iPhone 14 More Repair-Friendly Than iPhone 13; Is It Cheaper Too?

In the last few years, Apple has marketed its iPhones as sturdy products. But that might not be entirely true, as they can break due to their glass sandwich design. While this helped the company to improve ingress protection and make iPhones more rigid, it also made it difficult to replace the broken back panel.

Starting with the iPhone 8, Apple adopted a new design approach that made it difficult to replace the broken back panel. In fact, when users took a broken iPhone to the authorized service center, Apple only offered replacement units rather than repairing the device and charged as much as $599 for the new iPhone 13.

This is changing with the iPhone 14. Although it looks almost identical to the iPhone 13, the company has now made fundamental changes to the structure of the device, which makes it easy to replace the back panel of the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Plus.

iFixit's iPhone 14 teardown video shows that the back glass of the iPhone 14 can be easily replaced, that too without removing the display. While it is as easy as replacing a display, it still needs some amount of heating and prying to remove the back panel of the iPhone 14.

This also means third parties will come up with colorful back panels for the iPhone 14 series, and we could even expect to see the glowing Apple logo, which used to be a thing back in the iPhone 4 era. This should also help iPhone 14 owners to change the color of their device without changing the actual frame of the device.

It's Still An Apple Device

Given how Apple pairs various components to motherboards, the company would also do the same thing to the back panel of the iPhone 14. The back glass comes with an integrated wireless charging coil along with a bunch of magnets to offer MagSafe technology.

While it might allow users to get an affordable third-party back glass replacement, the wireless charging mechanism might just stop working, especially if the back panel is paired with the mainboard. So, if you happen to break your new iPhone 14, you'll still have to bear the hefty cost of repairs.