It could have gone terribly wrong. The old iPhone 3GS had slowly started to give up it’s life. The mute button was running AWOL and just sitting on a desk without any movement or touch it would randomly switch. Constantly! Accompanied by the buzz!! And now imagine making calls .-)
In addition the power button was working most of the times, but not really, and the touchscreen has started becoming just a piece of dead glass, ever so slowly. The iPhone is perfectly engineered to last 2 years – and then die a slow death. For $700-$900 I’m not sure about that. Sorry Apple. (I faintly remember the days, when companies prided themselves on quality and gave life-time warranties. Perhaps these days are gone.)
Anyhow, who cares? And who said, things can’t be fixed? The good people at iFixit.com provide the know-how, tools and manuals to replace almost anything on any apple product.
left: opened iphone , right: my system of organising screws and pieces with sticky tape
So I ordered the mute and power button, along with some tools and started getting into it.
And I live to say that, all in all, it worked as described. Good stuff. It was fun to take this piece of micro-engineering apart. And I didn’t even study Mechatronic or anything. (though the old Aeronautical Engineering training sure helped .-)
Removed power button and dust and dirt that came along with it
Well, it came apart easily, I replaced the buttons and put it back together. And it still works .-) Best of all the mute button replacement fixed the issue, which was a lucky guess, and could have been this tiny miniature assembly, that sits behind it. (which I didn’t order) That assembly was btw pretty tricky to put back in place again.
Assembling this thing makes two distinct things very clear: 1) Yes, iPhones are built by humans 2) My hands are not those of a 14year old chinese girl .-)
Taking it apart is the easy part. I wish iFixit had a re-assembly section that highlights a few things and not just says “assemble in reverse order”.
the almost empty shell of an iphone 3 GS with battery removed
There is so much more to consider:
- In which order to put in place screws
- How to double-check placement and layering of ribbon cables. (Had to re-adjust things three time till it was all back in place.)
- and perhaps some more detail on what to expect BEFORE you do the next step, when taking it apart.
Anyway, the iPhone is some genius product design by Apple. Really fascinating. What these guys managed to cramp into this little case; camera and all; is quite something.
left: iPhone 3GS reassembled and working, right: with additional tools used
Things that were different to the iFixit tear-apart manual:
- I had a cable labeled “7″ which didn’t appear in the manual (see red circles)
- The camera in my 3GS is held by a tiny clamp, not mentioned in the manual (see red circles)
- My phone had no “band-aid” on the logic board
- The mute button assembly seemed a bit different, with a tiny swivel bracket holding it, which was tricky to get back in place.
- Someone wrote stuff on the back of the screen assembly with a red permanent marker, and crossed out stuff on the battery with a black permanent marker. (?)
Additional tools I used (and recommend using them)
- Sticky tape, to organise screws, and hold cables and buttons in place
- Magnifying glass
- Led torchlight – (a Petzl headlamp would be better)
- swiss army knife tweezers (magnetic)
- Philips size #00 (magnetic)
- Steady hand
In terms of time it took me about 2.5hrs to take it a part and back together. A bit longer than planned. But others run marathons – so that’s ok. U2 helped. (how many U2 songs are there please?)
It cost me around $30 to get the parts and ship ‘em to Australia. Plus 2.5 hours repair time. Not too bad I’d say.
PS: Oh, I never replaced that “don’t remove” sticker. I guess my garantuee is void now .-) PPS: Show us some love. Leave a comment, share your own experience. And tweet or share on Facebook.
