iPhone 14 teardown: One key change makes it much easier to repair

• 

  Here’s the iPhone 14 with front and back panels, and a middle frame. [credit:
  iFixit
  ]

As has become an annual custom, iFixit has done a teardown of the iPhone 14, Apple’s baseline flagship iPhone for 2022. While the iPhone 14 seems almost identical to its immediate predecessor on the surface, iFixit found one vital difference Apple hasn’t announced publicly: it’s much easier to repair.

iFixit calls it “the most significant design change to the iPhone in a long time,” for their purposes, at least.

In the new design, the bulk of the phone is in a midframe, but the frame can be opened on either side—both the front and the back. Other recent models—including the still-sold iPhone 13, iPhone 12, and iPhone SE, as well as the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max—could only be opened from the front.