A recent teardown by iFixithas revealed three design changes that make the iPhone 16 series the easiest to repair yet.
While there is an argument that smartphone design has stagnated recently, there is one area that is constantly changing. These alterations in internal construction won't be noticed by the average consumer, but they massively change how long a phone will last and how much we will have to pay for repairs. In a recent teardown, iFixit awarded the iPhone 16 series the highest repairability of any Apple device it's tested. Which is good news after a recent drop test revealed potential issues with the new thin bezels on the iPhone 16 Pro.
The first change is that Apple has indeed placed the battery in a hard steel case, instead of the more common soft pouch design. This means less chance of a battery being pierced by accident during a repair and starting a fire, which is much more common than you'd think. The second change is the new adhesive that secures the battery in place, which can be deboned with a small electrical current. This makes it easier to remove from the phone and lessens the potential damage to the rest of the device.
The third change, and one of the most interesting, is that Apple has made it so that the iPhone 16 Pro models can be deconstructed from the back and front. Apple has used this design feature before in the base iPhone 14 but this is the first time it has been used with a steel case battery. This makes it easier to find and replace faults without the threat of breaking the screen in the process, something that happens quite often. In turn, this means less waiting around for parts, and much faster repairs.
iFixit also praised the Repair assistant that came with iOS 18, which is designed to help calibrate and confirm either new or OEM parts for their device. In a blog post, iFixit stated: "When we tested it out with the iPhone 15 series earlier this week, we thought it was promising, if not quite ready for prime time," before stating, "But it worked impressively smoothly on our vanilla iPhone 16: one click to pair and calibrate all components at once, and no bugs to be found. "
With phones getting more expensive there's an added pressure to keep them running for as long as possible. While being easy to repair might not be a requisite to appear on our best phones list, it is certainly a factor that the average consumer should be thankful for.
