Beauty of the iPhone 14 rеdesign is on the inside as $500 repairs are no more
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Great news, people, Apple will no longer charge you for nearly a whole iPhone when you crack its glass back! At least with the iPhone 14, that is, as what it lacks in exterior redesign has translated into a case of the "beauty is on the inside" axiom.
The teardown specialists from iFixit took the iPhone 14 apart and were taken aback how easy it was. Apple is using a new midplate that separates the screen assembly from the rest of the internals, increasing torsion rigidity and making iPhone 14 screen swaps a cinch.
The iPhone 14 display still costs $279 to replace out of pocket, just as the panel on the iPhone 13, but it is much easier and more straightforward to do it now.
Easiest to repair iPhone
In fact, iFixit gave the iPhone 14 their highest repairability score of 7/10 since, well, the times of the iPhone 7. The culprit? Apple's complete internal redesign to make the iPhone 14 assembly more modular in nature and with much easier access to the separate components.
After you heat and pry open the display assembly, you only need to remove the cable connectors and swap the panel if cracked. Moreover, coming from behind is now possible, too, and you can remove the rear glass with shattering it in pieces. This would immediately reveal the battery for a quick replacement, if needed.
Next are the camera kits and motherboard with the A15 processor and the custom Qualcomm Snapdragon X65 5G modem version with the e n53 frequency band that Globalstar - Apple's Emergency SOS partner on the iPhone 14 series - uses for satellite connectivity service.
The iPhone 14 X65 modem with Globalstar satellite connectivity support
It's much cheaper to repair a broken iPhone 14 back now
Instead of having a cracked rear glass plate fall under the "Other" repair category for which Apple charges up to $599, the one on the iPhone 14 will only set you back $169 if you drop it and break the back of the handset.
The glass backplate can be pried open as easily as the iPhone 14's display panel at the front, marking a watershed moment for iPhone repair prices as this would be the case with the iPhone 14 Plus as well, whose rear assembly replacement costs $199 instead $499.
Call it Right to Repair Act or upcoming European Commission legislation, but for the first time since it started making glass sandwich iPhones, Apple has a separate "Back glass damage" replacement category that is much cheaper than its "Other" category where back panel replacements resided so far.
Unfortunately, this privilege is only reserved for the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus, whereas the more complex on the inside 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max models will still net you $499 and $549 for rear glass repairs out of pocket, as Apple simply replaces the whole body. Thus, for the iPhone 14 Pro models, we'd recommend taking advantage of the now-unlimited AppleCare+ repair count.
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