Swap Out A Broken Part With A Working Used One … Maybe
If you have a broken iPhone then the recent news from Apple might cheer you up, but not necessarily. Apple has agreed to permit at least some parts on a broken phone to be replaced with used but working parts. There are, as you’d expect, quite a few caveats to this. First, while they originally offered a vague statement that this will only apply to some models, their SVP of hardware engineering reportedly said that it would only apply to iPhone 15 or later devices.
If you do have one of those phones, you should now be allowed to have the screen and batteries replaced, though other components like the biometric sensors cannot be swapped out. If you ignore their limitations, you will be greeted with pop-up messages warning you that a part on your phone isn’t genuine and therefore your phone’s abilities will be limited until you replace it with an authorized part. That is certainly good news from a company that only recently allowed third party repairs, but does hint at just how unwilling Apple is to comply with Right to Repair legislation.
The models and parts eligible to be repaired should slowly grow, so don’t give up hope on your bruised fruit phone quite yet.
