Apple's new flagship releases just went under iFixit's knife, and the results are not what anyone looking for meaningfully easier repairs this generation would have liked to see. The headline number is a conditional 7 out of 10 repairability score, but that figure appears to hide some real benefits alongside one repetitive, unresolved problem.
Starting with the good news. The battery tray is held in place with 13 screws rather than adhesive, meaning technicians will have an easier time lifting the tray and cell out together without fighting glue. Although the cell is still bonded to the tray, iFixit found that an electrically releasable adhesive lets it separate with no trouble in about 90 seconds. The main camera assembly is also quite cooperative, sliding out without screws or glue once you're past the display.
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That's the sticking point, though: getting to either component still requires opening the glued-down screen first, and that step went worse more often than not this time around. Across four teardown units, the white plastic frame surrounding the display broke or pulled away on three of them. iFixit couldn't identify the real problem and admitted the sample is too small to call it a recurring issue, but flagged it as the biggest open mystery behind this year's repairability score.
The variable-aperture main camera is Apple's first, adding a new failure point but not sacrificing serviceability, since the whole module swaps out in one piece. Under the hood, Apple also repositioned its A20 Pro chip to the outside of the logic board, pairing it with a vapor chamber that iFixit measured as three times larger than last year's release, a change aimed entirely at thermal performance instead of repairability. One major side effect of this shift is that NAND storage now sits deeper inside the board sandwich, making data-recovery work more involved than before.
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The repairability score is still provisional because Apple's repair-support tools, including Repair Assistant, are still being finalized for these models. Plus, iFixit said its parts-availability testing is ongoing, so the score could change for better or worse. For now, the verdict is simple: Apple keeps making parts easier to replace, but the process to get through to them hasn't gotten any more approachable.
