iFixit, the company known for completelytearing apartjust about every product and device it can, has fully disassembled a brand newiPhone 18 Pro. The goal is to understand how all the parts fit together and find ways to fix anything that might break.
In the company’spostandteardown video, iFixit showed off how it took apart the latestiPhone, and what people who may someday need to fix theirs should look out for.
It gave the iPhone 18 Pro a repair rating of 7/10, citing easy-to-remove camera and battery assemblies. This matches theratingit gave theiPhone 17 Proin 2025. That doesn’t mean the iPhone repair process is simple.
The Achilles heel of the iPhone 18 Pro may be a new feature: a variable aperture lens in the phone’s main48-megapixel camera. It is the first variable aperture in an iPhone (though not the first in asmartphone). It uses six rotating aperture blades the width of a human hair to allow for different apertures for photo and video.
The problem with the aperture is that Apple is introducing moving parts—therefore more parts that might need repair. Given the size and intricacy of how the blades are positioned, iFixit called trying to fix the individual blades an almost-impossible task. That means if the camera does break, you’d probably have to replace the full camera assembly. That will undoubtedly be pricier than paying for individual pieces. Luckily, the assembly itself proved easy enough to remove.
A stickier situation is repairing the iPhone 18 Pro’s battery, which requires prying open the glued-on screen. Once that is removed, though, the battery isn't glued down but secured by screws, so it’s simpler to extract.
All in all, the iPhone 18 Pro is about as straightforward to repair as it has been for a few years—not a totally easy fix, but one with some tangible improvements. This comes after Apple’s long,contentiousrelationship withrepair advocates, which made it a target of European Union legislation to make its productseasier to fix.
Appleintroduceda self-repair program in 2021. It got off to abumpy startas the company withheld or made it difficult to access certain tools. After pressure from US state lawmakers, Apple made itslightly easier to repairits phones and eventually introduced arepair assistantto help guide users through the repair process. Still, just this year, the ownership advocacy groupPIRGgave the iPhone 17 aD- ratingfor its repairability.
