Apple has been praised for making the iPhone 14 more repairable compared to its predecessors, but the question of who can perform those repairs remains. It looks like the company has added an extra, seemingly unnecessary layer of friction to the process of replacing a broken screen. Just like in 2019, even genuine Apple screens are causing repaired iPhones to malfunction. Sources within the third-party repair community, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, say that while tearing up an iPhone 14 may be easier, getting it to work properly afterwards is considerably more difficult.
According to our sources, the new issue concerns the always-on display (AOD) of the iPhone 14, which uses the phone’s two ambient light sensors (ALS) to calibrate the screen brightness. In order to preserve battery life, at night or when the phone is in your pocket, the screen turns off, taking advantage of automatic brightness. If your screen fails and you don’t use an Apple Authorized Service Center to replace it, the ALS will turn off, leaving the screen permanently black unless you remember the cursor position. then you will be blocked. manually adjust your brightness.
(The ambient light sensor has been a problem with previous versions of the iPhone, down to where its controller was located. On the iPhone 12, for example, it was mounted on a flexible sensor itself. which relied on a mechanical failure. On the 13th it was moved to a new group of components, reducing the chance of it breaking unexpectedly. Our source says the iPhone 14’s sensor fails. is in a similar location, so any failure must be a software issue.)
YouTuber Hugh Jefferys posted a video about the issue, swapping the logic board between two new iPhones (for the 14 and 14 Pro). Despite every component being new and made by Apple, the phones erupted in a chorus of error messages and broken features. FaceID, Battery Health, True Tone and Auto Brightness, and front-facing cameras are all disabled. When Jeffreys traded them in, the issues persisted and the phones were only “fixed” after downgrading to iOS 16.0.
The cause of this failure is Apple’s policy of “part pairing”, which pairs individual components with the phones that carry them. A screen – a part that’s usually broken – will have a unique ID stored in its hardware that the iPhone checks every time it boots. As far as the phone is concerned, it will only work correctly if it has its “own” screen connected, and if it is not detected, it will not work. Users will instead see an invitation to visit their local Apple support technician. These messages will eventually stop, but your device will be marked as hosting unauthorized components.
The only way to avoid this is for an Apple-certified technician to manually sanction the pairing with an internal software tool. Our source said this process requires a technician to connect to Apple’s private network over the internet, a process that is kept “under lock and key” by the company. Until iPhone 13 there was a workaround with third party repair shops using custom EEPROM programmers. These devices would read the part identification code from the paired screen and write it to its replacement, which would often be a refurbished genuine Apple screen. Unfortunately, while this worked on previous iPhones, it doesn’t fix the iPhone 14 issues.
The result is that repair stores outside of Apple’s own network will soon be unable to perform repairs on new iPhones. However, the costs of joining Apple’s network are high enough that many companies are hesitant to do so. “The Independent Repair Program (IRP) is not profitable enough, as an independent repairer, to sustain as a retail operation,” said one person who asked not to be named.
Apple has always resisted the idea that users should be able to repair their own equipment. It has supported anti-right to repair groups and tries to keep all repairs within its own service process. This led to situations where Apple grossly overcharged for basic repairs that didn’t require a machine to be sent back for repair. The most infamous example, reported by it was when a Genius Bar offered $1,200 to complete a repair that a third-party store charged $75.
Apple is withholding repair manuals and spare parts from third-party stores, despite the volume of iPhones that require basic repairs, like screen and battery replacement. Instead, the only non-Apple equipment capable of repairing iPhones are Authorized Service Providers (ASPs) over which Apple can exercise some control. Critics of the company say that excluding third parties who can perform simple repairs and forcing people back to the Genius Bar results in a net profit. Apple denies this and told the , since 2009, “the costs of providing repair services have exceeded the revenue generated from repairs.” Although Apple did not explain whether this constituted all of its repair operations, or only those carried out under warranty.
But the company, through a combination of pressure from regulators and activists, has been forced to loosen its grip on repairs. In 2019, he said he would allow becoming “verified”, which would allow him to receive the same tools, parts and manuals as his ASPs. The process then expanded this program to include Mac repair as well as iPhones (and iPads). And, on November 17, 2021, the company announced a where it would make tools, parts, and manuals available to users.
This process, however, as detailed in depth by , revealed that it was not so simple to allow a user to repair their own iPhone screen on Apple’s terms. The company handed over 79 pounds of tools, including a hot plate to melt the glue that holds the screen in place. If that wasn’t enough, the repair isn’t validated until the iPhone is connected to Apple’s service team, who can then mark the new part as legitimate. And to do this, a user must pay a deposit of $1,200 to ensure that they return the tools within seven days.
The end result is that consumers have to pay a significantly higher price to run their iPhones than they should or could. In one example, a third-party store that used genuine Apple displays charged around £140 ($157) to repair an iPhone 11 screen, while that same repair at an Apple-authorized store would cost closer to £220 ($247). Compare that to replacements, made by third-party companies, which are priced at £95 ($106).
Jason Eccles is Managing Director of SimplyFixIt, a chain of independent repair shops across Scotland. “The idea that someone can buy a device, but the manufacturer can still control its functionality for years to come is mind-boggling,” he said. “It’s frustrating for us because we want to provide the best possible repair, but Apple seems to have arbitrary rules about what we can do, sometimes even creating new issues with iOS updates.” However, Eccles has no problem with iOS devices, knowing that they have been repaired with spare parts. “Consumers getting relevant information in iOS that a component has been replaced is a good thing, but I think it’s hard to say that reducing the functionality of the phone, even though we’re using genuine parts, is good for customers.”
Eccles added that repairing existing equipment is important from a durability perspective as much as anything else. “We still regularly repair MacBooks and iMacs that are ten years old,” he said, “it shows that there are plenty of Apple devices that would be perfectly usable after a little repair.” Not to mention, responsible independent repair technicians should be welcomed by Apple with open arms. “If everyone had to pay £349 ($403) for a new screen, there would be a lot more people switching to Android for their next phone. Apple may not want to admit it, but we help people stay in their ecosystem.
iFixit has tested and confirmed the issue to Engadget, stating that there is an issue with the always-on display. Liz Chamberlain, iFixit’s director of sustainability, said the practice of using soft locks is an “insidious threat to repair as we know it”. And that this new problem is a greater demonstration that “repairability requires the ability to access soft locks, not just hardware.” She added that, either by accident or intentionally, Apple has “proved [it] a parts-matching kill switch cannot be trusted. And that unless lawmakers step in to ensure there is a federally protected right to repair, it’s possible that Apple could “disable all phones that have undergone independent repair.”
Engadget has contacted Apple for comment on the story, but none was made available at the time of publication.
If there is any hope, it is that the push for right to repair legislation on both sides of the Atlantic is gaining momentum. Earlier this year, President Biden said it was a common problem that a person owns a product, but does not have “the freedom to choose how and where to fix it. [it.]“And the FTC has recently seen major manufacturers – including Harley Davidson – forgo using warranty provisions to prevent owners from seeking independent repair for their products.
And the EU, which is currently taking the lead on many elements of tech regulation, is also considering establishing better right-to-repair provisions. His “” initiative is in its infancy at the moment, but will focus on producing rules that will ensure devices sold there are more repairable. One of the key clauses of its first version is to provide “appropriate information to users, repairers and recyclers” (paragraph 4). And that these requirements are designed to enable “end-user repair operations” (paragraph 15), which Apple allows, but does not facilitate. We can only hope that when these rules are agreed, the balance of power will shift back to user redress.
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