1/3rd the price? Keep in mind that apple is intentionally killing the third party market. You cannot make a third party screen for an iphone that behaves the same as a regular screen, the iphone firmware will detect this and prevent it. [VIDEO]