iPhone 16 battery and back glass teardown: interactive 3D teardown

All 9 steps

1. 1Power off and unplug the phone

   Run the battery right down: Apple’s manual has the flashlight left on until the phone turns itself off, and iFixit asks for below 25% at least. Hold the side button and either volume button, slide the control to power off and pull the USB-C cable out. Then turn the phone over and lay it screen down on a clean, soft part of the mat, its USB-C port towards you: everything from here on is done through the back.

2. 2Remove the two P2 pentalobe screws

   Turn out the two P2 pentalobe screws in the bottom edge, one each side of the USB-C port, and lay them in wells 1 and 2 of the magnetic tray. On the iPhone 16 both are 7.7 mm long, and they hold the back glass at its bottom edge: it will not come away while they are in.

3. 3Warm the back glass round its edges

   Lay the warm heat pad along the bottom edge of the back glass, then the right edge, the left and the top, where it drapes over the camera capsule, until each edge is too hot to keep a finger on: about 65 °C by our estimate. The heat softens the adhesive round the glass. Do not go much hotter: the battery lies just beneath it.

4. 4Lift the back glass and cut round it at 3 mm trap

   Press the suction cup onto the back glass just above the USB-C port and pull up steadily until a thin gap opens, then slip a pick into it, no deeper than 3 mm. Slide it round the bottom right corner and up the right edge, freeing the clip there, and stop well below the volume buttons: the cable of the glass’s MagSafe and charging coil crosses the edge beside the volume-down button. Leave that pick in the seam. Slip a second pick in at the bottom, run it round the bottom left corner, up the left edge and along the top, freeing their clips as they click, and round the top right corner to the Action button. Leave it in too. Avoid this trap: The back glass stays tied to the phone by one short flex cable, from its MagSafe and wireless charging coil to the logic board, and it crosses the frame’s edge beside the volume-down button, a few millimetres under the seam. Run the pick on up that edge, or push it in deeper than 3 mm to free a stubborn stretch, and its edge slices straight through the cable. MagSafe and wireless charging stop working, and the cable belongs to the coil assembly on the glass: it cannot be mended, only replaced with it. Stop well below the volume buttons and let the glass hinge over that edge instead.

5. 5Swing the back glass open to the right

   Take both picks out and swing the back glass open to the right, over the volume buttons, like the cover of a book, until it lies face down on the foam block beside the phone. Its one short cable, from the MagSafe and charging coil on its underside, loops over the right edge to the logic board; resting level on the block, the glass pulls on nothing.

6. 6Remove the middle connector cover

   Turn out the two 1 mm Y000 tri-point screws of the middle connector cover, over the battery’s and the coil’s connectors on the logic board, into wells 3 and 4. Put the spudger’s point in one of the cover’s cutouts and slide the cover towards the left edge, off the two hooks that hold its right edge in the board, then lift it away with the tweezers.

7. 7Disconnect the battery, then the back glass

   Lever the battery’s press connector straight up off its socket with the flat end of the nylon spudger: with it off, nothing in the phone is live. Then pry up the press connector of the back glass’s coil cable, just above it. The glass is free: slide it clear of the phone on its block.

8. 8Release the battery’s adhesive with 9 V trap

   Peel the battery’s silver tab up off its face with the tweezers to about 45°: it sits at the battery’s bottom edge near its left end, and it belongs to the adhesive, not to the cell. Clip the red (positive) lead to the tab and the black (negative) lead to the screw at the bottom speaker’s lower right, which is grounded to the frame. Only then push the snap onto the 9 V battery, and hold it for 1 minute 30 seconds, as Apple’s manual says: the small current across the adhesive makes it let go of the frame. Take the 9 V battery off the snap first, then the two clips. Avoid this trap: The black clip’s screw is grounded to the phone’s aluminium frame, and so is the frame’s whole rim, bare once the back glass is off. Let the red clip slip off the silver tab onto the rim, or clip it there by mistake, and both leads are on the same metal: the 9 V battery is shorted through the frame. The current runs round the frame instead of across the adhesive, the 9 V battery can get hot quickly, and after 90 seconds the adhesive holds as hard as ever, which is when people reach for a pry tool. Clip red to the tab and black to the grounding screw, check both before the snap goes on, and keep the red jaws off the frame.

9. 9Lift the battery out trap

   Press the suction cup onto the middle of the battery and lift it straight up: with its adhesive released, it comes out with the adhesive on its back, without bending. Lay it on the mat away from the phone. If it will not move, clip the leads on for another minute rather than pulling harder. A battery that is swollen, dented or warm goes outside on a non-flammable surface, and every old one to a battery recycling point. Then wipe the last of the clear adhesive off the frame with isopropyl alcohol: Apple wipes it five to ten times. Avoid this trap: When the battery will not lift, because the release was skipped or a clip slipped off, it is tempting to lever it out with a screwdriver or a metal spudger. The iPhone 16’s cell is still a soft foil pouch: a steel blade under its edge bends it and can pierce it, and a bent or pierced lithium-ion cell can short inside. Apple’s signs to watch for are the pouch suddenly puffing out, hissing, smoke or sparks; its answer is plenty of dry sand poured on at once, and then leaving the room. Never pry it with metal: clip the leads on again for another minute and lift it with the suction cup, and if it still will not come out, stop and take it to a repair shop.

What you need

• P2 pentalobe driver · for the two bottom screws; Apple’s torque driver is set to 0.65 kgf·cm
• Y000 tri-point driver · for the middle cover’s two screws; Apple’s is set to 0.45 kgf·cm
• Heat pad or hair dryer · until the glass is hot to the touch
• Suction cup lifter and two thin plastic picks · marked at 3 mm
• Nylon spudger and blunt ESD-safe tweezers · no metal near the battery
• A block of foam about 8 mm high · to rest the open back glass on
• A 9 V battery and a snap with two alligator clips · or a DC supply of up to 30 V
• A magnetic screw tray · a well for every screw
• Replacement battery and back glass adhesive · and isopropyl alcohol, 90% or stronger
• A tub of dry sand · within reach, as Apple’s manual asks

Questions

Safety

Run the battery right down and power the phone off before you start. Keep the 9 V clips’ jaws on the silver tab and the grounding screw only, and take the 9 V battery off before the clips. Never pry, bend or pierce the battery with metal; if it puffs up, hisses or smokes, pour plenty of dry sand over it at once and leave the room.

• Lithium-ion batteries: never bend, puncture or pry a battery with metal. A damaged cell can go into thermal runaway: it smokes, catches fire and can explode. Discharge it below 25% first; if it swells, hisses, smokes or gets hot, stop and move it somewhere safe.
• Static (ESD): work on an anti-static mat with a grounded wrist strap; a spark you cannot feel can kill a chip.
• Power off: switch the device off and unplug its charger before you open it, and disconnect the battery before touching anything else inside.

About this teardown

3D Spatial Reconstruction: Models are engineered from factual hardware measurements to visualize internal layouts, screw lengths, and hidden cable traps before you open your device. Always verify cable routing on your specific hardware revision.

The phone is our own model of an iPhone 16, built to Apple’s published size (147.6 × 71.6 × 7.80 mm) with its parts where Apple’s internal view of the phone shows them, and no logo or printing of Apple’s on it. It opens from the back, so the battery is changed without touching the screen. The order, the screws and their lengths, the pick depth, the connectors and the release follow Apple’s own repair manual (back glass and battery) and iFixit’s iPhone 16 guides.

Which phone: the electrically released battery adhesive is on the iPhone 16 and the 16 Plus only. The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max keep stretch-release adhesive strips with pull tabs (three under the 16 Pro’s battery), and their P2 screws are 7.4 mm, not 7.7 mm (iFixit); the 16 Pro’s battery has moved into a metal case, while the 16, the 16 Plus and the 16 Pro Max keep a black foil pouch.

Where the brief for this teardown differed from the phone, the phone decided. The back glass hinges on its right edge seen from the back, and that same edge is the no-pry zone: its coil cable crosses it beside the volume-down button (the left edge seen from the front), so the glass is cut free everywhere but the stretch by the volume buttons and swung open over it, never pried there. The release is Apple’s: a 9 V battery for 1 minute 30 seconds, its red (positive) clip on the silver tab and its black (negative) clip on the bottom speaker’s lower right grounding screw; Apple allows up to 30 V from a DC supply, faster, so 12 V works too. We call the tab the silver tab, not the anode, so it is not confused with the cell’s own terminals. The brief’s torque driver is Apple’s tool for both kinds of screw: 0.65 kgf·cm for the P2 screws, 0.45 kgf·cm for the middle cover’s. One middle cover with two 1 mm Y000 screws holds both connectors.

Our estimates, not measured figures: the 65 °C of the heat pad (the repair guides only say hot to the touch), the positions of the buttons, of the glass’s clips and of the frame’s spring contacts (read off photographs), and the sizes of the parts inside. The battery’s 3,561 mAh comes from regulatory filings, not from Apple. The 3D runs faster than real hands do, and shows the 90 seconds of the release in a few.

Sources: Apple: iPhone 16 Battery, repair manual (9 V, red on the silver tab, black on the grounding screw, 1 minute 30 seconds, up to 30 V), Apple: iPhone 16 Back Glass, repair manual (the battery flex off first, the torque drivers), Apple: iPhone 16 internal view, orderable parts and exploded view, Apple: iPhone 16 screws and torque drivers (blue 0.65 kgf·cm, green 0.45 kgf·cm), Apple: Battery safety (signs of a thermal event, dry sand), Apple: iPhone 16 technical specifications, iFixit: iPhone 16 Battery Replacement, iFixit: iPhone 16 Back Glass Replacement (7.7 mm P2 screws, picks at 3 mm, the cable by volume-down, the clips), iFixit: iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max teardown (pull tabs, the Pro’s metal-cased battery), iFixit: iPhone 16 Pro Battery Replacement (7.4 mm P2 screws, pull tabs), MacRumors: iFixit’s iPhone 16 teardown (foil pouches on the 16, 16 Plus and 16 Pro Max), Hackaday: the electrically released adhesive and its polarity, 9to5Mac: iPhone 16 battery capacities from regulatory filings (3,561 mAh), Price source: iFixit, iPhone 16 battery fix kit $54.99, the battery alone $49.99, as its iPhone 16 battery guide lists them (27 October 2026), Price source: Apple, out-of-warranty battery service estimate, $99 for the iPhone 16 (27 October 2026).

The 3D models, drawings and text are our own. iPhone and MagSafe are trademarks of their owners, named only to say which device this teardown is for; iTakeApart is not affiliated with them.