After opening up the MacBook Neo a few days ago, iFixit is back with a full teardown of the new iPhone 17e, revealing a few surprising repair-friendly changes inside. Watch it below.
Cross-compatibility renders it a 7 out of 10 repairability score
One of the biggest knocks against the iPhone 16e was its lack of MagSafe support.
Despite the widely circulated notion that this wouldn’t be a big issue for the device’s target audience, Apple did introduce MagSafe support with the iPhone 17e.
Today, iFixit published its teardown of the iPhone 17e and showed that the device’s MagSafe-enabled back panel is fully compatible with the iPhone 16e.
In practice, that means iPhone 16e owners may be able to add MagSafe support to their devices by simply swapping the back panel, with a few caveats:
“The 16e doesn’t seem to have the software to recognise the MagSafe attachment, so the signature “thunk” and animation I expected to see is missing. The jury is out on whether a 16e with a 17e back cover can achieve the 15W charge speeds of the 17e, we’ll test and report back once we know.”
In fact, iFixit notes that most components are cross-compatible between the iPhone 16e and iPhone 17e. They even managed to boot an iPhone 17e using an iPhone 16e logic board, although Face ID did not work.
As iFixit notes:
“That kind of cross-compatibility matters. It makes repairs easier, parts easier to source, and upgrades cheaper.”
In the teardown, iFixit notes that the iPhone 17e’s disassembly process is very similar to that of the iPhone 16e and other recent iPhones, in which the front and back panels can be opened independently. This, in turn, means “you can swap a battery without having to go through a fragile screen.”
On the other hand, iFixit notes that removing the USB-C port is still a much more complicated process than it should be, given that it needs to be replaced or repaired far more often than the components it sits under.
All in all, the iPhone 17e (provisionally) scores a 7 out of 10 on iFixit’s repairability scale. That is largely due to its high level of part interchangeability, which they note is either a deliberate effort to make it easier to repair, or a byproduct of Apple’s efforts to simplify manufacturing.
Either way, the iPhone 17e looks like a win for DIY consumers, including those who own an iPhone 16e.
Watch the teardown below:
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