Motherboard reported Monday that Reddit user “turnby” recently uploaded as many as 11 internal videos to YouTube, set to private to avoid irritating Apple but now available publicly.
UPDATE: The videos are no longer available.
Arman Haji, who uploaded the videos to his YouTube channel, told Motherboard he initially saw them posted to Twitter. “When I saw these videos I downloaded them out of curiosity, and when his account got suspended, I wanted people to still see them, so I uploaded them to YouTube,” he told the publciation in an email.
DIY Apple repairs
The videos feature an instructor who walks repair technicians through the process of opening devices like an iPhone X and an iMac Pro. They detail replacing components like the display or the battery, rescuing data, adjusting system settings following logic board failure and more.
“What’s incredible here is not that Apple’s internal videos leaked, but that the third-party repair teams have done such an incredible job replicating its procedures without having seen these videos or having access to Apple’s tools,” Motherboard noted.
Fun fact: Apple’s suction cup tool looks like a bulkier version of iFixit’s iSclack tool.
There appear to be as many as eleven Apple videos published on YouTube, describing the repair procedures, showing special tools and referencing specific material. This is all copyrighted internal stuff and we fully expect Apple to issue a takedown notice soon so watch the videos embedded below while you still can.
iPhone X: open device
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQO0updxyp0
iPhone X: battery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGv7qHlCX0Y
iPhone X: Taptic Engine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TrxaYQLjlg
iPhone X: camera
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POqpYQH-994
iPhone X: speaker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT1iH6FhYnI
iPhone: display & 3D Touch calibration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8doQPFpZ2Ek
iMac Pro 2017: system configuration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m4azZqhHA4
iMac Pro 2017: display panel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYok3YqJFS0
MacBook Pro 2016 & 2017: customer data migration tool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UVXudT8WDs
MacBook Pro: Force Touch calibration check
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynYtppTKCB0
MacBook Pro 2016 & 2017: Touch ID board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzlSS_ItUp0
Your comments
As the Motherboard article notes, the videos on opening an iPhone X and replacing its battery, among other things, show that the DIY repair community (namely the wizards over at iFixit) has gotten extremely good at reverse-engineering Apple’s official procedures.