Per tradition, every major Apple product release is followed quickly by a teardown video from iFixit. I love taking things apart and fixing them myself and I am very happy with the improvements Apple has made to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus construction, making it much easier to replace the display and battery.
As you watch the video, note the use of the iSclack tool, a kind of pliers with a pair of facing suction cups designed to grab onto the front and back of the iPhone. Once you’ve removed the iPhone screws, you place the ISClack, press on the suction cups, squeeze the ISClack handles, the suction cups separate, and the phone gently opens. Nice design there.
Here’s the iPhone 6 teardown.
And here’s the iPhone 6 Plus teardown.
My dad was a watchmaker, my mother was an expert knitter, and I like to think I inherited some degree of dexterity from both of them. But after having spent years upgrading my desktop computers, it still took me awhile to get comfortable with the idea of cracking open anything as intricate as a laptop.
These devices give me that same feeling, tenfold. I know they’re masterworks of engineering and materials science, but I still feel as though they’d be fragile debris in my clumsy hands if I was ever called upon to open one up.
I have broken the cables on 2 replacement screens over the years I’ve been repairing, and once cracked a replacement screen before putting the unit back together. They are a metal and glass puzzle and they all have their peculiarities.
For MacBooks and Mac minis, I got a bit of practice taking apart dead Dell laptops.
I suppose I’d check out the going rate for dead iPhones if I wanted to practice on things that small without much risk.