I decided to try taking apart an iPhone again, but this time I tried a somewhat more recent model. My sister had an iPhone SE that got damaged after falling into some water, but aside from the water damage, the phone was practically new and in good physical shape. For that reason, I figured it was worth a shot to see if I could use the knowledge I’ve learned in the various tech videos I had been watching to see if I could fix it. I watched various videos the night before of people taking apart iPhone SEs just to see what to expect with this iPhone. When I attempted it myself the next day however, the first stepped turned out to be much harder than I thought. In the videos I watched, all of the people seemed to be able to take apart the phone with a suction cup and a small prying tool without much trouble (of course that could be because of the experience they had already had with the phone), but the screen just wouldn’t come off for me. I was also being very gentle with the suction cup obviously to avoid breaking the screen, but it just wasn’t working for me. I eventually decided to pull harder on it and the screen just popped off. In the videos I watched, I saw there was a ribbon cable connecting the phone to the touch ID on the screen and when the screen was lifted slightly, you could see where it’s connected.

You had to slowly unplug it from the phone, but unfortunately because I pulled so hard on the screen, the ribbon cable ended up popping out as well. Thankfully, there didn’t end up being any damage to it (at least not visibly), so I got very lucky. I followed the videos and really took my time taking apart the phone, as well as putting each piece I took out in an area where I wouldn’t lose it or mix up the screws.

I didn’t want to make the same mistake as I did with the iPhone 4 which is why I drew a sort of skeleton for the phone and put my pieces there. I also made sure not to lift it up unless absolutely necessary, or tip it in any way. I watched videos of people fixing water damaged phones such as this one and attempted to use their techniques. One guy took a container of rubbing alcohol and dipped the logic board into it in order to remove a sticker and get inside the board. I followed what he did in the video and put the phone back together, but unfortunately the phone still did not work well.

Although it didn’t end up working, I’m glad I was still able to put everything back together exactly how it was since the first time I tried it with the iPhone 4, it ended up being a disaster.