A broken phone screen is never a good thing, but it’ll be particularly bad news for iPhone 13 owners — because third-party repairs will stop Face ID working.
Teardowns of the new smartphone range have revealed that even repairs using genuine Apple parts will permanently disable the face-unlocking feature. That leaves owners having to either pay the high cost for an authorized Apple repair, or coughing up the cash for AppleCare Plus.
This isn’t the first time Apple has made design choices that served as a slap in the face to the third-party repair industry. The company employed proprietary screws as far back as 2011, and just last year it was discovered that the iPhone 12’s camera would stop working properly if it wasn’t repaired by an authorized Apple technician.
