iPhone Air Teardown Reveals Surprising Repairability For Apple's Thinnest Model

Apple bolstered this year’s iPhone lineup with the debut of the iPhone Air, a phone that measures up well against the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. It’s an impressive device that manages to pack some serious specs into its thin frame, and a design that harkens back to the thinner phones Apple used to make. This time around, though, the company hasn’t sacrificed repairability for the sake of thinness.

iFixIt’s annual iPhone teardowns have shown that Apple has meaningfully improved how repairable its devices are, and that it didn’t abandon this design ethos with the iPhone Air. The iPhone Air's repairability is a result of how Apple chose to use the space within the frame, placing the logic board at the top behind the camera bump and letting the battery occupy the rest. This ensures that all parts can be easily accessed when the iPhone Air is taken apart.


Additionally, Apple has incorporated electrically debonding adhesive strips to secure the battery, which enables the strip of adhesive to effortlessly give way with a jolt of 12 V. It also encased the battery in a metal plate that “makes it more bend resistant and safer to replace.” It’s a big win for those who keep their phones for a few years, as removing a battery can often be nerve racking.

These design choices alongside the availability of repair guides on day one has led iFixIt to give the iPhone Air a provisional score of 7 out of 10 for repairability, saying that the company has proven that “thin doesn’t have to mean unfixable.” This should come as welcomed news for those who were worried that the return of super thin devices also meant the return to less consumer-friendly designs.