Today Apple has announced that it’s expanding self-repair and independent repair options for iPhones. Namely, you will be able to repair your iPhone with used genuine parts, something that has not been possible so far.
This will happen thanks to a new “parts calibration” process – a used part will go through this process once it’s installed in another iPhone, and if it’s genuine, it will work without any restrictions.
Thus, you yourself, or an independent repair provider, will be able to swap out parts for ones taken from other iPhones. This will start in the fall with “select iPhone models”. Used genuine Apple parts will “benefit from the full functionality and security afforded by the original factory calibration, just like new genuine Apple parts”, the company says.
Apple continues to defend the practice of “part pairing”, saying it’s “critical to preserving the privacy, security, and safety” of your iPhone. This is the process of “confirming whether or not a repair part is genuine and gathering information about the part”, and so far if you tried to replace an iPhone part with one that was used in another iPhone, it would be a problem since the part was “paired” to the original iPhone it was used in.
For the past two years, Apple teams have been working on enabling even the reuse of parts such as biometric sensors used for Face ID or Touch ID, and starting this fall, the calibration for all parts will happen on-device once the part is installed. Future iPhones will come with support for used biometric sensors, and customers and service providers will no longer need to provide a device’s serial number when ordering parts that don’t involve the replacement of the logic board.
Apple is also extending Activation Lock to iPhone parts in order to deter stolen iPhones from being disassembled for parts. Thus, if a device under repair will detect that a supported part was obtained from another device with Activation Lock or Lost Mode enabled, the calibration for that part will be restricted once it’s installed in the new phone.
Finally, Apple boasts about the uniqueness of its Parts and Service history feature in Settings on iOS, which lets second or third owners of iPhones have access to full part and repair histories. Parts and Service history will expand this fall to also show whether a part is a new or used genuine Apple part.
John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, said:
At Apple, we’re always looking for new ways to deliver the best possible experience for our customers while reducing the impact we have on the planet, and a key part of that means designing products that last. For the last two years, teams across Apple have been innovating on product design and manufacturing to support repairs with used Apple parts that won’t compromise users’ safety, security, or privacy. With this latest expansion to our repair program, we’re excited to be adding even more choice and convenience for our customers, while helping to extend the life of our products and their parts.
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