Over the years, Apple has gone all-in on parts pairing. Virtually every component in an iPhone and iPad has a unique ID that’s kept in a big database over at Apple, which limits replacement parts to only those which have their pairing with the host system officially sanctified by Apple. With iOS 18 there seems to be somewhat of a change in how difficult getting a pairing approved, in the form of Apple’s new Repair Assistant. According to early responses by [iFixit] and in a video by [Hugh Jeffreys] the experience is ‘promising but flawed’.

As noted in the official Apple support page, the Repair Assistant is limited to the iPhone 15+, iPad Pro (M4) and iPad Air (M2), which still leaves many devices unable to make use of this feature. For the lucky few, however, this theoretically means that you can forego having to contact Apple directly to approve new parts. Instead the assistant will boot into its own environment, perform the pairing and calibration and allow you to go on your merry way with (theoretically) all functionality fully accessible.

The bad news here is that parts whose IDs show up as being locked (Activation Lock) are ineligible, which is something you cannot tell when you’re buying replacement parts. During [iFixit]’s testing involving swapping logic boards between two iPhone 15 Pros they found many issues, ranging from sudden reboots during calibration and boot looping. Some of these issues were due to the captive-portal-based WiFi network at [iFixit] HQ, but after eliminating that variable features like Face ID still refused to calibrate among other issues.

Meanwhile [Hugh]’s experiences have been more positive, but the limited nature of this feature, and the issues surrounding used and third-party parts, mean that the practical use of this Repair Assistant will remain limited, with tons of perfectly fine Activation Locked parts scrapped each year and third-party parts requiring pairing hacks to make basic features work, even on Apple’s MacBooks.

IOS 18 also adds battery monitoring for third-party batteries, which is a nice touch, but one cannot help but get the feeling that Apple is being dragged kicking and screaming into the age of easy repairs and replacements with Apple devices.

Featured image: A stack of Activation Locked MacBooks destined for the shredder in refurbisher [John Bumstead]’s workshop.

An unlikely theatre for an act in the right-to-repair saga came last year in the form of McDonalds restaurants, whose McFlurry ice cream machines are prone to breakdown. The manufacturer had locked them down, and a franchisee with a broken machine had no option but to call them for an expensive repair job. iFixit and Public Knowledge challenged this with a request for a DMCA exemption from the Copyright Office, and now news emerges that this has been granted.

The exemption in question isn’t specific to McDonalds, instead it applies to retail food preparation equipment in general, which includes ice-cream machines. We’re guessing that franchisees won’t be breaking out the screwdrivers either, instead it’s likely to lower significantly the cost of a service contract for them and any other food industry operators hit with the same problem. Meanwhile any hackers who’ve picked up an old machine can now fix it themselves without breaking the law, and maybe the chances of your local Mickey D’s having no McFlurries have gone down.

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