One nit: Apple makes no claims about third party (ie not Apple Original parts) having the ability to be calibrated. Nor should they, since who knows what these third party parts are doing. I’ve seen displays for iPhones that are LCD panels. I’ve seen aftermarket OLED panels, that are not of the same quality… but actually OLED.

Looking at the linked article, used parts are callibrated, third party parts don't have functionality blocked.

> with iOS 18, they would stop disabling True Tone and battery health for third-party parts.

https://www.ifixit.com/News/100266/the-end-of-parts-pairing-...

Skeptically, "if the parts can handle it" would be key in my view. How do I know true tone and battery health would be in any way accurate, if they're using who knows what display, and who knows what battery/BMS?

There is never a guarantee that a third party part works identically to a first party part regardless of what device you are repairing.

You're saving money, but taking a chance.

I agree with you. Hence why I’m saying this supposed statement by Apple isn’t really saying anything. They’ll allow it to work, but probably none of them will actually support True Tone since they don’t know what proprietary secrets Apple has for their displays. Not really apples problem.

It's genuinely impressive to me that you can tool up the Shenzhen axolotl tanks and make any kind of unofficial screen for any phone, let alone an iPhone, without vendor support, and have it work and fit, and get to market in time. That's some pressure on the guys who get a new phone on their bench and get told to crack out the logic analyser and get going.

Why wouldn’t they, honestly? The displays are presumably mostly standard display interfaces with some custom protocols around some control. Year over year I doubt there are truly major changes to the protocols and mechanics, it becomes a form factor and fitting statement. Also, given most of this stuff is manufactured in that region… the domain knowledge is there.

I mean rationally I kind of know, but it's hard enough to get something hardware-y designed, built, tested, debugged and out on schedule and in spec when you have every scrap of information in front of you, let alone when it's a black box and you hope that there's no special sauce in the protocols.

Nice pun <3