Monday, May 24, 2010

Master of the iPhone 3G

Okay, "master" is probably too strong of a word, but I did something I had thought of but had never dared. I opened up an iPhone.

The on/off switch on Sally's iPhone started going wonky a while ago and then finally stopped working entirely. Now normally this wouldn't be a total disaster because you can press the Menu button to turn it on and then just wait for it to time out and turn itself off.

Well situations started arising where it really needed to be rebooted, which of course requires holding down the on/of switch for a while. I can't remember what the straw was this weekend but it finally became unusable without a reboot, which was impossible to do.

I found a video online put out by a group that specializes in fixing and helping people fix Apple products. With less fear than before (since it was unusable anyway) I dug into it and got it down to the very bottom where the battery is.

Of course tearing down any machine is generally easier than building it back up, and I didn't find a video on that. :) But little by little I worked at it and figured out all the gotchas and got it put back together. I probably went through a dozen cycles of getting it all put together, finding out it didn't work or didn't work correctly, and tearing it back apart. When I finally got it all the way, solidly and correctly put back together, it worked like a champ and Sally was happy.

The on/off switch? It still doesn't work.

Hopefully there will be another post in a while where I report that I found a new on/off switch and got it installed.

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