Recently, I had the opportunity (problem) to replace my wife’s iPhone screen. I broke it, by dropping it on our tile floor. the digitizer was completely intact, but the glass covering it was shattered. We were lucky that we were using a clear film protector over the glass, which helped keep everything in place.

At first, I figured I’d use the AppleCare plan we purchased to have the phone replaced / repaired. Apparently, Apple’s AppleCare plan’s do not cover accidental damage. They told us that the phone could be replaced at the subsidized cost ($199.99). As you can imagine, I was a bit upset with Apple.

Since I’m a technical guy, I figured I’d find a way to repair the screen myself. I found a site (pdaparts.com) that sells replacement screens for $49.99. That’s way cheaper than what I was expecting, so why not? I’ve replaced MacBook screens before, so how hard could the iPhone be?

The hardest thing ever.

PDA Parts has an excellent video detailing the steps to disassemble the iPhone, down to the glass-digitizer combination. After that, there are no instructions at all. The site’s narrative basically stops there and says ‘Good luck! Let us know if it works out for you.’. Once I realized this, I was already in too deep. So, I went ahead and finished the job.

The iPhone screen can be replaced, but it is definitely the most difficult repair I have ever done. If I had the chance to go back, I would easily take the $199.99 repair from Apple over doing this myself. It was immeasurably difficult, and I do not recommend it. for those of you with a strong stomach, here’s how it goes:

First, the video from PDA Parts :

From there, you’re pretty much neck deep in a disassembled iPhone. You’ll need to separate the existing glass from the chassis that houses both it, and the digitizer underneath. This is the especially tricky part. I was better able to do this, by utilizing the location where the existing glass on the phone was broken. Using an exacto-knife, I was able to separate the glass from the chassis.

I can’t emphasize enough how much care should be taken when doing this. First of all, every component of your iPhone is extremely delicate. Secondly, you are dealing with broken glass. I cut my hand a lot getting the glass off. That sort of thing doesn’t bother me, but if you’re not a fan of bleeding hands, be very careful.

Once the old glass has been completely separated from the chassis, use the exacto-knife to ensure all of the existing adhesive has been removed from the chassis. When you apply the new adhesive strips (yes, you must buy those too), you’ll need a completely clean surface to attach the new glass to.

After you’ve gotten this done, very carefully apply the adhesive strips to their respective places in the chassis. You’ll only get one chance at this, so make it count. There’s a pink covering on the front of the adhesive strips. Leave this in place for now. Once you have both the adhesive strips in place, then you can remove the pink coverings.

Now, you can put the new screen on the chassis. Make sure to remove any plastic coverings before doing this. Like I said: you only get one chance at this.

After the screen is on, you’ll pretty much need to perform the takedown, in reverse to put the iPhone back together again. This part isn’t exceptionally difficult, with one major exception

The cable marked ‘3′ that connects the digitizer to the main board is very tough to get back on. I managed to make this happen, but I’m certainly open to hear any suggestions on how to make this work.

No related posts.

Tags: apple, iphone, repair, tutorial

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 1:00 am and is filed under Devices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.