Cying is Believing

Black and White

After a year and months of complaining of not having a white iPhone, I finally took the plunge and got myself a DIY conversion kit. I’d studied ifixit.com guides and watched heaps of iPhone 4 disassembly guides on youtube and kept convincing myself that it would be more trouble than it’s worth, but after hours and hours of procrastination, I thought I might as well have a crack at it.

Firstly, if any of you are even remotely considering doing something like this, I highly recommend that you have super organisational skills, a great memory or have a spare ice cube tray to keep track of all the little screws that you’ll be picking out in the process.

Overall, the actual disassembly isn’t terribly difficult, though you need to keep track of a few screws and washers that keep the whole front display glued to the frame as they are incredibly small and are an absolute nightmare to get back on if you took them off the frame. Also, my display – others mileage may vary – was almost superglued to the frame itself and actually majority of the DIY was spent disconnecting the display from the frame (having a broken iPod opening tool, and instead opting for a guitar pick probably didn’t help). But eventually, once the display was off, the home button was easily replaceable (you’ll need a separate one as iPhone 4 home buttons are connected to the mainframe and NOT the display).

After taking care to go reverse to put everything back together, all was well and I finally have my white iPhone. I truly believe the white version is a far more beautiful device than the black brother and really demonstrates the beauty of the iPhone’s industrial design.

Not for the faint hearted (I certainly had my doubts, as I’ve f’ed my old iPhone 3G once by trying to replace the display glass). But if you’re fastidious and patient, then it is a breeze and you’ll have a much prettier phone in the end! (Also don’t do it if you still have warranty on your iPhone)