Hello,
Today’s blog won’t be about code, but instead about something else tech related I did today: changing my phone battery.
iFixit
First things first, credit where credit is due, iFixit is an amazing resource. I’ve heard a lot about them in the past, and was thrilled to hear that they have a European branch. IFixit boast a huge assortment of educational tutorials, repair tools, and replacement parts. They include phone, computers, cameras, appliances, game consoles… If it needs fixin’ they got you.
So when my iPhone battery started to bloat and pushed my screen off the phone, I knew where to go.
Preamble
I love any opportunity to just tear things apart and see how they work. In another life I could so be a watchmaker. Despite the stress of working with expensive components, building my PC was such a blast. Just the rawness of screwing things in, arranging wires, cable managing, and building an understanding of how things work under the hood, is such a thrill. So needless to say, I had fun fixing my phone, regardless of when I didn’t have fun.
The Fixing Process
So after unboxing everything and skimming through the extremely detailed iFixit guide, I gathered my precision screw set and got started. I skipped the first steps since my expanded battery took care of taking the screen off for me. I then proceeded to unscrew-remove-unhook my way to the battery. I don’t believe the battery was the original nor was it a good quality replacement. This made the step where you “carefully pull the glue tabs out” look more like “remove battery by any means”. I tried my best to gently firmly yank that bih out of the phone, and with pure determination, I got it out. Then it was a simple process of putting in the new battery, and doing everything I just did in reverse. The not so simple part came when one screw fell off the table and was lost to eternity. These screws are tiny, and my not spotless floor was no help. In my angst, I remembered my old iPhone was still around, opened and ready to be salvaged. So I found out where the exact size screw was located and stole it. The only problem was, that was not the only problem. Despite my efforts it wouldn’t go in. It kept rotating but never hooked in the socket. I could get it to stay put, barely, but I was afraid it would come off once the screen was back on and I’d have a rattle issue. So despite my better judgment, I left it out. Fingers crossed it was the most unimportant screw in the phone.
Epilogue
After the screw ordeal, all was well. The screen turned on, I had about 50% battery and my phone no longer died every minute. But boy am I excited for the circuit board arc. For when I just get a bread board and see what cool stuff I can make with that. That’ll be the day.
Had a blast fixing up the phone today. I’m still trying to understand authorization. The whole thing has been troubling me for a while now but everyday I’m slightly and slightly closer to understanding it. But thank you readers for reading today’s blog, all the best and I’ll be back tomorrow.