by Joe Rossignol
Apple today announced that starting later this year, customers and independent repair shops will be able to repair select iPhones using used, genuine Apple parts. Along with the announcement, Apple's head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, spoke to TechCrunch about the controversial iPhone “part pairing” process.
Last year, repair site iFixit criticized Apple's part-matching process, and Oregon recently passed a law banning Apple from using the “part-matching” process in the state for devices manufactured after January 1, 2025.
Ternus says the iPhone still works with most third-party parts:
“'Mating parts' is often used outside the company and has a negative connotation,” Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware. engineer John Ternus tells TechCrunch. “I think this has led people to believe that we are somehow blocking third-party parts from working, which we are not. We look at it this way: we need to know which part is in the device for several reasons. One, we need to confirm that this is a real Apple biometric device and that it hasn't been tampered with or anything like that… Calibration is another matter.”
One exception is a third-party device. parts related to Face ID and Touch ID that Ternus says don't work on the iPhone for security reasons:
“You think about Touch ID and Face ID and how security critical it is because of how much of our information is stored on our phones,” says Ternus. “Our entire lives are connected to our phones. We have no way to verify the functionality of any third-party biometrics. This is an area where we do not allow the use of third-party modules for key security functions. But in all other cases, we do.”
Apple warns customers if any iPhone part is not genuine. If the iPhone has been repaired, a Parts and Service History section appears in the Settings app under General → About, which shows whether non-genuine Apple parts were installed.
Ternus said, That such transparency surrounding repairs is important:
“We have hundreds of millions of iPhones in use that are used or used devices,” he explains. “This is a great way for people to enjoy iPhone at a lower price. We think it's important for them to have transparency: Has this device been repaired? What part was used? Things like that.”
Apple says it will expand the Parts and Service History section later this year to show whether a used part is a genuine Apple part. For more information on used for parts approved for repair, please read our previous article.
Tags: Apple Authorized Service Providers, DIY Repair Guide [ 130 comments ]
