About two months ago, I got an iPhone 5s as a gift. There have been some
rants about it in this phlog back then.
Yesterday, the battery died. The phone was puffed up.
You can buy replacements on Amazon for just about 16€, which is very
cheap. So, yeah, okay, fine, why not?
Before I ordered a replacement, I tried to open the phone. Of course,
you need a special screwdriver for that, which I didn't have. With a bit
of blunt force, you can open it anyway using a regular one. That was the
first moment where I thought: "Why? Why not use regular screws? Gah."
Then there were several cables connected to the "logic board", which you
have to carefully disconnect. Nasty. Oh by the way, *inside* the iPhone,
they use regular screws. The strange ones are just on the outside. It's
meant to stop you from opening it.
Alright, I disconnected the display and put it aside. Now there's the
battery. I'm looking right at it. I could grab it and remove it -- if it
wasn't super-glued to the case. Jesus, what the hell? This is outright
evil. They could have done all the other manufacturers do: Just have the
battery snap in. But no. You are not supposed to replace it.
I was ready to throw away the entire phone, but ... there was some data
left on it. And I couldn't boot it anymore to wipe it, because, well,
the battery was dead. So my plan was to remove the battery anyway and
then just throw away the battery -- keeping the phone itself, maybe I'll
play without at some point in the future.
This was a really dangerous process. I managed to get it out eventually,
but I had to apply a substantial amount of force to an already puffed up
battery. Oof ...
Highly frustrating. I have probably damaged the phone itself in the
process -- just to remove the battery. Buying a replacement battery now
is probably just a waste of money. I won't do it.
It's well known that Apple makes it hard or impossible to replace stuff
like that, yeah. Experiencing it first-hand is a different feeling,
though. I am very glad that I did not buy a cent for this device. I'd be
so utterly mad. The phone itself was working fine, it's good hardware.
But it was intentionally built in such a way that you have to throw it
away at some point. It's a waste of resources, time, money, everything.
Don't buy stuff like that.
So, no more iPhone for me. Back to my previous cheap Android phone,
which is no longer supported (...), but can still issue phone calls.
