Apple’s iPhone 15 Professional and iPhone 15 Professional Max have a brand new body design, which might make repairing the units’ screens or swaps of their batteries simpler, based on a teardown evaluation by iFixit, a elements vendor and gadget-repair advocate.
Nonetheless, iFixit offers the brand new telephones a poor repairability rating: 4 out of 10. That is partly as a result of Apple makes use of software program to lock elements to particular units, making unbiased fixes harder or close to unimaginable.
The iPhone 15 Professional and Professional Max, which went on sale Friday, have a brand new design that attaches the telephone’s major elements to an aluminum body, which is bonded to the titanium casing that customers contact on the surface, iFixit discovered. For the reason that two most typical smartphone fixes are changing the battery and display screen, the brand new design offers repairers simpler entry to these elements.
Apple highlighted the change in its announcement this month and in addition dropped the value to swap a cracked again glass plate to $149 or $169, versus $499 or $549 on final yr’s Professional fashions. Display repairs stay the identical value, $329 or $379, relying on show dimension. Final yr’s mainstream mannequin of the iPhone 14 — not the pricier Professional — additionally had a design that includes detachable again glass.
iFixit’s evaluation additionally highlighted that Apple’s iPhones are utilizing a Qualcomm X70 modem to connect with mobile carriers, after Qualcomm introduced earlier this month that it could provide Apple with modem chips by way of 2026.
Nonetheless, iFixit, a powerful advocate for the right-to-repair motion, stated that many iPhone elements, together with the telephone’s Face ID sensor, Lidar digicam and wi-fi charging coil, should not replaceable with out utilizing an official Apple configuration software to authenticate them.
“Components pairing in these fashions extends past mere mechanical compatibility, requiring authentication and pairing by way of Apple’s System Configuration software, additional limiting real replacements to Apple-blessed ones and considerably impacting unbiased restore enterprises and the overarching challenge of e-waste,” iFixit wrote in a weblog submit.
Earlier this yr, Apple backed a right-to-repair invoice in California, which handed in September. It requires producers equivalent to Apple to make rental instruments, restore guides and licensed elements out there to customers to restore units at residence. In 2022, Apple launched Self Service Restore, which permits restore outlets and finish customers to hire professional-level restore instruments and purchase alternative elements from Apple.
The correct-to-repair motion is carefully related to the environmental motion, as a result of repairing devices and increasing their lifespans helps to maintain them out of landfills. Apple’s product bulletins earlier this month closely emphasised the corporate’s environmental work, together with advertising and marketing fashions of its Apple Watch Sequence 9 as carbon impartial. Apple representatives didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
