I’d love to buy an “upgrade service” of my iPhone SE that just replaced the mainboard and camera panel with whatever the latest and greatest is, and replaced the battery with a fresh one. Would love to understand supply chain / reverse logistics / ewaste trade offs to understand if this is practical. (And yes, I’m aware of projects like fairphone, ara, etc. I’m not saying user serviceability is a requirement)
I’ve speculated this is perhaps more practical on newer laptops (e.g. 2016- MacBooks) where ports have consolidated to just all usb-c and presumably stay that way for longer than a typical 3-year physical design cycle.
I don't think upgrading a phone makes sense from an e-waste point of view, particularly if the alternative is a robust recycling program like what Apple promotes.
An upgrade necessarily includes a new logic board and likely a new camera module. Once you're disassembling it, you'd inevitably be swap out the battery too. Most of the remaining parts have a distinctly limited service life—in particular the battery, physical buttons and connectors.
The front glass assembly with LCD screen might have a long theoretical life but these do deteriorate over time, they get damaged easily and replaced fairly often.
After excluding the above, there's not much left to salvage—mostly aluminium parts like the outer casing, and aluminium is already one of the most recyclable components of a phone anyway.
I’ve speculated this is perhaps more practical on newer laptops (e.g. 2016- MacBooks) where ports have consolidated to just all usb-c and presumably stay that way for longer than a typical 3-year physical design cycle.