More Modular Than Ever Before: iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max Teardown
We first cracked into the iPhone 16 lineup over the weekend, and we were impressed. The vanilla iPhone 16 earned a respectable 7 out of 10 repairability score. It’s the most repairable iPhone in years: the fancy new electrically released adhesive will make battery repairs easier. Most repairs can be completed without having to go through other fragile components. And that’s supported with even better software news: with iOS 18, iPhones now have an on-device Repair Assistant that will enable you to pair used Apple parts.
In a major departure from the base iPhone, the Pro battery is encased in aluminum. We’ve seen this sort of enclosure before in the Apple Watch, but never in an iPhone. Some reports have suggested that this aluminum casing could help heat dissipation. But in our world, we’re excited to see it because it’s a boon for repair—a slip of a screwdriver won’t puncture it, and you won’t have to worry about your pry tool bending it if you broke some adhesive strips. A bent battery can cause a short between the layers of the battery, which can make it ignite.
Speaking of which, we think we might’ve found another safety mechanism built into the Pro: There’s a button-like protrusion under the battery management system that could be a blowout valve, serving as a pressure release mechanism in case of battery swelling (aka a spicy pillow).
