Long as the only way in is by ungluing the screen, I don't consider it repairable. Unfortunately, most DIYers will probably not have a great track record ungluing fragile touchscreens. I feel like the only reason this got a 7/10 is because ifixit has experience doing that, and maybe discounted the liklihood that someone inexperienced would have success.
Glued screens are a big part of why we get to enjoy the level of water resistance we have today, and while I agree it's tricky, I can tell you I've successfully changed the batteries on two different phones with nothing but a hairdryer and a suction cup scavenged from a bathroom mirror.
Sure, like repairing a car, you won't be able to fix or maintain certain things without the right tools, but being able to use the right tools without voiding your warranty is a huuuge step in the right direction. I mean, imagine if your car insurance company refused to cover you in an accident because you changed your own oil once!
> Glued screens are a big part of why we get to enjoy the level of water resistance we have today
Sure glue helps, but is it really necessary? I haven’t designed any product but I would expect that rubber seals with screws to be good enough for consumers goods.
The glue isn’t used for water resistance, it’s primarily role is to bond the screen to the chassis, so the entire bonded unit forms a box structure . Which is an extremely strong and rigid structure, requiring very little material (hence the reason they’re used in construction all the time).
But getting that strong structure only works if you have good, continuous, bond between all sides of the box structure. Hence the use of glue. Replacing it with screws would require either a huge number of screws to achieve the same quality of bond as glue, or substantially thicker walls to make up for the poor bond between screen and chassis. Each screw then becomes giant stress riser, focusing all the forces applied to the device into the material around the screws.
You really get to have devices like a surface that very thin, with huge screens, without glue the screen to chassis, because the screen and its bond are crucial structural elements.
