iFixit, the corporate identified for fully tearing aside nearly each product and gadget it could, has totally disassembled a model new iPhone 18 Professional. The aim is to grasp how all of the components match collectively and discover methods to repair something which may break.
Within the firm’s submit and teardown video, iFixit confirmed off the way it took aside the newest iPhone, and what individuals who might sometime want to repair theirs ought to look out for.
It gave the iPhone 18 Professional a restore score of seven/10, citing easy-to-remove digital camera and battery assemblies. This matches the score it gave the iPhone 17 Professional in 2025. That doesn’t imply the iPhone restore course of is easy.
The Achilles heel of the iPhone 18 Professional could also be a brand new characteristic: a variable aperture lens within the cellphone’s most important 48-megapixel digital camera. It’s the first variable aperture in an iPhone (although not the primary in a smartphone). It makes use of six rotating aperture blades the width of a human hair to permit for various apertures for photograph and video.
Courtesy of iFixit
The issue with the aperture is that Apple is introducing transferring components—due to this fact extra components which may want restore. Given the scale and intricacy of how the blades are positioned, iFixit referred to as making an attempt to repair the person blades an almost-impossible activity. Which means if the digital camera does break, you’d in all probability have to switch the complete digital camera meeting. That may undoubtedly be pricier than paying for particular person items. Fortunately, the meeting itself proved simple sufficient to take away.
A stickier scenario is repairing the iPhone 18 Professional’s battery, which requires prying open the glued-on display screen. As soon as that’s eliminated, although, the battery is not glued down however secured by screws, so it’s easier to extract.
All in all, the iPhone 18 Professional is about as simple to restore because it has been for just a few years—not a very simple repair, however one with some tangible enhancements. This comes after Apple’s lengthy, contentious relationship with restore advocates, which made it a goal of European Union laws to make its merchandise simpler to repair.
Apple launched a self-repair program in 2021. It received off to a bumpy begin as the corporate withheld or made it troublesome to entry sure instruments. After stress from US state lawmakers, Apple made it barely simpler to restore its telephones and ultimately launched a restore assistant to assist information customers via the restore course of. Nonetheless, simply this 12 months, the possession advocacy group PIRG gave the iPhone 17 a D- score for its repairability.
