iFixit retroactively dings the iPhone 14 over Apple’s parts pairing requirement

iFixit is dropping the repairability people connected the iPhone 14. While the enactment primitively gave the telephone a 7 retired of 10 to bespeak precocious repairability, iFixit has lowered that standing to a 4 aft taking into relationship parts pairing requirements that marque fixing the instrumentality a hassle.

When iFixit announced its people for the iPhone 14 past year, it said it was looking chiefly astatine the repair-friendly plan of the device. Unlike its different devices, Apple included a rear solid panel that you tin popular disconnected with basal repair tools, including a heating mat, suction handle, and an opening pick. While this plan alteration was notable astatine the time, iFixit acknowledges that it missed the important hurdles to repairability programmed wrong iPhones successful general.

Instead of simply swapping retired 1 portion for another, repair shops and DIYers must “pair” the portion to the device done Apple’s System Configuration tool. To bash this, you indispensable acquisition a genuine portion from Apple, participate your device’s serial number, and past brace the caller portion to your telephone done Apple. If you usage an aftermarket portion oregon 1 from different iPhone, you’re stuck with annoying notifications that pass your iPhone contains ingenuine parts — adjacent if it works the mode it should.

“Most large repairs connected modern iPhones necessitate Apple approval,” iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens writes successful a blog post. “You person to bargain parts done their system, past person the repair validated via a chat system. Otherwise, you’ll tally into constricted oregon missing functionality, with a broadside of annoying warnings.”

The pairing process not lone makes repairs hard for DIYers but besides for third-party repair providers who often usage leftover parts from breached devices. iFixit says things person “gotten truthful atrocious that respective repair professionals person told america they’re leaving the concern wholly alternatively than navigate the labyrinthine maze of obstacles that Apple has erected.”

Although the iPhone 15 retains the aforesaid repair-friendly backing arsenic its predecessor, it apt shares the aforesaid parts-pairing request arsenic different devices successful the iPhone lineup. Until Apple starts letting users swap successful aftermarket oregon utilized parts without issue, the iPhone’s repairability people volition apt stay astatine the debased extremity of the spectrum.