On Thursday, an early teardown video of the new iPhone SE detailed the internal similarities the device shares with the iPhone SE. Now, iFixit has published a more in-depth look at how you can even swap parts between both of the phones.
As the report points out, backwards compatibility between iPhone models was virtually unthinkable until now. This time around, however, the iPhone SE and iPhone 8 can swap several different parts, including the display assembly, cameras, and Taptic Engine.
There are two things worth pointing out. First, you’ll lose the display’s True Tone functionality unless you have access to a screen programmer. Secondly, Home buttons are still not interchangeable due to the Touch ID security requirements.
Elsewhere, even though the battery looks identical in both the iPhone 8 and iPhone SE, it’s actually not swappable. This is apparently because of different logic board connectors. And keeping with recent policy, you also can’t swap one genuine iPhone SE battery for another without triggering a warning:
Ultimately, iFixit praises the backwards compatibility between the iPhone 8 and the new iPhone SE. While it’s good for Apple’s manufacturing efforts, it’s also useful for repairabilty. In turn, this plays a role in “reducing manufacturing waste from new designs and making replacement parts easier,” the report concludes.
Check out the full iFixit breakdown here.
