Apple today published a whitepaper outlining the company’s efforts toward designing long-lasting products and improving repairability. The document came alongside Apple’s expansion of its Diagnostics software tool for Self Service Repair to 32 European countries.
Buried within the lengthy whitepaper, however, was the news that Apple plans to offer better software support for third-party iPhone components like displays and batteries starting later this year.
Apple said in the whitepaper that it will enable True Tone and battery metrics (such as battery health and cycle counts) for non-OEM iPhone screens and batteries, respectively.
True Tone is a feature that automatically adjusts the white balance of an iPhone’s display to better match the ambient light. Per Apple, the feature “requires precise calibration to function properly” and relies on server-side calibration that’s different for each iPhone, which is why it is usually automatically disabled by iOS on replacement screens sourced from anyone other than Apple. However, this is apparently set to change sometime this year.
“In an effort to offer more complete support for third-party parts, starting later in 2024, Apple will allow consumers to activate True Tone with third-party parts to the best performance that can be provided,” the company noted in its whitepaper.
True Tone might not work entirely as intended with a non-Apple screen, so users will be able to manually disable the feature in Settings after replacing their iPhone’s display.
Apple also doesn’t provide battery metrics like battery health and cycle count for replacement batteries from third parties because the tech giant can’t vouch for their accuracy when it comes to parts from outside sources.
“In an effort to improve support for third-party batteries, starting later in 2024, Apple will display battery health metrics with a notification stating that Apple cannot verify the information presented,” said the tech giant. Apple warned customers that third-party battery metrics may not be accurate.
There’s no word yet on when Apple will start implementing this improved software support for third-party iPhone spare parts. That said, it would be safe to assume at this point that the changes will ship with iOS 18 or shortly after. Apple is expected to start rolling out iOS 18 alongside the new iPhone 16 lineup in September.
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