iFixit Tears Down the iPhone 17e, Discovers MagSafe Upgrade Path for iPhone 16e Owners

[ClaraStahlbaum]

I highly, highly doubt anyone who buys the 16e is going to spend the time needed to get magsafe, when they can just buy the new 17e, trade in the 16e, for a similar price as to buying all the parts, and then doing it themselves. The chances of someone doing this is astronomically slim.

 

[ChromeAce]

Such a shallow take.
I'll have to inform you that:
- Some people have some money at some point of their life and a different amount later on. Maybe it was the pricier iPhone they could afford at that time.
- Some people do not go through the full spec-list while buying a phone and may have realised they didn't get that feature after buying.
- Some people break their rear glass and may take advantage of the replacement to also get a cool upgrade.
- Some people may think they don't need magsafe while buying their phone and realise it may be good later on.
- Some people may find a cheap used one that'd be great for them except for the lack of magsafe and upgrade it, instead of spending more on a 17e. Maybe saving even more because the rear glass is broken!

Carriers are giving away phones for free with renewed contracts. You speak as if a MagSafe iPhone 17e is like an extravagant trip to Hawaii. Anyone that cost-conscious would be protecting their precious with a case anyway, and there are cases with MagSafe that are cheaper than paying someone American labor wages to crack open their phone with an unofficial modification… but you’re right, there is an edge case for hockey players on a budget who just got into a team fight.

 

[cicalinarrot]

Carriers are giving away phones for free with renewed contracts. You speak as if a MagSafe iPhone 17e is like an extravagant trip to Hawaii. Anyone that cost-conscious would be protecting their precious with a case anyway, and there are cases with MagSafe that are cheaper than paying someone American labor wages to crack open their phone with an unofficial modification… but you’re right, there is an edge case for hockey players on a budget who just got into a team fight.

American labor wages, hockey players, trip to hawaii...
Alright, not everybody here is american. And when I say "here", I mean "on this planet". There are contexts that are different from your own reality.
From third party resellers, it's a $25 component and a 20/30 minute job (which, I'll have you known, isn't paid American labour wages outside of the US). And taking the rear glass off is something that, again, you may need to do anyway. In fact, it may be upsold even with a battery swap, since it would add almost no labour.
Not to mention people who may do this themselves. It's no rocket science.
So I see many circumstances, surely not very common but not very rare either, that could make this replacement quite a nice idea.
Would I buy a case? Probably! Though, as I said somewhere else, there's less choice for mag-safe cases.
If I needed to replace my rear glass and could get the mag-safe one insted, would I pay just a little more? Why not?!

But my main point was that not everybody who buys a cheaper phone is automatically refusing to spend any money to upgrade it. And you appear to be unable to conceive that.

 

[jlc1978]

Anyway, I didn't want to say that a lot of people will do that upgrade, it mostly was against the flawed logic in "people who spent less for the iPhone won't spend money on this".

I'm not so sure that logic is flawed. I suspect the 16e buyer basically wants an iPhone and doesn't care about higher end ones because it meet their needs at a good price point. They've likely done without MagSafe so far and those there is no FOMO.

I also suspect the people who are wiling to do the upgrade and have the tools/techical ability to properly do it, is vanishingly small.

Most of the posters on MR are into tech, especially Apple, and like to play with it and see cool things taht can be done, but we are a negligible subset of the broader user base; most of whom don't care about stuf like adding capabilities to a device. They simply use it.

From third party resellers, it's a $25 component and a 20/30 minute job (which, I'll have you known, isn't paid American labour wages outside of the US). And taking the rear glass off is something that, again, you may need to do anyway. In fact, it may be upsold even with a battery swap, since it would add almost no labour.

However, for low labor rate countries that also means people who buy the 16e likely have less disposable income, so $25 + labor is a different calculus. If the component costs the reseller $25, they'll likely mark it up to make a profit as well on it. Then, there is the issue of spending money on stocking an item with low demand, tying up capital.

As for a battery swap, a 16e is not very likely to need a new battery, so any swap would be a waste of money, and it's also likely the 16e is still under warranty anyway for the battery.

I'm not saying no-one does the swap, just that it is unlikely, for a variety of reasons, to be anything but a curiosity.