Apple acknowledged that the iPhone 14 was designed to be easier to repair, but it may have underestimated that upgrade. iFixit has finish a teardown of this year’s base iPhone, and it’s clear that the device was reworked from the ground up with DIY solutions in mind. The rear glass is easier and cheaper to fix, as promised, but it used a metal midframe to keep the front just as accessible. The design is more fixable than many Android phones that are easy to open from behind, iFixit said.
The iPhone 14 midframe maintains the same structural rigidity you saw in the 13 family. Apple had already moved the earpiece and front-facing camera array to a more serviceable location on the previous generation’s mainframe.
The iPhone 14 will not make Fairphone buyers regret their purchases. Apple still requires customers and technicians to activate parts after installing them, so you can’t just use an unofficial back end instead of potentially more expensive self-repair components. Still, iFixit claims this is the most fixable Apple phone since 2016’s iPhone 7.
The reworking is not entirely surprising. Apple is facing pressure to improve redressability from both the federal government and state legislatures. If you didn’t address home repairs with your designs, you risked battling with regulators who could force changes and impose penalties. Whatever the reasoning, you probably don’t care if you’ve been waiting for an iPhone that’s really easy to fix.
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