the iphone 13 is an inflection point for
repair shops and diy repair some say
it's a reckoning that we should all be
prepared to move around ever smaller
chips to work around increasingly
lockdown devices others say this is the
only way to have truly secure devices we
think it's the strongest case for the
right to repair yet all this because of
a chip smaller than your fingernail
here's the situation if you replace a
screen on an iphone 13 without
transferring this small chip over from
the original screen to the new one or
without approving the swap with apple's
proprietary software face id will stop
working we first saw this on launch day
with our teardown devices but we
recently confirmed this is still an
issue with the newly released ios 15.1
the only thing that changed from the
release software is that there's now an
official error message instead of a
hidden failure apple has been quiet
about this issue as you might expect but
we did hear through the grapevine a
while back that this issue would be
fixed in an ios update we reached out to
apple for comment but we've not heard
back as of the publishing of this video
it's almost impossible to believe that
apple's control over iphone parts is an
accident especially after we've seen
similar issues with touch id batteries
and cameras over the last few years
it is possible that this is just a
series of unfortunate hardware bugs that
made it through testing and apple just
couldn't be bothered to fix them with
software updates because again they have
the tools to pair these components with
the click of a button among repair shops
and inside repair discussion groups
there are now three paths forward train
technicians for expensive and difficult
microsofting repairs
join apple's authorized repair network
or find a new line of work but there's
also a fourth the wild card
fight like hell for right to repair
which could give repair shops access to
apple's proprietary software for pairing
components or even better prevent
companies from making anti-competitive
decisions like this in the first place
accident or not before we film this
video i completely roasted two iphone
screens pulling these chips off to get
some photos for our blog most of my
micro soldering experience is the
destructive kind for tear downs and this
was way more difficult for me than just
pulling a chip off of a circuit board
so to learn more i reached out to justin
ashford from the youtube channel the art
of repair who like some of our other
repair friends has way more experience
doing this kind of board level work for
customers as well as teaching his
youtube audience
so my first question is could you walk
us through sort of like a really quick
step-by-step procedure of how you would
swap the ic from one display to another
if you're doing a display repair
okay so so here's the deal on the back
of the display itself you've got a
little like you know a little flex cable
that connects to the actual display
itself and everything and then you know
right on top of it you're going to find
a little bitty sputter coated ic it's
you know it's sitting right on top there
and then there's a little bit of like
epoxy coating or we call it like under
fill or something under the ic and
there's kind of two trains here okay um
some people will want to take a full
display and that already has one on
there and they'll take like a either
like a cnc or maybe like a like a dremel
or something like that and they'll kind
of grind it away okay and when they
grind it away it allows you to get down
to the pads themselves without actually
damaging the flex cable not damaging the
flex cable itself um and once you
actually have this ic off and both of
them are basically open like if you have
the new display and you have the flex
cable thing there and everything's good
and everything at that point it's
actually a very simple job of just
re-soldering the ic on there that's a
very very simple process it only takes
you know a minute or two i would
actually say that the entire process
itself could be you know
10 or 11 minutes if you actually know
what you're doing yeah
it's just been it's been an easy road
for a long time for a lot of people and
this is going to be a real big roadblock
you know for you you're not a hug you're
not you're not a shop level technician
you know i'm saying it's not your
responsibility to be able to go do that
the first time that you do it you know
for you to show me that you had one with
a burned oled
i totally expect that i totally get it
but you know my boy evan over here you
know what i'm saying if if i was showing
him how to do it he learned how to do it
he would never never do that
um so yeah it's it's it's at a shop
level it shouldn't be that big of a deal
what do you think about how that impacts
diy repair so like we always talk about
the 60s or the 70s where you could just
fix anything at home and all you needed
was a screwdriver and we talked about
how companies don't design things for
that anymore and what i just told you
about you can't fix what you can't see
it all comes to this everyone needs a
microscope and you know here let's let's
let's put it like this if we're getting
to the point
where
there is
no way to change a screen no way to
change a battery
until like a certain like without a
certain level of skills right
then do it yourself and this is like a
really like sad thing to say but do it
yourself might push back a bit right and
like nobody likes to talk about that
stuff but that's a real life thing you
know what i'm saying do it yourself
repair might get a lot harder even if a
shop has the experience and the
equipment to desolder a chip and move it
to a new display they're competing with
apple and their device protection
program applecare where a screen
replacement costs only 30 dollars and
doesn't require any micro soldering
shenanigans for customers who want to
replace an iphone 13 screen themselves
the options are grim
you could live without face id or try to
move the chip yourself but you would
need at least a microscope or high
resolution webcam a hot air rework
station a soldering station with a fine
tip iron tweezers and safety glasses
even with those tools and lots of capped
on tape it's still a challenge you're
basically performing a delicate surgery
but instead of trying not to nick an
artery you're trying not to damage the
fragile oled panel on your new screen
which sits just below that chip which as
you saw i did
twice
the crazy part about all of this is
after all this fuss apple could change
this behavior from completely broken to
a simple warning with a future software
update the way they did with the iphone
12 camera that update took about three
months to arrive after the iphone 12
shipped and we'll probably never know
whether it was apple intentionally
testing the waters for further
serialization in the future or just
neglecting independent fixers
we might never get an explanation as to
why from a security standpoint face id
should be disabled if you replace the
screen
an entirely separate component without
the right to repair there's really
nothing that can stop apple from making
micro soldering a necessary workaround
to replace even the most basic parts of
a phone with no right to repair
legislation passed and companies
gatekeeping their critical repair
software the current small business and
diy repair options are to get grade
under a microscope or give in you can
change the future though head to
repair.org stand up to learn how you can
help secure your right to repair
wherever you live
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