HackerTube.dev

iPhone 13 A Repair Nightmare - Teardown and Repair Assessment

Hugh Jeffreys · 4.4M views · 2021-09-28 · 17:20

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Hugh Jeffreys tears down the iPhone 13 and assesses its repairability, showing how Apple ties parts like the display and Face ID hardware to specific devices. He demonstrates that swapping parts, even genuine ones, can disable features.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as evidence of Apple's serialized parts and repair restrictions in threads about right to repair and Face ID disabling.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2021–2024

Topics

Repair, teardowns & right to repairConsumer devices & gadgets
Search by tags
right to repairiphone 13face idparts pairingteardown

What people said

guerrilla · 2021-10 · Recommendation

I can recommend that iPhone video he links to[1]. It shows the switching of the mainboard between two identical Apple phones and goes through all the somewhat surprising consequences, including them both claiming not to be using genuine Apple hardware anymore. 1. [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
beeboobaa3 · 2024-09 · Reference

Do you really think that nearly half of the price of an iphone is the screen? How come competitors are able to offer screens at 1/3rd the price? Keep in mind that apple is intentionally killing the third party market. You cannot make a third party screen for an iphone that behaves the same as a regular screen, the iphone firmware will detect this and prevent it. [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
username190 · 2021-11 · Reference

I'm not convinced by this - if you look at an iPhone 13's screen, it's entirely separate from the face ID hardware. [LINK] (screenshot from [0]) On iPhones X through 12, if you kept the Face ID hardware and only changed the display, Face ID would continue to work. On the iPhone 13 series, if you keep the Face ID hardware and change the display, Face ID stops working. The chip which people are removing seems to serve only to identify the display - nothing to do with the Face ID system. Apple has been using this chip for years to disable "true tone" display functionality when the screen was swapped (unless it was programmed by a proprietary tool, only available to first-party repair shops) - they're now also tying it disable Face ID. [0] [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Hugh Jeffreys, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources