iPhone 16 teardown reveals new way to attach phone battery

As soon as the Phone 16 lineup arrived, the folks at iFixit started tearing them down, and this time around, the teardown process got a whole lot easier, thanks to Apple releasing repair manuals on day one. During the teardown, they found that the camera controls are physical buttons that move, a flex cable that measures force, and a heatsink that’s supposed to keep the A18 chip’s Neural Engine cool while handling AI workloads.

After disconnecting the battery from the board, apply current from the power source (90 seconds with a 9 volt battery will do). The previously glued battery should come off easily enough by gravity alone. Then, just apply pressure to bond the adhesive to the new battery.

Apple says that over time, the separation time may increase, but iFixit found that using 20V of current on the new phone was enough to release the bond in just 5 seconds, and Apple says up to 30V can be used. iFixit also showed off some detailed close-ups of the frame that holds the battery in place and the ridges that are machined to allow the battery to adhere.