While browsing the gallery of iPhone 4 Pictures on Apple’s website, my Operations Manager Troy, noticed a very slight detail that is going to make a big impact. I want to make sure all of our Dealers are prepared so take a look at this.
If you look close you will see that the screws on the bottom are not your everyday T6 torx bit that Apple has used in many of their products. This is actually a 5-Point T6 and the bits and drivers for this type of security bit are very difficult to find. In fact, some tool companies will require you to have a letter from the manufacturer before they will sell these tools to you. Luckily, eTech Parts has you covered and you can get the iPhone 4 Opening tool from us starting today. Head over to www.etechparts.com and pick one up so you can be prepared when you get your first iPhone 4 Repair.
It was bound to happen. My daughter shattered the glass on her iPhone 3GS last week. I have to give her credit, It has been almost a year since she got it so I’m proud of her that she kept it in pretty good shape. She was playing Mario Kart on the Wii and slammed the controller down on the couch, undoubtedly in a banana skin or Blooper power-up fit of frustration, and hit her iPhone instead. She shattered the glass so bad you could not even read the bottom portion of the screen.
On a quick side note, did you know you can hold two power-ups at once on Mario Kart? Me neither. A quick Google search will teach you the ways. Back to Ashley’s iPhone mishap. She is fortunate enough to be my daughter so we came down to the shop on Saturday and I installed a new iPhone 3GS front glass and Digitizer for her. Apple wants $200 for this repair so if this happens to your kid, save yourself $150 or so and buy the part from www.etechparts.com and do it yourself. After we fixed her iPhone it was on to the next repair. Somehow she managed to ruin yet another hard drive in her MacBook Pro. We spent a few hours trying software repairs on her hard drive but it was toast! It kept getting stuck on the iPhone 4.0 beta software she downloaded for her iPhone.
Hmmm. Another side note, iPhone beta 4.0 is glitchy. I suggest waiting for the real thing.
I gave her a 200gb Hard drive I had laying around and we loaded a fresh install of Leopard to it. Migration assistant kept freezing(on the iPhone 4.0 software which we could not delete for some reason) so she had to transfer her user data folder by folder. She was able to transfer all of her songs and pictures from her old user folder and got her machine back up and running again on this 200gb hard drive we had running externally. Good job Ash! What happened next really makes me proud. It was time for me to hit the sack since my 2 month old son was going to be waking me up repeatedly in the night and she really wanted to get the drive installed into her machine. I told her I would do it in the morning or she could do it herself. I gave her a #00 Philips, T6 and a MacBook so she could search for help if she got stuck. Sure enough she stayed up and replaced the drive herself. Pretty impressive for a 16yr old if you ask me. She even posted pictures on Facebook as she went. Very cool.
Hey everyone, Lets talk for a bit about repairing Apple’s new iPad and what is going to be involved in the repairs many of you will be performing soon.
Opening the iPad
Remember when the most common repair we were getting was the iPod Video? Even though it seemed harder to open than the Photo iPod it was still very easy to open. Then along comes the iPod Classic. It looks the same but wait, why cant I open it? The reason its harder to open is because both components of the clip are made of metal whereas the iPod video was partly plastic. Anytime the clips are metal on metal it is going to be difficult to open. The iPod Classic and 3rd Generation Nano are both prime examples of this and now we can add iPad to the list. On the bright side, it can be done. We are opening iPod Classics and Nanos on the reg and now we have it down to a science. We were able to develop a great system to open the iPad that I’m going to keep close the chest for while. I’m sure everyone will come up with their own way of doing things. What’s important is that it can be done and we can continue to make a living repairing Apple’s latest gadget. My tips for opening the iPad are:
1. Get a couple quality suction Cups.
2. Don’t pry on the case. It’s soft aluminum and it will dent.
3. Take your time and work your way around the perimeter.
4. Open the left side(when home button is at the bottom) of the iPad first.
5. You will break some of the clips so get some extra iPad clips from etechparts.com
Repairing the Screen
More often than I expected, the screen is breaking and the digitizer is not. Replacing the iPad screen is fairly simple. One thing worth mentioning is there is a dust seal around the border of the screen. This dust seal has adhesive on both sides and it usually tears, so one half sticks to the glass and the other half sticks to the screen. This means you have to pry the screen out because the dust seal is sticking both items together. We’ll be offering the seals for sale soon to make the repair process easier.
Repairing the Digitizer
This is very similar to a big iPhone. Remove all the broken glass and make sure the frame is very clean. We’ll be offering adhesive kits very soon to make the iPad glass repair process easier but for now, try to reuse any good adhesive that’s left and/or replace it with a good double sided tape. Just like the iPhone we’ll be selling a complete iPad glass and digitizer assembly to make the repair process even easier. More to come on that next month.
Other iPad Repairs
The inside of the Wifi iPad is very simple and clean. All other repairs will be very simple and easy to perform. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of iPad charging port repair, iPad headphone jack repair, iPad logic board repair and it seems like there is plenty of room to fit a larger, high capacity battery.
I hope you found this information to be helpful and I hope your first iPad repair is easy and stress free.
When the time comes, please buy your iPad Parts from etechparts.com
Today Gizmodo posted a blog saying they received the 4th generation iPhone from someone who found it inside a bar in Redwood City, CA. This is a must read!
4G iphone leaked
From Gizmodo – “According to the person who found it, this iPhone was running iPhone OS 4.0 before the iPhone 4.0 announcement. The person was able to play with it and see the iPhone 4.0 features. Then, Apple remotely killed the phone before we got access to it. We were unable to restore because each firmware is device specific—3GS firmware only loads on 3GS devices—and the there are no firmwares available for this unreleased phone. Which is another clue to its authenticity.”
This iPhone was in a custom made plastic case to disguise it to look like a 3GS iPhone. Wow, I cant imagine how upset Apple must be about this!
A few months ago I made some predictions about the expected features of the next iPhone. Heres a link to that post. I’m feeling really good about my predictions Front Camera, Side located Sim card, Same size, etc.
I cant wait to get my hands on this new iPhone. You can count on us to have the 4G iPhone Parts as soon as they are available.
I got my iPad at 9AM Saturday. I wanted to get the whole experience and buy it from the Apple store but there were 175 people in line before 9AM and there were only 13 people in line 2 miles down the road at Best Buy. I was out the door with my iPad at 9:05AM.
It doesnt have a camera like we had suspected it might. In fact, the frame is totally different than the frame we had received prior to the release. We either got a second revision frame or more likely a prototype that never made it to production. I still think the next rev will have a camera.
As far as the iPad goes its pretty cool. Its very nice for watching videos and the screen is great. I do have a few complaints though. The glass digitizer does not have the same anti-fingerprint coating as the iPhone 3GS and smudges are a real problem. You cant easily wipe it on your sleeve like the 3G iPhone. The other thing I dont like is holding it. Its not easy to hold. I think we are going to see a lot of drop damage on these. Its good for business but as a consumer its concerning.
If you havnt seen one yet, head down to your local Apple store or Best Buy and see what you think. Its a magical device!
Im sorry for the long dry spell in posting. My life has been turned upside down by the arrival of a new baby boy
What a great experience.
We have some great new products available for the iPhone 3GS. We now have the Complete iPhone 3GS Screen Assemblies both with and without the LCD Screen. The complete iPhone 3G screen assemblies have been one of our best sellers so we are excited to be able to offer the same product for the 3GS. I”m sure it will be a hit. With this part, repair shops can cut down the repair time significantly and offer 5 minute turnaround for local customers. For end users, this part makes the repair process so simple, even mechanically challenged iPhone users can perform the repair themselves.
We have released another video continuing on the theme of “easy DIY solutions” for mac products.
This latest video shows how to replace the complete charging port assembly on a 3GS iPhone but this is also the same procedure for 3G iPhones. This repair is made easy by replacing the entire assembly which contains the Speaker housing, Speaker, Microphone, Charging port and Antenna. The charging port itself can be difficult to replace due to the soldering skills required to perform the repair. Replacing the entire assembly does NOT require soldering and can be done by most people. This part can fix issues related to charging, speaker, mic, and even the home button since the home button signal passes through this part.
I just want to post a quick update about the elusive 15.4″ LCD Screen for the macBook Pro Penryn and Santa Rosa Machines (2.2-2.6Ghz). For the last 6 weeks the Matte finish version of this screen has been almost impossible to find and has become extremely expensive. We were forced to raised the price on the Matte screen considerably. The good news is we have them readily available again and have been able to lower the price a bit. Check out all of our 15″MacBook Pro screens here.
We’ve made a new video demonstrating the difference between the MacBook Glass We sell at eTech Parts and the cheap imitation glass you can find elsewhere. Take a look. It’s amazing how much you can bend this MacBook glass without it breaking. This stuff is incredible!
Sorry about the blog lag recently. I was fortunate enough to take a vacation to Park City, Utah for my annual SnowBoarding trip. We go somewhere new every year and we had already been to a few places in Lake Tahoe, Bear Valley (the true Riderz spot), Keystone and Breckenridge. It was amazing and I highly recommend Park City. We were lucky enough to have some fresh powder.
When I returned, I got to work on some instructional videos. Wanting to do something different, I decided to showcase the EASIEST and SAFEST way to fix your cracked glass on the 2nd Gen iPod Touch and the iPhone 3G. Take a look!
so we came down to the shop on Saturday and I installed a new
