iFixit Takes Apart iPhone 16e for Closer Look at C1 Modem

I really liked the pre-2020 teardowns that were done in article format. But this is cool anyway. Great to hear they are making some slight improvements to the repairability.

Well, it IS iFixit. They don’t have to be accurate if the video makes someone go to their site to post that in the comments. Especially when they can take a dig at Apple in lieu of accuracy. :) They’re still parroting that the EU made Apple switch to USB-C, when Apple helped create it and switched to USB-C after their decade on lightning, which is exactly how long they said they’d be on lightning.

iFixit likely wouldn’t even have their “i” name if it wasn’t for Apple! ;)

Why the putdown? iFixIt is great! They’ve helped countless people fix their stuff.

Since removing the display or the back of the iPhone also tears up the thin sticky-backed sealing layer around the inner front/back rims of the inside circumference of the iPhone's housing, it would seem that unless you somehow can replace that too, an iPhone that's been taken apart and reassembled would no longer meet the IP68 waterproof rating. When Apple fixes an iPhone, do they replace this thin sealing layer?

Yes they do. A decent amount of time of any repair process is spent removing and cleaning the edge area for fresh application of new sealing adhesive.

The iFixit video says Magsafe is nothing more than a ring of magnets. That's not accurate--those magnets surround the charging coil, which is a separate part. In the 16e, it's a Qi 1 charging coil, limited to 7.5 watts, not Apple's enhanced true Magsafe version that supports higher wattage/faster charging.

Well, it IS iFixit. They don’t have to be accurate if the video makes someone go to their site to post that in the comments. Especially when they can take a dig at Apple in lieu of accuracy. :) They’re still parroting that the EU made Apple switch to USB-C, when Apple helped create it and switched to USB-C after their decade on lightning, which is exactly how long they said they’d be on lightning.

iFixit likely wouldn’t even have their “i” name if it wasn’t for Apple! ;)

Good video. Nice to see the internals. Not surprised to see that it is not so easy to repair. Some of the products from Apple are better in repairability but in general it is not quite easy. Better to go to an Apple store or service center to do any kind of repairs on Apple products.

Since Apple, in their statement of why MagSafe is missing, didn't mention battery life, and since the battery life significantly exceeds anyone's expectations for that model, I doubt that this was the motivation. Also, none of teardowns mention the battery being thicker, and instead attribute the increased capacity to the battery being longer, thanks to the space freed by only having a single camera.

Here is a look of the MagSafe components in an iPhone 14:

Sure, Apple's motivation for not including Magsafe in the 16e was mostly because the 16e is the successor to the SE series, which didn't have Magsafe either, and because this continues the differentiation between the SE/16e and the regular 16 series models. SE buyers knew (at least most of them) that the SE didn't include Magsafe, and they were fine with that, so Apple figured they'd keep making an iPhone that works for them. I'd like to think that maybe not including the Magsafe version of the charging coil, and the Magsafe magnets, would have freed up a little depth for a thicker battery, but that was my initial "hope", and on second thought the Qi 1 charging coil might still be just thick enough that not including the Magsafe parts might not have freed up much depth.

I'm tempted to buy some broken iPhones from eBay so I can tear them apart and take my own measurements of the parts Apple actually uses, rather than rely on the supposed dimensions I read online, which too often are cited as "a range for this type of part".