iPhone broken screen

smokey982

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Sep 7, 2005
2,050
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Cleveland, TN (Chattanooga Market)
My daughter broke the screen on her iPhone 8 Plus. The phone still works fine but the screen is cracked really bad in numerous places. Her phone will be paid off in August. Does anyone know if Apple will let you trade in phones with cracked screens? I’m sure I can get a new screen put on here locally. But I’m thinking unless Apple replaces the screen then they may not let me trade it in at all in August? Does anyone know the rules? I think Apple will replace it for $169. But I’m not paying that much when we’re a few months away from upgrading.
 
Yes, they will take damaged screens in on-trade, but obviously you won't get as much. Instead, you may want to investigate getting the screen repaired.

iFixit.com has the iPhone 8 Plus screen & digitizer for $130 if you're feeling adventurous (it includes moving the TouchID and front-facing camera from the damaged screen to the new replacement). Otherwise, Apple will fix it but how much they charge up depends on whether you paid for AppleCare or not.

$169 without AppleCare+ and you'll know that it's as good a repair as you'll every get. $40 difference in price would be right on my threshold of thrill of repair vs. no-worry fix. With all the parts that need to be transferred from the cracked screen to a new screen, I'd be happy to let one of Apple's Geniuses do that instead.
 
gosh. an iphone screen is probably the easiest to repair.
kits come with everything you need to do the job. a quick youtube will teach you how to do it.
i got a kit at work and gave it to a girl i worked with on friday. monday morning she was glowing and shoving it in my face (phone). lol!
only thing is you may need to do a factory reset if you use the fingerprint reader.
 
I considered taking to a local repair shop or possibly trying it myself. But I’m concerned that will also affect the trade in value come this August when she’s eligible for an upgrade. So I wonder which would provide the most trade in dollars. Leaving it cracked or having it repaired by someone other than Apple?


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So I wonder which would provide the most trade in dollars. Leaving it cracked or having it repaired by someone other than Apple?
In the case of my son's damaged iPhone 6, we would not recoup the cost of the screen repair in the trade-in offer. Apple's website makes it easy enough to "what-if" the trade-in values for broken vs. "good" condition.

At least Apple will give you something for it. My favorite go-to for selling my old Apple stuff, Gazelle, doesn't usually take cracked screens in for money, but offers to recycle it for free.
 
Well I got lucky for once. We decided to swing by Verizon last night after we ate dinner just to see what our options were. I completely forgot that when we got her phone about 1-1/2 years ago we took out insurance through Verizon (for her phone only because she’s drops everything she touches). So the insurance company is sending someone to our house next week to replace the screen for $29!! I’m really glad I made the last minute decision to swing be Verizon last night.


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good for you! We had my wife's SE screen replaced at the Apple store. Took a few minutes but there were several other customers ahead of us. We had no insurance so we paid full price for the screen. Was a little over $100. Just do a full backup before the tech touches it, and let him know you did, in case he bricks the phone and you need to get a new one. Rare, but possible.
 
This gives me flashbacks to when my wife and I each had the iPhone 6s Plus and during our Spring Break cruise in 2017 they both took an ocean bath as we didn’t expect our shore excursion boat to drop us off in shoulder deep water, and our phones were in our backpack. We only had 5 payments left on it and even with the screen and battery replacement I did after we got back I broke the Touch ID function by mistake.

We have 3 payments left on our 8 Plus’s and I’m crossing my fingers we won’t have issues like this. Our daughter cracked the screen on her SE in with one payment left so we ended up replacing her phone with a 7 because we got $150 off with Verizon for being a long time customer. That brought the cost down to $300.
 
Well my youngest grandson age 7 just dropped his new ipad we got him for Christmas. It still works but I don't think it is safe to use with all the cracks in the glass. I see Amazon has replacement front glass for the ipad 6 Gen for $26.99. I'm sure I can repair it as I've done iphones and an Apple watch battery replacement. My daughter said she has a friend who owns an Apple and Samsung repair business and will check with them first.
 
Uh, make sure you read the iFixit tear-down on the iPad, Don. iPads are not designed to be fixed.
 
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Uh, make sure you read the iFixit tear-down on the iPad, Don. iPads are not designed to be fixed.

Last week I went intop the Apple store and just happened to see their tech guy walk out from the back room so I approached him and asked. He said thyey do iphone repair because the screen is not glued in but easily removed with 2 screws. Then he said I am not allowed to tell you that I can replace the ipad screen with special procedure independently. He than said if you are willing to try it yourself you can buy the parts online but trust me it is not easy.
Then he showed me their replacement cost for the Gen 6 which is $259. I can but a new one for $249 from Amazon and get my Amazon discount.

My daughter has a friend who runs an Apple repair business and he said he does screen replacements for $50. I found front glass and digitizer and home button kits for $31.

Last night I spent 2 hours removing the shards of glass from the frame by melting the glue with the ifixit iopener and razor blades. I have the ifixit deluxe Apple repair kit. In the process I discovered the ribbon cable on the digitizer was ruined, as well as the home button. The LCD screen is good. These can also be bought for ~$50 from a variety of sources.

One YT video claimed the Home button ribbon is soldered to the main board which is false. There is a micro multipin connector with a tiny locking lever. It is easily accessed under the LCD and Digitizer cover plate.

Ordered replacement parts now. so waiting for then to arrive.

This is definitely more difficult than replacing a battery or screen in an iphone.



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That looks worse then my Father-in-Law's iPod Air 2 that he dropped on the power button corner. He's been looking at the sale prices waiting for something in the $250 range for WiFi only and 16-32 GB of flash. As you observed, while it is possible to get the screen, glass, digitizer, etc. separated, it's a mess to do so. A broken screen/surface glass is the only reason I would, since those components are the most likely to be damaged in the removal process. I have not added the iOpenner to my iFixit toolkit which also means I'm unlikely to try repairing my FiL's iPad. Since his case is mangled around the power button as well (it's wedged into the case) replacement of the entire iPad is his best option.

We used clear packing tape to keep the missing shards of glass from slicing up his fingers. The iPad's camera is clearly exposed so it's a good thing he doesn't want to take any pictures with his tablet. But it still works well enough for most of the things that he wants to do; as a result there isn't much impetus to replace it.

This sounds like a good project for Grandpa and grandson! Have you been keeping him involved with the repair? When I was his age, I was taking apart alarm clocks and putting them back together.
 
I ended up ordering a new glass with digitizer attached including the Home button. Used acetone to clean off all the old adhesive. The original home button has a chip along side that is some sort of Identifier that matches the CPU so when the Home button is replaced it prevents future use of the finger print reader, now requiring the number code all the time. The original Home button was damaged so it's the best I could do.

"This sounds like a good project for Grandpa and grandson! Have you been keeping him involved with the repair? When I was his age, I was taking apart alarm clocks and putting them back together."

The grandson that broke it is the younger one, age 7. He's not ready deal with the embarrassment of having dropped it yet. The older one age 10 is curious but grandpa is not ready to do this level of repair with an audience. My wife was observing over my shoulder, but when she started to offer advice, I said, " You can go now." She left without saying another word. :)
 
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