iPhone 13 A Repair Nightmare - Teardown and Repair Assessment

[Music] hi guys welcome back to another huge video in this video we're going to be tearing down and assessing the repair ability of the iphone 13. last year the apple iphone 12 had a number of software-based locks which prevented third-party repair it's been a year since the outcry from tens of thousands of people over the iphone 12s software locks which impacted repairability so has apple changed anything in order to fully test the repairability of apple's new phone i've purchased two iphone 13 pros this will allow me to interchange genuine apple parts between the two devices from the outside these phones look almost identical in the box you'll find the same accessories as the 12 series which of course came with no charger or headphones it should be noted that the usb-c style power lead won't plug into your older style power adapters with a usb type a connection so you may have to go out and buy a new power adapter anyway with the blue phone out of the box it's time to get the gold one out and remove that paper film over the display before we take apart these phones i'll first power them up to make sure they're both fully functional navigating into settings i can pull up the about page both of these phones are iphone 13 pros running ios 15.0 in recent years apple has put strong emphasis on sustainability they state they're aiming for carbon neutral products by 2030. they've removed all the plastic wrap from their phones most of the accessories and are using some recycled materials in this iphone however something better than recycling is to use something for longer or fix something you already have instead of replacing it in the case of these iphones i'd expect to be able to replace the screen battery and other critical components the pro model iphone 13 features a high refresh rate display however it can be capped via software at 60 frames a second will replacing the display have an impact on this feature other features to keep an eye on are the battery health true tone and face id as these are problematic to repair on the iphone 12. proceeding to open our first iphone 13 i'll place it on a heat plate on the high setting for several minutes this will evenly heat the front of the phone to soften its adhesive using direct heat sources such as a high-powered heat gun can burn the display leaving marks in it after unfastening the two apple designed pentalobe screws that require a special driver i can pull up on the display using a suction cup to create a gap for a plastic pick to be inserted the pick can be worked around the perimeter to loosen the display at the top section of the phone there are two clips that will need to be undone before the display will open up to the left hand side here we get our first look inside the iphone 13 pro with one down there's one to go i'll repeat the same process for the gold phone i've seen people pry up these phone screens using thinner metal prying tools or even a razer not only could this scratch your frame but also crack or damage the oled panel if the suction cup doesn't lift up the display the phone just isn't hot enough the adhesive on the iphone 12 and 13 does put up a real fight so you'll need to have the proper equipment to open it with that our second phone has opened firstly i'm going to be swapping the logic boards between the phones to simulate changing every part inside the phone this will allow us to see what works and what has been blocked by software then we can see what part is actually causing the error and what kind of an impact this will have on the repairability of the device starting with the blue iphone i'll remove the two brackets which are securing the flex cables for the battery and display these will need to be unplugged so i can detach the screen from the phone the internal design on this phone differs from previous models apple has printed the name of the processor on the logic board and have slightly changed the design of the battery having unplugged the display it can now be detached from the phone moving across to the gold iphone we can repeat the same process one big change is the display's picture and touch cables have been integrated into just one removing the display from the gold iphone 13 pro it's now time to get out the logic board this can be done by removing the sim tray and the 13 cables connecting to the board in removing just the display and now the logic board we've used four different types of screws two of which are security screws after the cables and two standoff screws have been removed the sim eject pin needs to be moved out of the way now the board is free carefully maneuvering it out of the phone we can get a look at it in a similar design to previous iphone models this iphone board has once again returned to having a soldered in sim reader in the iphone 12 the reader was modular i was able to upgrade a single sim iphone 12 to support two sim cards but that won't be possible with this model now that we have one logic brought out i'll need to retrieve the other one before we can swap them across i want to make sure that the symptoms if any are the same across the two devices as i'm working i'm keeping track of all of these parts and components on several magnetic mats laying everything out helps me keep track of where things go when it's time to reassemble it's now time to swap the two boards this process doesn't sound like it would do anything after all they're the same model of phone and everything inside looks the same while the hardware of the phone is identical the software of most components from the cameras to the vibration motor have their own serial number if the software were designed in such a way that if those components serial numbers changed it could break or limit functions of the device this is what happened with the iphone 12. now that the board is installed everything else inside the phone is from the other device let's see how it reacts after powering on there are several messages from the settings app unlocking the phone displays an important camera and display message forced to tap learn more it says these parts are unable to be verified as genuine apple components we also see an unable to activate face id message tapping learn more on any of these messages will take you to apple's website where it recommends you to service your phone at apple this is what we saw with the iphone 12 however the 13 takes it a step further with even more issues arising which we'll get into for those unaware the battery health has been purposely disabled along with face id and true tone digging a little deeper i tested a variety of functions on the phone including the cameras i found that portrait mode and the new cinematic mode don't function correctly when using the selfie camera cinematic mode allows you to press record but the time never increases and no video is saved in portrait mode the background does not blur but you can see it detects my face but refuses to take an image saying to move further away no matter how far i move it doesn't work this also tends to lock up the camera app in the process before jump into conclusions i'll try to replicate these issues on the other iphone 13. it will have the same setup as the other phone all genuine new apple parts just from a different phone after everything is connected we can test the phone at first it wouldn't power on just like the iphone 12 after disassembling it requires the charger to be connected for anything to happen the phone has the same issues as the other no battery health no true tone and no face id but what about the cameras well the same issues occur with both portrait and cinematic mode it should be noted that the rear cameras work just fine however the issues don't end there auto brightness ceases to function as you can see there is no change after switching the lights on or off compared against another iphone you can see how the phone should be responding as an attempted fix i'm going to restore the phone using itunes to ios 15.0 this may or may not fix these issues but there's only one way to find out trying to set up the phone again you can see face id has not come back into a working state as for the rest of the issues with the phone well they're all still there in fact the camera issues have changed slightly now the camera has become more unstable instead of viewing the image and not being able to capture it the viewfinder now freezes and only updates every few seconds this goes for both the cinematic and portrait modes of the phone at a closer inspection the phone i erased is on a different build of ios 15.0 it appears these phones shipped on a pre-release version i will update the other phone to see if it gets the same results after updating we now have two phones that have freezing camera viewfinders somehow this update has caused more issues i have retested the phone and everything else remains the same now that we know what issues arise it's time to find out what actually triggers them i'll be installing each of the logic boards back into its original frame and testing out a camera and display replacement to see if that causes any of the issues we've just faced i'll be reattaching the original display for now so i can test if all of those issues disappear when the factory parts are reinstalled upon boot all of those messages disappear right in front of my eyes and all of those features are now magically back in place and everything from the cameras to the auto brightness is working as it should so that begs the question what is causing the auto brightness not to work and the front-facing cameras and what will happen when we do a display replacement is that even possible on this phone without losing some kind of functionality well let's find out firstly i want to get to the bottom of these camera issues so i'm going to replace the front-facing camera on one of these phones while we're up at this top section you'll also see apple's new earpiece design which runs through the top section of the housing rather than the display with the camera swapped over i'm going to reattach that speaker and test out the phone i'll reinstall the logic board and a display panel back onto the device powering back up we can see as a result of changing the camera the phone has disabled face id checking the cameras they are also glitched out just like before however auto brightness is still working the only thing i would believe would cause it to not work is a display replacement which is the last thing i'm going to be testing i'll first reinstall the original front camera to ensure accurate test results after reinstalling the logic board back into the phone it's now time to test out a display replacement this screen has two cables one for the display and one for some sensors at the top in previous models this cable is paired to the phone and replacing it will break face id the first screen i'll be testing is straight from the gold iphone with its very own sensor cable we'll see what happens with this as you can see we're getting that important display message which i expected but how about everything else well in display and brightness true tone is missing and face id no longer works for my next test i'll attach the original display's sensor cable and the other phone's screen cable this way i don't have to physically remove the sensor cable meaning it remains untouched reconducting my tests in this state you can see face id doesn't work to ensure this is an accurate result i'll be swapping the sensor across the two screens and retesting as these sensors are glued in place i'll be using the heat plate once again at a lower temperature setting just so i can soften the adhesive holding that cable in place after removing both cables we can interchange them between the two screens in this configuration we have a brand new iphone screen from another phone with the sensor cable from this very phone in other words it should work perfectly fine despite the genuine display message face id still doesn't work the only component in this entire phone that is not from the factory is the display panel the sensor cable remains the same yet face id still doesn't work if you do it the other way around where you have the original display panel but a different sensor cable well the same thing happens face id this time will actually let you into the menu to set it up but it will fail after just a few short seconds as with every issue i've faced in this video i've tried a factory reset using itunes just to make sure that doesn't make any difference to the phone after resetting the device and retesting i found the exact same results that means if you damage your display on this new iphone 13 pro you can say goodbye to the functionality of face id but that's not all with just replacing the display the selfie camera doesn't work correctly with portrait and cinematic mode not being able to capture anything auto brightness doesn't work and true tone has been disabled despite all of this the high refresh rate still works with that it's finally time to reassemble our iphone 13s back with all of their original factory parts and hopefully they'll still be working by the end of it [Music] i can attach the display being short not to damage it as if i do a replacement will cause the phone to have limited functionality apple is able to pair new components to this phone and avoid all of these issues discussed today however this prevents third-party repair shops or a diy repairer to really be able to repair the phone and still have it work properly after giving the inside of the phone a good clean i can close it up and proceed to reassemble the gold iphone 13. [Music] [Music] after installing all of the brackets i can clean down the internals of the phone using a microfiber cloth to remove any of the dust inside closing up the phone i can reinstall the sim card trays and finally the pentalobe screws at the bottom of each device and with that we're done so this is it the iphone 13. i believe it has been engineered not to be repaired by any third party i might have spent 3400 on these two phones but i truly don't believe they belong to me even something as common as a display replacement will cause other functions of the phone to stop working correctly i'm disappointed that these software locks i brought to light last year have only gotten worse i hope to see change in the form of a software update but only time will tell both of these phones are fully functional after being reassembled with their factory parts and on that note this has been a huge jeffery's video if you like what you saw hit that subscribe button and consider checking out the tear down and repair playlist for more videos just like this one and if you're looking for any used devices be sure to check out my online store link for which is down in the description that's all for this video and i'll catch you guys next time

Channel: Hugh Jeffreys

Views: 2,730,938

Rating: 4.9332805 out of 5

Keywords: Hugh, Jeffreys, Apple, iPhone, iPad, iPod, technology, repair, restore, restoration, destroyed phone, broken phone, phone repair, android, samsung, iphone 13, iphone teardown, iphone 13 teardown, iphone 13 repair

Id: 8s7NmMl_-yg

Length: 17min 20sec (1040 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Maelehn]

I used to work for Geek Squad which is AASP (Apple Authorized Service Repair). And I can tell you even with us Apple was such assholes when it came to repairs. The reason how the system knows to lock you out is because after we replace a broken screen for example (which only takes like 15 minutes depending on the phone), is we have to put the phone in restore mode and plug it into our apple workbench which (calibrates) the new screen with the rest of the phone.

Sometimes this calibration would randomly fail and the customer would have to pay for a new phone. We would contact apple and they would robot-like repeat the procedure from a textbook.

TL;DR -- Apple uses software to "callibrate" the new parts onto the rest of the phone.

[u/GhettoBlasterMixTape]

This is actually something auto manufacturers did back in the late 80s through the 90s. They purposely made vehicles require specialized tools, systems and equipment to repair your car. Often using abstract fasteners (such as Torx (edit: sorry, autocorrect), and alan-keys) forcing owners to purchase tools that were not easy to find or were generally expensive so that car owners would take it to the dealer for repair. It got worse when they all had different computer systems (prior to ODBII ports) before they were all forced to use the same system.

Edit: In response to Apples "we're the only ones who are allowed to fix our products", this the problem farmers currently face with their equipment now. They are not allowed to repair it themselves and require the manufacturers to do it or a rep of theirs.

[u/foxdit]

I feel like the most poigniant line in this video was at the end, he says:

I may have spent $3,400 on these two phones, but I don't feel as though they belong to me.

In the past 20 years we've seen software go from being something you buy and own, to unavoidable subscription models that lock you out if you're not connected to the internet. I feel hardware moving in the same direction. At a certain point, it'll be hard to actually own anything. We'll just be granted permission.

[u/Mallix8792]

Stuff like this is why there is a huge right to repair movement going on for electronics specifically things like electric cars (Tesla, etc.) and Smart phones (mostly looking at apple).

[u/Dragonmons]

Posting apple in this sub is cheating man

[u/metalguru1975]

It’s simple- do not buy these products- European law dictates that a device should be fixable, easy to access inside and you can use non legitimate parts.

[u/sprace0is0hrad]

Well we don't even have official apple stores in my country so there's that lmao.

[u/SonicWim]

Check out the repair score Apple kinda gave itself for it's products: https://support.apple.com/fr-fr/circular-economy-repairability-indices
This is mandatory by French law.
In Belgium we also trumped Apple because it's required by law that everything you sell here has a minimum warranty of 2 years so they had to change their terms here.

[u/Exp1ode]

Doesn't this violate right to repair?