After iPhone 13 reached everyone, people who tinker with it revealed that iPhone 13 would disable its Face ID if the customer tried to repair its cracked screen by a local shop.
The iFixit has confirmed this and has published a detailed report on how this change is a dark day for both DIY and Professional fixers. The new change in the repair process of iPhone 13 will lead to the shutting down of several local iPhone repair shops.
iFixit, in its latest report, said that a small microcontroller maintains the functioning of the iPhone 13’s display; this means that to repair the display of the iPhone 13, a microscope would be mandatory; one of the most common phone repairs, which was relatively easy before with the help of regular phone repairing hand tools. Previously, the local shop owners relied upon commonly used apps for phone repairs. In contrast, now, to fix the iPhone13, the local shops will have to make considerable investments in new technologies and pieces of equipment, which will lead several of them to quit the iPhone repairing business.
The microcontroller system is known as ‘serialization.’ It is very sophisticated, and this is the reason why it is nearly impossible for the local iPhone repairers to pair a new screen without investing a massive amount in the equipment. The Face ID will not be activated until the serial number on the microcontroller is verified with the Apple Servers.
In its report, iFixit said that the authorized technicians with access to proprietary software that is Apple Services Toolkit 2 would need to log the repair to Apple’s cloud servers and sync the serial number of the phone and screen in order to make new screens work.
However, there is an option for some repair shops under Apple’s Independent Repair Program, which lets companies interested in offering out-of-warranty repair services for iPhone and Mac but only at the cost of customer’s privacy.