[video] How I made my own iPhone in China

[Arthur]

https://strangeparts.com/how-i-made-my-own-iphone-in-china

 

I built a like-new (but really refurbished) iPhone 6S 16GB entirely from parts I bought in the public cell phone parts markets of Huaqiangbei. And it works! I’ve been fascinated by the cell phone parts markets in Shenzhen, China for a while. I’d walked through them a bunch of times, but I still didn’t understand basic things, like how they were organized or who was buying all these parts and what they were doing with them.

 

So when someone mentioned they wondered if you could build a working smartphone from parts in the markets, I jumped at the chance to really dive in and understand how everything works. Well, I sat on it for nine months, and then I dove in.

 

[Arthur]

New video from Scotty Allen.

 

https://strangeparts.com/bringing-back-the-iphone-headphone-jack-in-china

 

I’ve spent the past four months in Shenzhen, China, modifying an iPhone 7 to add a fully functional headphone jack. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time anyone has done anything like this.

 

In April, I decided to finally upgrade my iPhone 6s to an iPhone7 to get better camera quality for the videos I was shooting when I was out on adventures in the industrial markets and manufacturing world. But I was super annoyed that it doesn’t have a headphone jack! I already have headphones I really liked, and I didn’t like the idea of having to keep track of an adapter just to use them.

 

So I figured I’d add my own – after all, how hard could it be?

 

It turns out, really really hard. But possible.

 

[Arthur]

Enough of these boring looking iPhones - let's make a custom Strange Parts iPhone here in Shenzhen, China. I headed out to the cell phone parts markets in Huaqiangbei, to find a custom iPhone back. I then headed off to the laser engraving booths to have them etch a custom design in the iPhone back. I think it came out pretty well!

 

[Arthur]

This is my journey in Shenzhen, China to learn how to upgrade the memory storage in my iPhone 6s from 16GB to 128GB. I've been hearing for several years that this was something the repair shops here in Huaqiangbei could do, and I'd even seen one do it to a friends phone, so naturally, I had to learn how to do it myself. It was harder than I thought.