Parts Serialisation

You may be wondering; "What is iPhone part serialisation?" or "Why does my iPhone have a non genuine part warning message?"

When an iPhone is manufactured some parts inside are serialised, which means that they are are calibrated to the logic-board with a unique identifier.

Due to the serialisation of some parts, the device will recognise when they are replaced and will notify the owner with an “Unknown Part" or “Non-Genuine Part” message within the settings menu (and may have a pop-up message on startup).

The other problem is that this will also happen even if we use original products from the same brand and model of phone (e.g. if we were to buy 2x brand new iPhone 11’s and swap their batteries, they would both have an ‘Unknown Part’ message because the replaced battery identifier does not match the original battery identifier).

iPhone models and parts that are affected to this include but are not limited to:

Screen: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 series

Battery: XS, XS Max, XR, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 series, SE 2nd and 3rd gen

Rear camera: 12, 13, 14, 15 series.

In simpler terms: imagine that when each car part gets made, someone writes a random sequence of numbers on the side of it.

When you eventually have to replace this part on your car, the new one is going to have a different sequence of numbers written on the side. Even though your car will still perform perfectly fine with the replaced part, the numbers won’t be the same as the original part.

This doesn’t affect the performance or usability of the device, and there is nothing to worry about if your phone has this message on any part(s).