How I Made My Own iPhone - in China

What people said

Darkphibre · 2020-11 · Recommendation

You addressed the first question, but I popped in to bring up this neat video I came across a few years back regarding the second question. How about this guy, who "built a like-new (but really refurbished) iPhone 6S 16GB entirely from parts purchased from the public cell phone parts markets in Huaqiangbei."? :D [LINK] Making-of: [VIDEO]

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Consultant32452 · 2018-07 · Recommendation

You may enjoy this video where a guy goes to Shenzen and tries to build an iPhone 6s from parts. He claims it cost $300. Technically he spent a little over $600 because he broke a lot of parts and bought the wrong parts in the process, but if everything went perfectly it would be about $300. I think this was created back when the 6s was the current model. $300 claim [LINK] build video: [VIDEO]

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BoorishBears · 2023-03 · Reference

The short answer is, yes they do. It's true that Apple has paired hardware on newer phones, and that combined with Find My has really taken a huge bite out of how many iPhones are stolen, but Shenzhen is Shenzhen. It is a mecca of technology, and you will find things that we'd generally otherwise consider impossible, like building your own iPhone piece by piece just walking around a market: [VIDEO] So even if they can't take a given part as-is, they can always find something useful. We'd think "the logic board is paired so it's useless": they'd think "ICs X,Y, and Z on the logic board commonly fail and now we got spares". There's been more than one case of stolen stuff ending up in Shenzhen: [LINK]

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