iPhone 14 Teardown Shows It’s Easier to Repair Than the Pro Model

If Apple’s iPhone 14 apparently brought very few changes compared to last year’s iPhone 13, a recent teardown from iFixit revealed that this new iPhone is actually much easier to repair. That’s thanks to redesigned internals that make it possible to open the iPhone 14 from the front and the back.

iFixit used a butterfly analogy to describe this new internal design: The new chassis features a metal midframe behind the screen that supports all the internal components. Now, both the screen and the rear glass can be easily removed.

“The back glass is simply secured with two screws and a single connector. Apple has seemingly used a slightly less aggressive adhesive, making opening it up a tad easier than screens of yore. And as a bonus, removing the exact same screws as the back glass gets you access to the screen,” iFixit explained.

Apple making the iPhone 14 rear glass panel easier to remove contributes to making the iPhone “the most repairable iPhone in years,” according to iFixit. The company gave the iPhone a 7/10 repairability score, something that didn’t happen since the release of the iPhone 7 in 2016.

“This is such a big deal that it should have been Apple’s big announcement—the iPhone has been redesigned from the inside out to make it easier to repair,” iFixit emphasized. “These changes to the iPhone will help it last longer and reduce its overall impact on the planet. With any luck, it will inspire other manufacturers to follow suit.”

Unfortunately, Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max still use the old, more difficult-to-repair architecture. However, iFixit hopes that the redesigned internal chassis on the iPhone 14 will become a standard on all iPhone models next year.