iPhone 13 teardown and repair assessment [video]
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Apple's devices are quite expensive. iCloud locking have made them worth less in the black-market, but the components are still worth something. This will make Apple's devices worth next to nothing in the black market and as a consequence less of a risk of being a target of petty theft.
Also, theft is not a problem that you can solve with software. People will always steal iPhones because there will always be at least some value to the components inside. I guarantee you that iCloud locking was not even a factor in the decision Apple made to implement this bullshit into iOS:
if (camera.serialNumber != mainboard.camera.serialNumber) {
freakTheFuckOutForNoReason()
}
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/apple-q1-cash-hoard-heres-ho...
They sell hundreds of millions of devices each year. A problem I haven’t seen discussed much — could Apple’s suppliers actually deliver enough parts for new phones and spare parts?
Tesla supposedly has the same problem with spare parts being unavailable, as everything goes into new products.
Since they already sell hundreds of millions of devices a year, I'd say yes.
Do you think that if demand for whole devices increased worldwide, Apple wouldn't be able to fulfill it?
They aren’t able, as the current situation is living proof from that. Note the ongoing chip/semiconductor crisis.
And what about pandemic, because of it, supply chains were surprised with the demand of elecronics. So, they could not respond for the demand. And Apple would have had a limit anyway for chip manufacturing based on this.
I agree that most people will not steal. That's been my experience of growing up in a country with rampant poverty and inequality (and crime).
That said, the more people are in need, the more incentive for them to look for solutions outside of a system that has inherently failed them and the people they know.
I have myself been robbed and assaulted multiple times. I have had relatives kidnapped. Cars stolen leaving or entering their own garage, sometimes in nice areas of the city. I have been myself held at gunpoint by both criminals and police. The house I grew up in has been burglarised multiple times. I have not once, and don't know a single person who has been assaulted or robbed by a middle or upper class person.
There is probably also some correlation between white collar crime and corruption, and poverty, but I suspect the direction of causality goes the other way around in this case.
Source?
http://www.ijsk.org/uploads/3/1/1/7/3117743/sociology_2.pdf
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z87w97h/revision/2
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJSE-04-...
https://journalofeconomicstructures.springeropen.com/article...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_correlations_of_cr...
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/full-links-...
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2018/dec/7/brookings-in...
http://www.ecineq.org/ecineq_paris19/papers_EcineqPSE/paper_...
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/06/07/the-star...
I can only see one benefit of this to the consumer. If you maybe happen to be a target of some spy agency who manage to get your phone and need to drop some component into it to spy on you, that isnt going to be easy now. /s
Genuinely no need for this other than making apple more money.
Apple gives a shit about your privacy.
Why is that upsetting to you?
Do they really give a shit about your privacy though? They mess with 3rd parties (eg: Facebook), but Apple itself seems to be happy to collect data about you and your devices, not use end-to-end encryption for many of their services, scan content on your device, etc.
Maybe they're better than Google, but I wouldn't say that they give a shit about my privacy.
I take care of my own privacy, no for profit company cares about your privacy, you're kidding yourself if you think they are.
Phones could easily last a decade.
The only problem with it is the battery. It could use a replacement, but since I don't use it as the main device, I don't much care. Otherwise, it works perfectly fine.
If you primarily care about the environment when getting a phone, the iPhone is the clear choice.
Except most people are not doing that.. I've seen quite a few iPhone 6, & 6s around and those devices are 7, 6 years old respectively. Its not too much different to the car industry, you will always have a class of people who like to chop and change, they may be more the enthusiast market, but many will just use it until it dies or becomes an issue and repairing it isn't worth it.
In my circles buying a new iPhone every 2 years is fast becoming a thing of the past
If the phone doesn't break during the two year warranty period, I've found that it's unlikely to break later on. (you have to treat it well, of course...)
One important reason why you want that original part and not a salvaged or non-OEM one for the battery is safety, this is a device that you carry on your person and the batteries carry a lot of punch. But the car industry has shown the way here, I can buy OEM brake discs and pads for my vehicle, I can also buy them from brand name non-OEM suppliers aka the 'aftermarket'. A similar solution would work well for phones, as would some minor design changes to facilitate repair rather than the opposite: design changes that make it harder to repair a device.
I see your point, but I don't like the idea of forcing companies to sell you things they don't want to.
I'm more worried about someone stealing my phone (where the cost is the whole value of the device) than I am about breaking the phone (usually my fault) where the cost when repaired by Apple is fairly reasonable.
I'm wanna thing there are a lot of better ways to avoid a black market, than creating more e-waste with disposable devices impossible to repair.
Do you seriously believe Apple is sending everyone new iPhones and not repairing them at all?
That would be a stupendously bad business decision.
Careful, if Louis Rossmann reads that you may give him a sudden case of apoplexy.
The only thing "fairly reasonable" about what Apple likes to charge is that you fairly reasonably may as well just buy a new phone.
Not a single time was the cost of repair even close to the cost of a new phone.
Doing it without the meagre compensation they give now would be deeply unethical, Tesla tried something like that recently when a story emerged that someone was quoted for full out of warranty battery replacement for a broken cooling hose fitting on their cars battery and they refused to give any core charge even though the battery itself was still fully functional (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8-OkfCcRAo).
The video is kind of vague about it, but when they are talking about "replacing the cable" they mean replacing the whole thing. The display obviously includes lots of logic that, among other things, stores display's serial number. Same with the sensors mounted on the display.
iPhones get used for longer period of time by multiple users and they carry high resale value, if they let devices with fake components they will eventually tank resale value as people will not trust used iPhone.
I support right to repair, but ONLY with genuine parts with warranty. I want Apple to provide cheaper display replacement just like they do with batteries. As long as Amazon, EBay, and small repair shops keep selling fake iPhone displays and batteries there is no way out of this problem.
I have heard that Apple’s environmental concern is all talk until they empower people to get more life out of their devices to reduce electronic waste.
It’s a convincing argument when one notes that their highest priorities for ‘green’ initiatives align with improving their profit margins.
https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/service/screen-repla...
> The Apple Store and many of our Apple Authorized Service Providers offer same-day service for screen replacement.
The pricing available here (for guaranteed new, genuine parts and labor) is actually cheaper than the cost of genuine replacement screens available on ebay at first glance, the first genuine iphone 11 screen I found on ebay that wasn't a chinese offbrand or used assembly is $235 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/174952166934) whereas apple quotes $199 for a new 11 screen and replacement service.
Of course the pricing is lower than buying an ebay screen, because apple won't sell you a screen, so sellers on ebay have to procure them illegally. Again, a problem that apple iself created.
I'm aware. It doesn't really matter if the final repair service is cheaper than buying the part and doing it yourself and leaves a better, like new result rather than a repair job done by an amateur.
> and it's only screens, not any of the other many parts that often fail.
They repair any part of the phone that fails, screens were just the first example I found are trawling for a few seconds with google. Apple does cheap battery replacements and will swap motherboards too.
The characterisation of third party repair as "amateurs" is one of Apple's creation (obviously not just them but all tech companies). Apple will wipe your data, send your phone to China and replace your mainboard at best. An actual repair technician will fix what's actually wrong right then and there and not touch what isn't - including data.
I completely understand that you don't want to fix your own device or even if you only ever want to deal with Apple, but that shouldn't be the only option.
I know who louis is, and contrary to your opinion replacing random surface mount components until the machine turns back on is not a repair. Generally most of his work is not even for machines that spontaneously failed, it's all stuff that's water/beer/soda damaged that Apple turned away. He charges more to do those repairs and they generally don't hold, because it's impossible to remove all latent moisture and corrosion once a board is significantly damaged like that.
> The characterisation of third party repair as "amateurs" is one of Apple's creation (obviously not just them but all tech companies).
The context was the end user buying parts and repairing their machine themselves. How is that not amateur?
> Apple will wipe your data, send your phone to China and replace your mainboard at best. An actual repair technician will fix what's actually wrong right then and there and not touch what isn't - including data.
Apple themselves say they do same-day repair, so I'm not sure why you're overtly lying about that here.
> I completely understand that you don't want to fix your own device or even if you only ever want to deal with Apple, but that shouldn't be the only option.
???
I'm 100% pro repair, I'm just not getting the hate on apple for their practices. They are by far the most pro-repair company in the smartphone space (definitely NOT in the laptop space however, though their in-store battery replacements for macbooks are still cheaper than buying genuine oem batteries for thinkpads, I wish they would go back to socketed ram and ssds but that clearly isn't happening), and are the only actual company that offers in person same day repairs and mail in repairs for reasonable prices. If you want to get a pixel repaired you have to go to shady third party chain stores that are contracted by google, and usually all they will do is replace the screen and see if it works (even if the fault is completely unrelated, you can search for people's experiences with pixel 3s spontaneously bricking and find thousands of horrors stories).
Definition of repair, according to Merriam-Webster [1]:
> to restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken
It seems to me like Louis' repairs qualify. A customer walks in with a broken Mac or iPhone, he identifies the part that is broken, then he replaces it. Do you have an alternative definition by any chance?
> He charges more to do those repairs and they generally don't hold
Do you have any actual evidence that Louis' repairs are unreliable? Do his customers eventually complain about them?
> Apple themselves say they do same-day repair
Okay, but what about the data stored on the old mainboard that gets thrown out?
> They are by far the most pro-repair company in the smartphone space
Again, we seem to have different definitions here. My definition of "pro-repair" excludes any companies actively lobbying against right to repair and implementing unnecessary software features to detect replaced parts.
> If you want to get a pixel repaired you have to go to shady third party chain stores that are contracted by google
Maybe if you (and others like you) would stop shilling so hard for Apple, turning a blind eye to their anti right to repair lobbying, and encouraging others to do the same by tenaciously defending their anti-user practices on public forums, we might actually have a chance at getting right to repair legislation passed, and then you could easily get your Pixel fixed, and your iPhone, too.
Apple's lobbying and precedent-setting makes everything worse for everyone, not just for Apple users.
Why? Why can't I make that decision myself? If I'm fine with a cheaper display, why should apple disallow me from doing that?
If they sold their spare parts in their own store, everyone could make the decision whether they want genuine or 3rd party replacement parts themselves. The phone could tell you when the part is not genuine, so you could get your money back from everyone who sold you a non-grnuir parts as genuine. No reason to block the functionality of the phone.
The number of people who (A, bought an iPhone as a high-end device. B, broke it. C, in a way that can be repaired, D, are capable and motivated to do the repair themselves, E, are unwilling to pay for a repair from Apple or have AppleCare, F, are willing to go from high-end device to cheap-discount parts, G, are apopleptic when they can't and didn't know about this in advance) is approximately nobody.
People who are happy with discount cheaper parts probably aren't buying Apple in the first place. People who are careful about repairs to extend the life of their property are likely more careful than average to avoid breaks in the first place. People who care about repairs likely know about Apple's repair policies before choosing to buy an iPhone. And people who splurged money on an iPhone for whatever reason are unlikely to be happy with cheaper parts, or they would have got a cheaper phone in the first place.
It's not literally nobody, but is it really enough people and a common enough situation to base national or international policy on, when crime and fraud and scams are very common? Isn't it really a very unlikely situation which tickles the geek dream of getting a broken iPhone cheap from a friend or dumpster, putting a cheap screen in it, and having used your skills to wrangle a bargain from the Universe, and therefore makes an easy internet upvote comment more than it makes a genuine objection?
You could still do almost all that if you could buy genuine replacement parts from Apple at not-extortionate prices, right?
The only excuse is money, money, money.
What is the point of stealing an iPhone 13 if you can't just sell the phone on (because of iCloud lock) and you can't chop-shop any of the expensive parts because they're all cryptographically registered?
Apple could empower their customers to be good citizens of the earth who want to reduce electronic waste while simultaneously making the lives of thieves difficult.
They likely considered the possibility and decided that it wasn’t worth the extra hassle.
They're not cryptographically registered. iOS does a simple check to see if the serial numbers of the installed parts match the expected original values. Also, you can still sell them, and you would not have a hard time finding a buyer, because they're still intrinsically valuable parts and can still be used (with some annoyances). Anyhow, I'm sure someone will reverse engineer the system well enough to reprogram the serial numbers without Apple's assistance eventually. I can't wait -- the writeup will probably be a fascinating read, and it will provide users more control over their own devices, which is always a good thing. Same reason it made me very happy when it was discovered that Apple dun goofed and let an unpatchable bootrom bug slip into all iPhones from 5S through X, which means these phones are forever jailbreakable: https://checkra.in/
It’s a real shitty situation but it’s a little more complex.
To take the perennial car analogy, car theft is a widespread enough phenomenon, but we haven’t settled on breaking central functionalities each time a repair is done outside network.
To push a bit further, steeply lowering phone price would also critically deter theft, why not go that option if it’s that important ?
In our actual case, Apple isn't reacting to a lost mode request, and would be blocking any third party screen repair, under any circumstance.
I agree with you that every parts must be substituted with genuine parts in case of component damage. I had tried to replace s6 battery and spent like $500 but alas I failed. After 4-5 month the battery gets swollen and the backcover gets damaged costing me more. So I had to dump it and I am never going to buy any Samsung shits.
I got k20 pro and I hope I can get genuine battery for it after few years.
Further such things prevents theft which is a huge problem imo. I think apple should provide user to switch these display but it should warn that the part is genuine or not, just in case.
I'd also be interested in some statistics on the frequency of display damage. With waterproofing and these new types of glasses, I wouldn't be surprised if they had come down rather drastically. I remember every phone I having a cracked display after a year or so. But the last two generations, maybe 5 or six years, they've always survived.
Or maybe it's just my motor skills improving... But if I'm right and they are doing something like 70-80 % fewer display repairs, it becomes really hard to still assume they care very much about that revenue. There are plenty of reasons Apple would want to stop aftermarket parts, mostly of the sort you'll hear if the chef at a fancy restaurant sees the ketchup you brought from home.
150 bucks for display is fair .welcome to the matrix!
See https://www.rossmanngroup.com/faq
> Are you Apple certified?
> Absolutely not. Being Apple certified would tie my hands to the point where even replacing a fuse would get me in trouble. I go over that in a tongue and cheek fashion in this video in response to the idea that unauthorized repair technicians are “idiots.” Being Apple authorized would tie my hands to the point where I have to charge you $750-$1250 to replace your motherboard because of that one component!
> Doesn’t a lack of certification mean you have no idea what you’re doing, or that my repair has a chance of premature failure?
> No. To be an Apple certified warranty repair center, to the point that repairs are 100% officially covered under an Apple warranty, the service center must buy their parts from Apple. This gives Apple bargaining power in setting prices of parts, which results in unnecessarily expensive repairs. In order to make a profit, a repair shop must set a very high price for any given service. I am sure some of you who have been to Tekserve have heard “your machine is in warranty, so it will be $600.”
Also, there are more people taking their devices to "non-legit" stores than people attempting DIY screen repairs.
Also, how on earth is bricking my phone (that I paid for) a more desirable outcome than letting me use an inferior display (that I paid for)?
Also, what about all the cases where fake replacements are actually better (e.g. swapping out a 220Hz PWM ThinkPad display for a flicker-free one)?
I honestly believe people who defend such company policies are just more focused on staying positive than on making a good argument (can't blame them, either).
The FaceID one seems legitimate as a malicious faceid sensor could compromise security. The truetone one looks like total rubbish and should be fixed. And the non genuine messages are useful.
The problem is not you knowingly putting in a non genuine part. It's that a disappointing chunk of repair stalls and almost all online parts are non genuine and essentially fraud as they advertise as being genuine and better than the original parts. Often they are recycled parts from used / stolen devices which are worn out before you even get them. There are even stores in 3rd world countries which will remove genuine parts from your phone and replace them with fakes while doing something like a battery replacement.
The non genuine message protects the customer who gets their phone repaired. It also protects the second hand buyer so they can see that the whole phone is genuine and no bad parts are used. It also protects the phone owner by making theft less valuable as the parts can not be used to their fullest.
So I totally understand the issues with DIY repair here, but I also see all of the other issues at play. The main issue I see is that Apple does not do repairs on certain parts of the phone like the lightning port so if those parts break, they won't do anything for you. I'd like to see Apple and governments work together to find a solution that ensures users get maximum repairability while still being protected against part fraud. I'd like to see Apple have some open dialog with the public and governments about exactly _why_ each restriction is in place, what problems they face, and why they have to do things this way.
Bricking Face ID is essentially bricking the phone if it doesn't have fingerprint unlock. Everyone is accustomed to instant unlock these days (since the iPhone 5S of 2013). The camera "bugging out" is also absurd and clearly fabricated by iOS. There is absolutely no reason this should happen just because the serial number of the camera changed. iOS isn't open source so we can't track down their `fakeBugOutToScareUserAwayFromIndependentRepair()` function, but hopefully someone reverse engineers this eventually. It wouldn't be the first time someone found something "funny" hidden within iOS' codebase [1].
> The FaceID one seems legitimate as a malicious faceid sensor could compromise security
This is an irrational fear. Do not let Apple scare you into believing this.
> The problem is not you knowingly putting in a non genuine part. It's that a disappointing chunk of repair stalls and almost all online parts are non genuine and essentially fraud as they advertise as being genuine and better than the original parts.
This is not a problem Apple can solve. There will always be liars. You must place a little trust in the person you buy a used product from; it's that simple. It's how it always has been, and always will be. Besides, if solving this problem were their real goal, why not just display warnings rather than also disable features, and only do so if the parts really aren't Apple-genuine (not just if the serial number has changed)? I am certain it would not be hard to change the code from:
if (camera.serialNumber != mainboard.camera.serialNumber) {
displayAnnoyingWarnings();
fakeBugOutToScareUserAwayFromIndependentRepair();
}
if (!isGenuineApple(camera.serialNumber)) {
displayDismissableWarning();
}
Before Apple introduced this "feature", things were mostly just fine. Android phones probably won't ever have this "feature", and things will probably still mostly be just fine long into the future. Of course there will be some instances of scams and whatnot. This is not news.
> It also protects the phone owner by making theft less valuable as the parts can not be used to their fullest.
Theft is another problem Apple cannot solve with software updates. iPhones will always be stolen, because the parts inside will always have intrinsic value. This "feature" is so vaguely connected to anti-theft that it's laughable, and I don't even know if Apple themselves claim this as a reason behind these changes; I've only heard it from Apple apologists. iCloud locks are already overkill and generate tons of e-waste, but this takes it even further and is just absurd.
> I'd like to see Apple and governments work together
Apple already does work with the government. They actively lobby against right to repair and report you to the police when your iPhone scans through your photos and finds something suspicious.
> I'd like to see Apple have some open dialog with the public and governments about exactly _why_ each restriction is in place
That might be a start, but you can be reasonably confident anything coming from Apple's PR team is total bullshit. If the real reason was that they just want to make a lot of money, do you really think they would tell you?
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/apple-settles-wi...
I would assume Apple’s justification is that this is to meet security requirements, particularly given a phone is now commonly used for contactless payments.
There's nothing special about the touch panels, the FaceID component is a TPM of sorts.
IMO the security of the system is that the 3D face data is reasonably secret (you probably can't reconstruct it from a single picture, you'd need pictures from all angles) and the SOC only allows a few attempts before falling back to passcode.
If you have the face data, you don't need to tamper with the hardware, and if you don't have that data then tampering with the sensor won't get you anywhere.
It always boggled my mind how much mental gymnastics, the supposedly tech-savy HN userbase is willing to do, to defend their favorite computer brand's anti-repair and anti-consumer practices as "security".
Let me break down your argument:
Firstly, if you're at risk of high profile spying, you should know better than to use any Apple/Google/Microsoft products as all those megacorps are in bed with the US three letter alphabet agencies.
Secondly, if you're a high profile target for spying, but dumb enough to use an iPhone as your daily driver, then the alphabet boys or nation states worldwide are more likely to use some of the dozens of iOS RCE exploits they developed themselves or bought from some shady Israeli security company or off the black market to get to you rather than go through all the trouble of hoping you don't notice when they steal your phone and replace your screen.
Thirdly, say nation state actors do manage to steal your phone and swap the screen really quickly before you notice, but how will they make sure it has the same level of wear and tear (cracks, scratches) that you won't recognize it to be different?
There's just so many plot holes in this type of scenario that security cannot be justified as an argument here.
Plus, if Apple really cared about security, then their bug bounty program wouldn't be such a horrible mess full of unacknowledged vulnerabilities that researchers need to take public.
Game over.
It is not a relevant argument in this context.
It's not.
> That is the only way they can “innovate” — or so they have always claimed.
They haven't.
From my experience, almost all third party iPhone repair shops are filled with untrustworthy people who disregards their ethics for such a little money.
That said, I still won't buy an iphone until they at least get rid of lightning. It's extreme ridiculous that apple would keep a proprietary connector after migrating the rest of their product stack over to usbc. I have a pixel 3 currently and will certainly never buy another android phone again, the biggest issues I've had don't exist on iphones at all, namely apps being randomly killed or crashing on open due to running out of RAM and the battery degrading quickly (lost ~10% in 1 1/2 years of light use, not using the phone in any extremely cold or hot conditions and only trickle charging).
Of course, there are also important factors like the average worker being dirt poor. Who is buying an iphone on a 300-400USD/mo equivalent salary? It would take years and years of saving to afford one, or a choice to put yourself into hard to repay debt for a status symbol? I would imagine the average person there buys the cheapest phones possible and not the highest end name brand phones every few years like working and middle class westerners do.
There has not been a need to update every two years for many years. And there is far more waste from lower quality products that last fewer years.
Point being, given the enormous amount of raw materials it takes to make a phone, and the environmental damage that comes from extracting them, I wonder if it’s a good idea to be cavalier and see it as a “rounding error.”
Now even if Apple hears people cursing them and grumbling on forums, the fact that they keep on buying their product means that it's not enough of an issue for them to stop buying it.
Just because you wish to be a careless consumer doesn't mean that that's what everyone is and that we shouldn't put pressure on Apple to allow those that don't to use their devices as they wish.
A Juniper firewall is an appliance.
A NetApp SAN is an appliance.
An Ooma VOIP phone system is an appliance.
A Kindle is an appliance.
A Nest thermostat is an appliance.
These things are not general purpose computers. They are custom fabbed hardware with vendor supported software and are not user repairable. They do one job and they do it well. At the end of their service life you replace them.
My iPhone is an appliance and I prefer it that way.
That’s the best you could hope for with such naive activism.
Anecdotal evidence: out of 20+ people with iPhones I know, only one ever had to send it for repairs. In our backwater Eastern Europe this still took only two days: he got a brand new one without having to pay a penny.
I get it, devices we buy must be repairable. Lately I bought a laptop and I’m looking forward to upgrading its RAM and SSD by myself. And I’ll enjoy decommissioning my old gaming PC in a year or so by disassembling it and selling it in parts. I too want repair ability in my tech, and I enjoy practicing it.
But apparently Apple will not budge. It’s astonishing how people are under the illusion that talking is going to sway one of the biggest company entities on the planet. And it makes for pretty boring news.
“You heard it here first folks, the planet is still spinning today“.
Of course Apple doesn't care about what people say. They care about how much money people give them and how much politicians take away. And neither of those will change without talking about it first.
People being "informed" does not nullify the fact there's literally almost zero choice nowadays. Not like Samsung or many others are easy to repair either...
But I don't want to derail this and move it to politics because there people don't react rationally, it's all just downvotes because somebody's sensibilities got offended. So we better stop here before it all goes to a flame fest.