Some iPhone 16s Use a Special Glue That Makes Them Easier to Repair

All batteries age, and the lithium ion battery in your iPhone is no exception. Overtime, the battery degrades, meaning it can no longer hold as much of a charge as it could when it was new. After a few years of using the phone, you may notice your phone needs more frequent juice-ups throughout the day.

When the inevitable happens to you, you don't need to buy a new iPhone. Instead, you can simply replace the battery at a relatively inexpensive cost. Depending on your iPhone, you may not only notice an increase in time away from the charger, but also a boost in performance, since iOS slows down the processing power of your iPhone when its battery is too degraded.

Though replacing your battery is possible, it could certainly be easier. Apple secures the battery to the inside of most iPhones with strong adhesive. To remove it, you need to pull on a few tabs that are easy to break, making the removal process more precarious than it should be. The battery itself is also fragile, and you'll need to remove and reattach some very delicate cables. Despite all of this, it's possible to replace your battery yourself, but it's simpler to opt to take it to a repair shop. (Apple would prefer you use one of its own.)

All that said, the process is notably easier with three of the iPhone 16 devices—including the newly released iPhone 16e.

Some iPhone 16s use a different adhesive

The iPhone 16, 16 Plus, and 16e all ship with a new type of battery adhesive that makes repairs much easier. At first glance, it doesn't seem like much has changed: When you pry open the back case of your iPhone, you'll still find a tab on its battery. However, that tab isn't meant to be pulled yet. Instead, you need to apply an electric current through the adhesive holding the battery to the device for 60 seconds. The current is enough to shake the battery loose, at which point, you use the tab to gently pull the battery away from the iPhone. You don't need to worry about damaging the battery, since the battery will be so loose, gravity could remove it.

As iFixit explains, the tech works by oxidizing the adhesive with the electric current. That breaks the bonds that actually makes the glue adhesive, so it no longer sticks to the surface it was connected to. It's quite technical, and I am no expert, but it's really cool tech—and something that makes replacing the battery in your iPhone 16, 16 Plus, or 16e safer and easier.

Apple probably didn't make these changes out of its concern for customers. Instead, it's likely in response to an EU law that requires smartphones to have "replaceable batteries" by 2027. Europe has had quite an influence over Apple's decisions in recent years, requiring the company to open up many of its closed platforms, including allowing independent app stores and browsers on iOS.

That said, if you own an iPhone 16 Pro or 16 Pro Max, you won't find your batteries any easier to repair. These devices still come with Apple's traditional battery adhesive, so their batteries are just as difficult to replace as ever. It's not clear why Apple opted to skip this new adhesive on the Pro phones, but it is possible that it's simply trialing the fresh tech on some of their devices, not all—especially while there's still time before that EU law takes effect. Perhaps the entire iPhone 17 line, Pro iPhones and all, will sport easy-to-remove batteries. For now, it seems it's just the less expensive models that benefit.

The iPhone 16e has some added repairability

In addition to this new adhesive, Apple added some additional repairability perks to the 16e. The biggest is that Apple now has a guide for repairing the USB-C charging port on this particular iPhone, the first time the company has issued a manual for such a repair.

However, as iFixit reports, this repair is not easy. It involves removing a number of iPhone components in the way of the port, including the back glass, front camera, top speaker, battery, among others; lift up the logic board, then access the USB-C port to repair it. This was apparently the procedure before, but now Apple has a step-by-step guide confirming the difficulty of the repair.

Finally, you don't need to be as careful when opening the back cover on the 16e: One of the metal clips that holds the back cover in place now guards an important flex cable. With other iPhones, you can easily slice this cable while sliding pick tools into the back case when opening it, but the clip here ensures you won't damage the cable in the process.

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