This morning’s wsj 6/21/17 first page article says “Bust Your Phone Again? These Teens Are Here To Help”. A 16 year old Nantucket resident instead of surfing, made close to $24k last summer repairing smart phones and is busy again this summer. His charge to repair a cracked iPhone 7 Plus is $189.99.
M. dropped her iPhone 4 last week and the screen is hard to read – see pic above. She wants to wait for the new iPhone due later this year. So I suggested I would try repair it. On the internet retail giant’s website we ordered a kit comprising new screen and repair tool kit for approximately $17 plus tax. The iPhone 4 is an old phone so replacement parts are reasonably priced. Our phone is a Verizon phone which is different from AT&T, so it was important to order the right screen and also to follow YouTube instructions for the Verizon/Sprint phone not the AT&T.
The kit arrived and following the excellent tutorial I began dismantling the phone. There are lots of tiny screws and to keep track I followed a suggestion to sketch an outline of the phone and tape the screws and parts to the location where they belonged.
I quickly encountered a problem – the Phillips screwdriver provided with the kit was not up to the task. So I stalled for a day and visited a computer store to inspect their screwdrivers. The size I needed was a Phillips PH000 and there were lots to choose from. I settled for a kit made in Taiwan made of chrome-molybdenum, described as professional, with an ISO certification. Perhaps all these plugs would help. And they did – no more problems with screws. And then I stalled again until I read this morning’s wsj article and, fired up, I resumed.
To get to the screen a whole lot of parts have to be disassembled. Not for those faint of heart, or with unsteady hands or blurring close up vision or impatient to get the job done. I could tick some of these boxes.
A hair dryer was conscripted to soften adhesive and then the old cracked screen was off and the new screen installed. On the re-assembly road back I was too confident and went too quickly and missed a few steps and had to backtrack, which was frustrating. But eventually all the components were in place and the critical moment arrived – would it power on and make and receive a call, and it did.
