Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro has only been in customers’ hands for a short time, but iFixit has already taken the new smartphone apart. What it found inside is fascinating, particularly Apple’s tiny new variable aperture camera. Unfortunately, the teardown also uncovered something far less exciting.
iFixit opened four iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max units during its teardown process. On three of the four phones, the white plastic frame surrounding the display cracked or pulled away while the screen was being removed.
That is potentially concerning because getting through the display is necessary for many iPhone 18 Pro repairs, including something as routine as replacing the battery. Apple continues to use a front-entry design, despite the rear glass panel being relatively easy to remove. There simply aren’t many serviceable components waiting behind that rear panel.
The good news is that the displays themselves continued working after removal. The problem involved the plastic frame surrounding them, which iFixit says is part of the display assembly. If that frame breaks, simply applying fresh adhesive may not be enough to ensure the phone goes back together properly or seals as intended.
Before anyone starts calling this an iPhone 18 Pro defect, however, there is an important caveat. Four phones represent a very small sample, and iFixit makes that clear. One of its four phones came apart without the frame breaking, and the organization has seen other teardowns where the damage did not occur.
There are also several possible explanations. The amount of heat applied during disassembly, the strength of the adhesive, differences in technique, or variations in the plastic itself could all play a role. Interestingly, iFixit notes that Apple has used this type of plastic frame since the iPhone 15 Pro without encountering this level of difficulty in previous teardowns.
iFixit even wonders whether the iPhone 18 Pro’s improved cooling system could be making screen removal more difficult by pulling heat away from the seam before the adhesive softens sufficiently. The one display that came apart cleanly required quite a bit of heating, although more testing will be necessary before anyone can say exactly what is happening.
Once you actually get inside, Apple deserves some credit for the battery design. The iPhone 18 Pro uses a metal battery tray held in place with screws, while electrically releasable adhesive makes separating the battery cell from that tray considerably easier. The frustrating part is that reaching this repair-friendly battery first requires navigating a display that iFixit had trouble removing safely.
There is plenty of other interesting engineering inside the iPhone 18 Pro. Apple’s new variable aperture camera uses six overlapping polymer-composite blades, each roughly as thin as a human hair. Magnets control the mechanism, allowing the main camera to switch between ƒ/1.48, ƒ/1.8, ƒ/2.8, and ƒ/4.0.
It looks incredibly cool under a microscope, but iFixit is skeptical about the practical benefit. The organization found some difference in background blur at different apertures, but the tiny smartphone sensor and short focal length prevent the effect from approaching what you would see from a larger dedicated camera. The mechanism also introduces additional moving parts that could eventually fail.
Apple has made some interesting changes elsewhere. The A20 Pro now sits on the outside of the logic board sandwich with memory positioned beside it, creating a more direct path to the cooling system. Apple also uses a vapor chamber with three times the surface area of the previous design. Meanwhile, NAND storage has moved inside the logic board sandwich, potentially making some advanced repairs and data recovery more difficult.
Despite the display concerns, iFixit gave both the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max a provisional repairability score of 7 out of 10. The organization says the damaged display frames remain its biggest unanswered repair question because it does not yet know what caused the failures or how widespread the issue might be.
For what it’s worth, none of this has dampened my enthusiasm for the phone. I personally picked up a burgundy iPhone 18 Pro on launch day, and I couldn’t be happier with it. The phone has been excellent for me so far.
Still, seeing the same type of damage occur on three of the four phones iFixit opened is worth paying attention to. It does not establish that Apple has a widespread problem, but with battery replacement requiring technicians to get past that display first, I’ll be interested to see whether independent repair shops start reporting similar experiences as more iPhone 18 Pro models land on their workbenches.
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