The iPhone 14 and 14 Pro are arriving in the hands of the most eager customers. iFixit has also been able to get its hands on the new Apple mobiles, and, surprise, for once the site specializing in mobile repair is rather cheerful facing a new iPhone. In a video detailing the iPhone 14 teardown, the site praises Apple for building “most repairable iPhone in years“.
7/10 at iFixit
As noted in other tests before iFixit’s one, the iPhone 14 gets a major change in its build. It is possible to access the components of the iPhone relatively easily by removing the rear glass. A major change from previous iPhones which required disassembly of the screen. Truth be told, the iPhone 14 can be opened from the screen or from the glass back, iFixit points out.
A change in approach that makes the CEO of iFixit say that Apple has “finally made the effort […] to combine design, functionality and repairability” with its iPhone 14. As a result, this model inherits a 7/10 on iFixit’s repairability scale, the best rating for the iPhone family since the iPhone 7. expect a better rating, after all it’s only one more point compared to all other Apple phones since the iPhone 8. We are far from the “perfect” repairability scores that a Fairphone 4 can display by example What is blocking then?
As iFixit notes, Apple continues to enforce a very strict part replacement policy requiring the part to be “authenticated” after installation, similar to the FaceID sensor in its day. “You really shouldn’t need Apple’s permission to install a glass plate on a phone you already own. The use of software to prevent the use of second-hand parts does not appeal to us at all” notes the site specializing in dismantling. Auscultating and changing parts yourself also requires having specialized tools, which limits the accessibility of the repair.
What about the repairability index?
As the most attentive readers will no doubt also have noticed, iFixit’s conclusions seem to go against the grain of what the iPhone 14 repairability index indicates. According to the French barometer, the iPhone 14 is barely more repairable than the iPhone 13. This difference is actually explained by different calculation methods.
As iFixit’s repairability engineer explained to us in 2021, “The two ratings are complementary: the iFixit rating focuses on in-house repairs, while the repairability index is extended to the entire chain, taking into account third-party repairers in particular.“To put it more simply, iFixit’s rating only reflects ease of disassembly, while the repairability index takes into account more criteria, such as price and availability of spare parts. With this method of calculation, the iPhone 14 therefore only gains half a point compared to the iPhone 13.
The iPhone 14 has indeed been Apple’s most repairable phone in years — even on Repairability Index criteria — but there’s still work to be done. We can only say that to encourage the direction that the company is taking with this phone. More repairable iPhones means more durable phones that are less toxic to the planet.