Toni Hobrecht
The Apple iPhone 15 series has had its first teardown – iFixit took the phones apart and tested them for repairability. The results are mixed. Apple has finally updated the iPhone 15 Pro models to the new interior design. This means you can remove the glass on the back directly without first dismantling the display. The internal components are still hidden behind the display on the Pro models and not behind the glass like on the Apple iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Plus. The big change on the 15 Pro models is that the back glass is now removable. This makes repairing back cracks quicker and easier.
But there is still a pretty big catch – Apple still works with software restrictions on the individual components. Each iPhone has specific components and parts associated with it, which makes third-party repairs and even replacement of original components much more difficult. That’s exactly why iFixit recently retroactively downgraded the iPhone 14 to a repairability score of 4/10. The same now applies to the iPhone 15 models – they all receive the same “Not recommended” rating.
If you take a closer look at the process, the Apple iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max can be opened from the front or back. However, like iPhones before the iPhone 14, the internal components are hidden behind the display. As mentioned, components are paired with the corresponding device and repairs must be validated via Apple’s system configuration tool. iFixit even ran a pairing test between two identical Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max to see which parts would still work. As expected, most components subsequently went on strike or issued warnings.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max teardown also revealed a 17.1 Wh battery and an identical size of the main and ultrawide cameras as the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X70 modem is also on display. The SK Hynix DDR5 memory sits alongside the A17 Pro chipset on the motherboard.
