iPhone 16 battery replacement takes only 90 seconds

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iPhone 16 battery replacement process
The relative ease of the iPhone 16 battery replacement has earned Apple's highest ever repairability score. There is a novel adhesive that holds down the iPhone 16 battery and the iPhone 16 Plus pack.

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By applying electrical current through the adhesive, it loses its stickiness and the iPhone 16 battery can be easily swapped out in about a minute and a half. Apple recommends using a regular 9V battery and two cables with alligator clips.

The positive red clip goes to the iPhone 16 battery's silver tab, and the black one to the grounding screw on the bottom right that holds down the speaker. In 90 seconds or less, the battery can simply be removed from the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, scoring the two phones the unprecedented repairability number of 7/10 from iFixit.

iFixit, September '24

As usual, the teardown specialists complain mainly from the use of unorthodox screw types that make them use special tools to take the iPhone apart. The iPhone 16 Pro line doesn't get as high of a repairability score, as the phones still use adhesive that has to be stretched out for the battery to be removed and, in the case of the iPhone 16 Pro, the battery is housed in a metal enclosure for better heat dissipation.

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The new iPhone 16 battery replacement process was likened to an Oreo cookie. "You figured out that if you dip just the bottom cookie in some milk and twist the cookie apart, the filling will always stick to the top cookie," says iFixit, while explaining how easy this makes an iPhone battery swap now. 

Hopefully, the battery adhesive zapping technology will trickle up to the iPhone Pro line of phones in future iterations as well.
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