The iPhone 13 teardowns have already begun and they are revealing some very bad news for independent repair shops.
YouTube channel Phone Repair Guru tested replacing the screen on an iPhone 13 and discovered that, even if the replacement screen is an official Apple component, Face ID will be disabled. It seems Apple has linked the screen directly with the Face ID system, and if it detects a new screen then Face ID is disabled automatically.
So if you take your iPhone 13 in for a screen repair and the repair shop isn’t an Apple Authorized Service Provider or an Apple Store, you’ll get a new screen, but can’t use Face ID anymore. Authorized repairs must therefore have an additional step which links the new screen with Face ID to enable it again.
Phone Repair Guru hopes this is a bug rather than a feature, but right now it certainly looks as though this is a feature that’s going to hit independent repair shops pretty hard. They simply can’t fix iPhone 13 displays without leaving the smartphone with decreased functionality. Well-known YouTuber Louis Rossmann has some further insight into what this means for independent repair businesses.
We have reached out to Apple for clarification on whether this is expected behavior or a bug that will be fixed in a future iOS release and will update this post if we receive a response. If you are unfortunate enough to require a screen replacement just a few days after purchasing an iPhone 13, and use Face ID, it seems approaching Apple or one of its authorized repair outlets is the only way to ensure it will continue to work right now.
