[smoldesu]

Sure, but mind you Apple's phones have gotten thicker over the past 5 years (as have their laptops), and that certainly hasn't impacted sales in any meaningful capacity. People don't really care, and I don't buy the arguement that it's impossible for Apple to design things to be more repair-friendly. Simple changes like socketing the battery or limiting OEM component DRM would make all the difference, but Apple actively fights against any changes that would threaten their authority over the iPhone and it's aftermarket profitability. Maybe there is a technical limitation here, but I'm not convinced the world's largest engineering team can't fix it with their 100 billion dollars in liquid R&D funding.

[throwaway894345]

Can you provide a source for "gotten thicker"? I'm looking at https://www.knowyourmobile.com/user-guides/iphone-size-compa... and the iphone x (2017) was 7.7mm and the iphones 12 and 13 were both 7.3-7.4mm. Only the iPhone 11 increased thickness and even then only by a fraction of a millimeter.