YouTuber Disassembles iPhone 14, Demonstrating Persistent Repair Challenges

Apple is well known for its refusal to allow individual users to fix their own devices, but a YouTuber has recently taken apart two identical new iPhone 14s to demonstrate just how bad the situation is. Why is the right to repair so important, what did the YouTuber discover, and should such techniques be outlawed?

Why is the right to repair so important?

Over the past few years, the public has won numerous victories in the right to repair. One such victory was the UK government announcing legislation that requires manufacturers to make spare parts available to customers as well as diagrams and service instructions. At the same time, many companies have been pressured to become more open in their design, with one extreme case being Apple, who has historically gone out of their way to prevent repairs, having now opened up repair capabilities to individuals.

However, despite great strides having been made, the fight is still far from over, and there exist millions of products on the market that lack repair resources or integrate practices that make a repair virtually impossible. In some cases, the inability to repair can be important as an attempted repair may present serious danger (such as a mains power supply), but in other cases, repair difficulties are engineered to force customers to either use expensive repair services or just purchase a new product.

But why exactly is the right to repair so important? Is it really a necessary right to have?

Interestingly, the right to repair introduces many benefits to consumers, and this presents a strong argument for its widespread integration as a right. To start, the most common sense argument comes from the fact that when you purchase something, you own it, and as such, it is your right to operate and maintain it. For example, vehicles are purchased, and owners can replace types, fittings, gaskets, belts, and brake discs. The same should also apply to electronic devices; if a component breaks, the customer should be able to replace that part without being penalised. 

Another argument favouring the right to repair comes from an environmental one. The mass production of consumer goods presents numerous ecological issues, from mining to eventual disposal, and the inability to repair devices results in an increase in e-waste. Furthermore, the inability to repair also increases the need for manufacture and mining, which sees large amounts of the wilderness turned into massive open pits that are often toxic (due to the concentration of ores).

YouTuber disassembles two new iPhone 14s to demonstrate repair issues

Recently, a YouTuber (Hugh Jefferys) released a video showing the repair challenges faced by the latest iPhone 14 devices. To ensure that the tests demonstrated in the video were fair, he bravely purchased two brand new iPhone 14 devices still in the box so that all tests were on unused devices (these devices were, in fact, unboxed in the video).

With both devices configured and booted, the first test was to open each phone and swap the motherboards to see how an authentic Apple motherboard replacement would work. Despite the devices being entirely new, the swapping of the motherboards returned numerous issues, including failing cameras, inability to manage the onboard battery, no face ID functionality, and inability to dynamically adjust the screen brightness.

The reason for this comes down to the use of each piece of Apple hardware having unique serial numbers, and this includes the motherboard, cameras, displays, and other attached hardware. While Apple will likely claim that this is done to ensure that devices are only repaired by authorised engineers, it is clearly done to prevent individual users from scrapping old phones. The only piece of hardware that may make sense to lock out is face ID, as this is a security measure, but everything else is simply unjustified.

However, the next test done was truly horrifying. The YouTuber wanted to check if the problem was caused by software and proceeded to update one of the phones to the latest version of iOS. When this update was performed, device functionality worsened, with the front camera no longer working. Finally, when the original hardware was put back together, the phone still refused to acknowledge the connected hardware (demonstrating that the iOS update integrates some kind of anti-repair malware).

At the end of the video, the YouTuber restored the phones to their original state with original versions of iOS, and the devices were made fully functional again.

Should such techniques be outlawed?

Despite Apple’s public intention to help individuals repair their devices, the inability to swap brand-new components shows that numerous anti-repair systems are still in place. Most of these provide no benefit to the end-user, and an Apple iPhone 14 device failing will either require the user to purchase new components directly from Apple at inflated prices (the YouTuber notes that a DIY repair can be more expensive than an Apple store repair) or use Apple authorised repair services.

If the industry continues to show resistance to repair rights, it raises the question of whether anti-repair techniques should be outlawed. Government intervention is never a good thing in the field of engineering, as engineers need as much freedom as possible to make devices smaller and more capable. For example, the creation of system-on-modules could help further reduce the size of a design but make it harder to repair. A court may see this as an attempt to prevent users from repairing their devices, while engineers would have to convince the court that the module is essential (lawyers may be smart, but they would never be able to understand key engineering decisions).

Overall, Apple is clearly trying to make it hard to fix devices, but whether they should be forced to make their devices repairable is a slippery slope. Maybe the power of markets and capitalism should be relied upon whereby customers who want to repair their devices go to alternative vendors, and this will force Apple to rethink its strategy.