Those of you with older iphones may be familiar with my steadily worsening predicament: the loss of battery life about a year or so in. I’ve now had mine for about 1.5 years, and the battery was getting pretty dismal–I’d plug it in all day at work, to use my docketing app (and sometimes listen to music). I’d leave work with it charged 100%. And by the end of an evening of light use at home, I’d be down to 60% battery.
So, about 1.5 years in, I ended up faced with the kind of dilemma that is either the result of extraordinary fortuitousness or very shrewd product planning on the part of the designer: get a new phone (endure the bad battery life until the iphone 5 comes out, in my case) or shell out money for the Apple people to fix it. In both cases, they win, and in the former case so do the phone providers, since the phone upgrade is usually accompanied by an extension of the contract, if you want any kind of subsidy.
But I wasn’t mad about either of the choices. I don’t think I’m eligible for a phone replacement, I feel sad about the wasted electronics that are still perfectly good but are set aside for the next generation, both in our culture and in our house (old palm pilots, laptops and cellphones, in our case). As for going to Apple–it rankles to do that. It’s expensive (about the same cost as a warrantee that we didn’t get). I also remember hearing that in the past, they had gratuitously replaced parts inside devices they were servicing, so that they became more difficult to tamper with. To me, that’s like a dealership mechanic replacing a bunch of parts in my car without my knowledge, when I take it in for service–if the changes are simply to make it more difficult for me to get into, rather than to help it work better as a gesture of goodwill or for safety, then that’s just annoying. So, my husband and I looked into replacing the battery ourselves.
We went to iphonebatteryreplacement.com and ordered our kit. At the time, we looked at the video and were struck by how ridiculous it was to undertake a simple battery replacement. The detailed steps are here (they do a very good job of showing what’s involved and walking people through, and I have no interest in replicating the work!). I suggest you check it out if you have any interest in this sort of thing for a glimpse of a jaw-droppingly intentional, difficult to get at battery replacement procedure. This kind of pissed me off further–you just see how carefully designed it all is to keep people out, and dissuade them from tampering. It’s like a mobile phone designed with a Scrooge-like sensibility (but with a gorgeously minimal, Swedish-for-common-sense aesthetic). TWO levels of connectors (7 connectors in total) that have to be removed; a second board below the screen that had to be taken out to get at the battery; eight internal screws of different sizes that cannot be mixed up. Several of the connectors are also really tricky and difficult find and detach.
It’s basically like the electronics version of the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark, with booby traps everywhere, ready to mess up the unwary do-it-yourselfer, and fry their phone. It made me all the more determined to do it (I can be stubborn that way).
The “kit” arrived recently (suction cup, couple of cheap, tiny screw drivers, a plastic prying thing and the replacement battery itself) and so we set up to give it a try. I was ready to do it myself, as I enjoy this sort of gadgety task, but when my husband offered, I willingly handed over the task to him because he has electronics experience and worked for a mobile phone manufacturer for a number of years in R&D. I then watched in fascination as he followed the instructions.
We had a few misadventures along the way: in detaching the camera apparatus, some little pin came undone that was not in the video. However, we figured out its use (it was screwed in to hold the camera steady) and reaffixed it. There were also a total of 7 connectors and 10 teeny tiny screws that needed to get unscrewed and disconnected before you could get at the battery. Far trickier of course, was the screwing back in and reconnecting end of things. We lost one screw in the carpet (under connector number 7–the screw that had the sticker informing us that by removing the screw, we voided the warrantee that we did not have; and yes, I know, doing this all on carpet was probably not the best idea).
We reconnected everything and turned it on–and the screen came on as just a white blank. So then, we worried that it was the missing, warrantee-voiding screw that was messing it up. This was about the time that I was remembering that while I had done a backup, I hadn’t transferred my dockets to the docketing software at work, nor had I exported them… and so I was thinking “damn–always forget something!” and quietly trying not to panic, as my husband was feeling terrible enough already.
So, I got the strongest magnets we have on our fridge and started going over the carpet with them–and after a few moments, success! Up came the lost screw (and yes, we kept the magnets far from our electronics!!). In it went. We rechecked all the connectors and closed it up. Still a blank screen.
We then googled it–thank you iphone forums of the world–and found that a hard reset might do the trick. A few tense moments–and then the little rebooting apple came up on the screen. Big sigh of relief. The data on the device was also seemingly intact (including my dockets) and now I have a new phone battery in there! This should hopefully get me through with my current device for a while longer–though the upgrade may become necessary after the 5, as more apps potentially stop supporting the 3gs with any updates and it starts to go the way of the 3g… So yes, it’s a stopgap. But it also means that I can actually use the phone for the whole day, rather than worrying about where I’ll be able to top up its charge when I’m out and about! I’m also glad it cost a little over $20 instead of $80–and more importantly, that I got to undertake a tiny little gesture of independence in my walled garden of a phone. It did, of course take a while to do, and we had some worrying moments, when the device wasn’t working properly, post-replacement–but as they say, all’s well that ends well…
Bottom line: replacing your iphone 3Gs battery is not for the faint of heart.
