
How I Made My Own iPhone in China [video] - nostrademons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFuF-zoVzA&feature=youtu.be
======
SexyCyborg
As a Shenzhen local, I'd consider this video one of very few that present a
100% accurate view of the local hardware and market culture. It's very well
done and everything he says is correct and that's unusual.

~~~
rtkwe
Off topic but What is that fried layered egg roll up thing around 9:46 in the
video? It looks pretty great and I want to try to find/make one.

~~~
tertansa
In China, it's called an "Egg Pancake"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QSivyUEQIY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QSivyUEQIY)

------
Veratyr
Blog post for those who prefer text to video: [https://strangeparts.com/how-i-
made-my-own-iphone-in-china/](https://strangeparts.com/how-i-made-my-own-
iphone-in-china/)

------
tag2
Really well edited video. Shenzen seems like a crazy awesome place. One thing
I noticed was how he would never haggle on the price. He would always accept
straight up say yep ok. Either the prices were really good...or being an
American he's not so used to the idea of having to haggle the price (or maybe
he felt order size was too small to warrant a haggle). However when in Asia
always and negotiate, otherwise you're just increasing the prices for the rest
of the expats :)

~~~
SexyCyborg
No- under these circumstances you don't haggle. They mostly sell quantity to
people they know, they are stopping real business to be polite and do him a
favor. Likewise, if you buy 5 switches in SEG, it's going to be like $2 and
it's just not the time for it. Source- Shenzhen local.

~~~
Taniwha
yes exactly - if you're going to Shenzhen figure out which buildings will sell
you 10 and which are really there to sell you 10,000, the market prices to you
are already cheaper than what you're used to for most stuff anyway.

If you do need 10,000 you're probably buying reels anyway, there are places
that will sell you those, and if you really are manufacturing get a local
sourcing agent to help you they will know who sells reliable stuff at a good
price

------
nsxwolf
I've tried to fix the screen on an iPad and an iPhone. In both cases, I
destroyed a ribbon cable connector and rendered the devices useless. I tried
to follow the instructions, I tried to use proper tools and go as slowly as
possible, and in both cases, the delicate surface mount connectors just turned
into powder and flaked right off the board.

~~~
aphextron
You must be doing something wrong. I have had my original iPhone 5 since
release in 2013. Ive replaced essentailly every part in the phone but the
mainboard. I just bought a parts phone on ebay for $20 and completely replaced
the digitizer. Battery replacements are $5 and take two minutes. Ive even
replaced the entire lightning port assembly for 7$ in parts and an hour of
time. Its the most modular easily repaired phone Ive ever owned. Granted
though, this is the original iPhone 5. All the newer phones with Touch ID and
force touch digitizers are more expensive/complicated. But the notion that
Apple phones are not repairable is just false.

~~~
nsxwolf
I just have very bad luck when things get small. I was so proud of myself when
I got all that broken iPad glass off cleanly. Then that happened and it was a
really dark moment for me.

Currently I'm dealing with an out of warranty Apple Watch where the screen
just went and fell right off, and apparently you cannot buy the glue strips
for it unless you buy the whole screen. Apple figured out how to stop people
from getting glue!

~~~
skibble
As a side note: this issue happened to some early Apple watches (basically the
glue didn't cure properly, I think?). Since it's a sorta known issue, you
might be able to get it fixed for free, even though it's out of warranty.

Here's a tweet from John Gruber of popular Apple blog Daring Fireball, who had
the same thing happen to his wife's watch:
[https://twitter.com/gruber/status/783016045481033729?lang=en](https://twitter.com/gruber/status/783016045481033729?lang=en)

~~~
nsxwolf
Yeah I went through multiple phone calls and an unpleasant store visit and
mentioned the people online and they did jack all for me. They want $249 and
that's that. They didn't care about my 6 figures of lifetime Apple purchases.

------
sergiotapia
For those curious and don't want to watch the entire video: He uses an iphone
backplate, three other parts (touch id etc), and the logic board. So he's
using Apple OS.

~~~
cr0sh
Ah - ok, this explains it. I didn't watch the video, and I had it in my mind
that he custom built a phone (and they were just using the term as a headline
grab). I was trying to figure out how/where he got a 4G module.

------
idank
Makes me wish you could buy a kit and assemble your own phone. We need someone
like Arduino to come along for this kind of tech. Would be awesome to just
pick up my old and faithful Hakko and solder some sensor to a phone.

~~~
khedoros1
Depending on what you're thinking of when you say "phone", you can do that. 3G
modem, controller (either a microcontroller like Arduino or one of the smaller
Linux-based ARM computers), various LCD options, and either touch or buttons
for input. People have built variations on that.

Here's an example using a Raspberry Pi, touchscreen, and custom-written UI:
[https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tytelli-a-diy-
smartphone/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/tytelli-a-diy-smartphone/)

~~~
digi_owl
Do wonder how it would look if we replaced the B with that new Zero W.

~~~
khedoros1
Put a smaller GPIO connection on the screen, and you could probably make it
1/3 the thickness of the original one. Still much more powerful than my first
Android phone, and you could set it up with much quicker software. Actually
getting to feature parity even with most feature phones would take some
serious work, though.

------
chirau
On top of that 300, add R&D costs, marketing, assembly and shipping and you
could very well justify the hefty price we pay for the iPhone.

I am actually surprised it cost this much to make custom.

~~~
justboxing
Yep. In the video comments, he says he spent well over $1000. Justifies the
$300 price tag by stating that he didn't need the $700+ worth of parts and
tools he purchased.

> Strange Parts 4 hours ago

> Thanks for subscribing! I spent well over $1000, but a lot of that was parts
> and tools I didn't end up needing. I'd say it's probably around $300 worth
> of parts in the actual phone.﻿

Source: Direct link to comment: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFuF-
zoVzA&lc=z13bd1eposzxs...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFuF-
zoVzA&lc=z13bd1eposzxsbtp304cedd4womcxn5jmbg.1492016971829084)

~~~
rtkwe
The extra parts cost was from a dead end where he was going to attempt to
populate a bare PCB with the various chips etc. Eventually he found someone
that told him just how many boards he'd have to make before he'd get a working
board trying to do it by hand.

------
Animats
All those people and all that parts infrastructure, just to repair and recycle
one brand of phones. Phone repair training school with posters of iPhone
boards on the wall. All those shops selling phone parts. All that specialized
equipment for servicing them. I like the "bubble removing" machine, a heated
vacuum chamber. It looks like mid 20th century automotive, when there were
corners with four gas stations that actually could fix cars, and many
automotive machine shops.

Why should phones break? It's not like they can't be made much tougher.[1] The
real question is, why do people put up with such fragile phones? Is this an
interim stage of the technology? Does this stop when iPhone N+1 comes out and
the reaction is "yawn?"

So what does all that Shentzen parts retail look like when you're building
something new? Can you go into those buildings with a bill of materials and
come out ready to load your pick and place machine? Can you get boards fabbed
one-off while you wait? Or is it all about repair and simple mods?

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVPku-
xItv8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVPku-xItv8)

~~~
scottyallen
Scotty here, the dude that made the video. I'm not sure I can answer the first
set of questions about why phones are fragile. I think it probably has
something to do with consumer expectations/tastes around look and size of
phones though.

But I can give you some answers for your second set of questions.

> So what does all that Shentzen parts retail look like when you're building
> something new?

The markets originally started as wholesale components and tools markets to
service the electronics factories in Shenzhen, which make a significant
fraction of the worlds electronics, particularly commodity electronics. So it
actually mostly caters to people building new things, versus repair. But I
didn't show any of that in the video. My understanding is that the cell phone
repair markets are comparatively much newer, and obviously cater much less to
large scale production of new goods.

> Can you go into those buildings with a bill of materials and come out ready
> to load your pick and place machine?

Yes, absolutely. There are multiple buildings of distributers that do nothing
but sell components on reels to load in pick and place machines. You can even
buy a pick and place machine there if you need.

> Can you get boards fabbed one-off while you wait?

Not quite while you wait. There are a bunch of booths in the markets
advertising these sorts of services though. I think the fastest on the PCB fab
itself (without assembling any components on it) is 12-hour turn time, and
that's pushing it a bit. 24-hour turn time expedited but pretty standard, and
3-4 days is generally the non-expedited standard for the board house I've
used. Sometimes a bit longer if they're really busy. A courier on a motorcycle
will bring it to your door.

> Or is it all about repair and simple mods?

The cell phone markets are mainly about repair/refurbishing and simple mods,
as far as I can tell. But I don't fully know - there's still a ton more for me
to learn. I still feel like I'm barely scratching the surface here.

~~~
marak830
Reading your replies(can't watch the video, I'm at work - chef here), really
makes me wish I was back coding. Which would give me time to do things like
this! Do you have a blog or is this a one off?

Edit: found the link lower :-)

------
Abishek_Muthian
So IFixit iPhone repair scores are invalid if you live in Shenzhen.

~~~
gambiting
They are usually invalid if you have the right tools and know what you are
doing, but they are usually based off an assumption that your average person
has a screwdriver and a hair dryer and nothing else. Anything that requires a
soldering iron to replace is pretty much a 1/10, even if it's a really simple
fix that can be done after looking up some videos on youtube.

------
namuol
Ha! I met Scotty (the man featured in this video) in Bali, Indonesia about 1.5
years ago. We wound up crossing paths a few more times at a hackerspace after
I moved to SF. As you can imagine, he's an incredibly focused but personable
guy. Hope to see more videos like this!

~~~
reustle
I think a lot of us met him there :)

~~~
franciscop
I see few Hacker Paradise alumni are around here! (:

------
cr0sh
I haven't watched the video - but I'm curious where and how he got a 4G LTE
module cheaply. I've never found one via Ali Express or TaoBao, but maybe I
didn't use the right keywords (or maybe they aren't available as modules?).
The best I've been able to find are 3G modules; the 4G ones I have found (from
one or two US suppliers) tended to be extremely expensive.

EDIT: NVM all - downthread it was explained what this guy did, and how he
didn't go true DIY on the whole thing. So no special 4G module needed.

~~~
bjackman
Aside from your edit: I have heard (but cannot back up) that there are
sometimes things you can buy in person in Shenzhen but not on Taobao. It's
hard to believe though.

~~~
SexyCyborg
Not a lot, usually what happens if it's grey to sell it there are special
keywords used or you just ask the TB store owner on PM.

------
ben174
Great experiment, and it looks like a lot of fun. But to be practical, the
amount of time + effort + risk required to pull this of would offset any
amount of money saved.

~~~
zuck9
What's the risk?

~~~
strictnein
His $5 battery exploding

------
oldgun
Moral of the story is not how cheap YOU can build YOUR phone by $300, but how
cheap Chinese electronic parts could mean to the competition and innovation in
the whole electronic industry.

My personal opinion (not necessarily correct): it means that electronic
industry could no longer only compete on low prices but newer designs and
newer technologies, for better or worse, because Shenzhen, China can always
catch up with your price fast with its astonishingly cheap parts.

~~~
megablast
> but how cheap Chinese electronic parts could mean to the competition and
> innovation in the whole electronic industry.

There are already plenty of cheap Chinese phones you can buy. Even their
flagship phones with top of the line specs are half price. They just don't
support all overseas bands yet.

------
vit05
Amazing how they use WeChat for everything and how someone's word has value in
the negotiations. They hardly use paper, receipts.

~~~
philliphaydon
People run their entire businesses on WeChat. It's rather amazing the trust
people have in it. Apparently it's got an estimated value of 80 billion.

------
nodesocket
A fun hobby and project, but I'm guessing nearly all those parts are knock
offs and of very cheap quality.

~~~
jjbiotech
Because quality increases when Apple repackages Chinese components in a shiny
white case.

~~~
esmi
Definitely.

Apple should add many QA steps filtering out the vast majority of bad parts.
First there would be incoming QA on any received shipments. And any well run
assembly line contains many check steps to make sure the unit has good
constituent parts. This way you don't burn good parts farther down the line on
a unit that was never going to pass. Then there is out going inspection and
burn in testing.

All that testing increases overall quality and value.

~~~
jjbiotech
QA/QC isn't exclusive to large companies. DIY hobbyists can do the exact same
thing.

~~~
esmi
In theory that's possible true but in practice on an iPhone I highly doubt a
DIY can do "the exact same thing". For one there are important ports we can't
access, like JTAG testing the SOC. And there is a whole other factory OS which
we have no idea what it does and why.

------
kiallmacinnes
There are very few YouTube videos that I particularly enjoy watching, this was
one of them.

Interesting topic, well filmed given the market circumstances, clear audio,
and well edited.. and it definitely didn't hurt that I'm currently learning
how to design and build electronics from scratch as a hobby ;)

~~~
beautifulfreak
You might like this video about Shenzhen too:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY)

------
seltzered_
Somewhat reminded me of the fairphone documentary which follows someone trying
to build a phone business (i.e. Talking with suppliers/factories/etc.):
[https://youtu.be/7C-VTPJxWlw](https://youtu.be/7C-VTPJxWlw)

------
singletoon
One of the very best documentaries I 've ever watched. My most favorite part
on describing modern Chinese culture : the need to replace the logic board,
and the seller's reaction : 'legit'. In China people still are, indeed, very
honorable.

------
dazhbog
As a foreigner living in SZ for the past few years, and literally 3 minutes
away from the markets, I have to say, well done Scotty for capturing the mess
and awesomeness of Huaqiang Bei. Shame that the markets won't stay like this
for long though :(

~~~
willhslade
Why not?

~~~
dazhbog
Because rent prices are going up in huaqiang bei, and the average seller
selling passives or other electronic parts cant sell enough to pay the rent.

Already there are more and more malls and fashion shops slowly appearing in
the area, and landlords will be more and more willing to replace sellers
selling resistors over a fancy fashion shop paying double or triple for that
space.

------
overcast
This is hilariously awesome.

~~~
therobot24
he looks so tired at the end of it, the video is well edited too, where he'll
skip over what's probably long hours and tedious failures with small or sped
up clips

------
2bluesc
With a 2-4x standard margin mark-up he hits the price point of a new retail
iPhone. Minus his time and Apple support of course. :)

~~~
vacri
What items have a standard wholesale cost of 25% retail?

------
hexagonsun
awesome video. inspiring, when you finally turned it on... that feeling
must've been surreal!

------
nsxwolf
How many of these parts are genuine? Many of the parts are so specific to the
iPhone they can't be generic off the shelf components. Some seem impossible to
knock off like the SoC or the touch sensors.

If you find a genuine part, that works, is it stolen? Some aesthetic problem?
Some defect that doesn't quite render it unusable?

~~~
bspn
He seems to think a lot of the parts are refurbished from original iPhones,
with a mix I imagine of pretty good copies. I've bought some non-OEM
replacement parts for Android phones and the copies have been pretty
phenomenal, so I'm not sure where the mix falls.

I had to laugh at the hand-drawn logos on the kiosk of the guys who owned the
'Remove Bubble Machine'.

~~~
scottyallen
Hi, Scotty here - the guy that made the video. bspn pretty much nails it. I
don't really know for certain, but I think a lot of the parts are
used/refurbished from original iPhones, with a couple parts that are really
good copies mixed in. Everything is pretty top notch quality as far as I can
tell though.

And the screen repair booth art is totally legit. As is their workbench
organization scheme.

~~~
bspn
Hi Scotty - awesome video! Do you plan on doing any more builds?

~~~
scottyallen
Yes, absolutely! More videos are on the way.

------
f311a
How much fully refurbished iPhone 6S will cost here?

------
formula_ninguna
how much money did it cost to make this phone?

------
esMazer
pretty cool!! more like buying and assembling an iphone from parts tough

~~~
jessaustin
No kidding I didn't see any mining or refining of rare earths here...

------
bitmapbrother
The video should have included the costs for the components as he purchased
them as it constantly left me wondering.

~~~
rtkwe
He answered in a comment. It was about 300 USD in parts but he's not sure
because he'd spent a lot of money gearing up to try to populate a bare logic
board pcb by hand before someone talked him out of it.

~~~
neotek
He said on reddit he spent about $1000 all up including the tools required.

~~~
rtkwe
Yeah but as I said a lot of those tools were for populating a bare logic board
though that he didn't end up doing because a repair shop told him he could
expect to waste 4+ boards before making on that worked so I don't really think
that's part of the cost of the phone since they weren't used in the final
product or making it.

------
andoon
You can buy refurbished iPhones from AliExpress that more or less are the
same: made from parts from several iPhones put together.

~~~
chrisan
Sure, but where is the adventure or challenge in that?

~~~
andoon
Yeah yeah. What I mean to say is that someone "creating" a new iphone from the
parts of a dozen iphones is nothing new.

------
ruleabidinguser
Really can't stand this style of video.

~~~
jimmies
I really can't stand the style of this comment. You didn't even to bother why
you don't like it. Why bother commenting, then?

~~~
ruleabidinguser
I konw there are others who feel the same, those are the only people im
interested in.

------
throwaway000002
"I'm really impressed by Apple's engineering. It's so easy to repair and
recycle these phones. I've gotta think that Apple's really proud that their
phones don't really end up in landfills."

He then adds, "But there's also credit due to the many thousands of people
here who have figured out how to turn trash like this [shows mangled screen
assembly] back into beautiful working phones."

Dear friends in Shenzhen, not all Westerner's are as shallow and
fantastically, well, douchey as this asshole. We praise you for your ingenuity
and unwavering work ethic. Thank you.

~~~
petermcnister25
Calling "shallow" the OP but also calling all people in Shenzhen your
_friends_ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The 1st person face is a bit shocking, and he _does seem_ a bit naive at some
points, but from that to call Scotty Allen "shallow and fantastically douchey
asshole" is totally uncalled for.

