
How I Made My Own iPhone in China [video] - kumaranvpl
https://strangeparts.com/how-i-made-my-own-iphone-in-china/
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boredpudding
Thread yesterday about this video:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14100989)

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danesparza
Wow! My big takeaway is that I guess Apple (or somebody in the middle?) is
making a lot of money on batteries. I know Apple routinely charges $70-80 for
a battery replacement, but this guy got one for $5!

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y04nn
There is a many fake lithium batteries that have way less capacity than
advertised. I have experienced it with a laptop battery. It might worth
checking the real capacity of it. Also, when changing the battery, the time
spent to disassemble and reassemble the phone without breaking anything might
account for a lot.

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ricw
What's astonishing is that the parts he ended up using cost him $300 [1], less
than half of what a new phone would cost. The parts come from recycled /
broken phones, so he effectively has a Franken iPhone. I'd take it.. wonder
whether it starts creaking later sometime.

[1] [http://www.arykar.com/guy-builds-diy-iphone-6s-for-less-
than...](http://www.arykar.com/guy-builds-diy-iphone-6s-for-less-than-half-
the-price-of-a-new-one/)

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wodenokoto
It's worth noting that including purchases made for "dead ends" he ended up
spending nearly $1.000

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joshstrange
It's worth including but that's like including R&D into the cost of any
device. Like saying an brand new iPhone 7 doesn't really cost $649 but really
costs $100......0000 due to the R&D it took to make it. I have confidence that
while the first phone cost him $1000 the second would cost him $300.

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RubenSandwich
If we are looking at it like a business then your math makes sense. But as an
individual, it would be cheaper just to buy a new iPhone because of the dead
ends and time spent assembling the device. So yes if he did everything
perfectly the first time then the cost was $300, not including labor or tools.
But the actual cost is way above $1k including labor, tools, dead ends and
research. A business can factor those costs as R&D as they will producing x
amount of these but he is only going to produce 1 and who knows if those tools
and parts will work on future projects.

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bogomipz
This was great and very entertaining. Thanks for sharing.

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nik736
How much has he paid for all those parts?

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abashore
He said he spent around $1000 on failures and tools. If he had done it
perfectly the first time it would've cost him around $300.

