a broken home button on the iPhone 4 can
be really annoying because it's
basically the only button on the phone
fortunately the home button can be
replaced and while there are a lot of
tiny screws involved in the repair it's
actually not that hard and it'll
probably only take you about an hour hi
I'm MJ with iFixit and today I'm going
to show you how to replace the home
button in an iPhone for the version that
I'm working on is the GSM version but
the CDMA version is pretty similar
either way you're going to want to
follow the step-by-step instructions and
the repair guide on our site when you're
doing your repair with that all being
said I'm going to get my parts and tools
together so I can get started for this
repair I'm going to need one of our new
54 piece bit driver kits that's been
updated to include the all-important
pentalobe driver as well as the rest of
the bits I'm going to need during this
repair a plastic opening tool or a
plastic spudger a sim eject tool a pair
of tweezers which I got from our
precision tweezers set and of course
your replacement home button this repair
requires the removal of lots of tiny
screws so a screw tray is also highly
recommended not only is it good for
securely storing your screws but for
remembering which screw came from where
when you're following the repair guide
lastly I have an anti-static wrist strap
and this is going to protect my device
from any accidental electrostatic
discharge during my repair before I get
started I'm going to verify that my
phone is powered off and when I'm sure
that it's off I can begin by removing
the two pentalobe screws down near the
dock connector
once those screws are out the rear panel
slides up really easily and then lifts
right off the phone we get our first
glimpse inside the phone and our next
step is to remove the battery and that's
only held in place by one screw and a
cable so I'll go ahead and take care of
those
now that that's done the next step is to
begin to pry the battery up with my iPod
opening tool you're going to start to
pry gently along the sides and then once
it's mostly lifted up you can use this
plastic pull tab here to lift it out the
rest of the way
now we've got this battery out of the
way the next big piece to remove is the
speaker enclosure assembly the first
step to doing that is disconnecting this
duct connector ribbon cable and the
antenna cable down next to the speaker
enclosure assembly
with this ribbon cable lifted up you can
see the two screws that are holding the
speaker enclosure in place once those
are removed you can use your iPod
opening tool to gently pry the speaker
enclosure up and out of place now that
we've got that speaker enclosure out of
the way the next big part to work on is
the logic board to get started with that
we're going to remove the SIM card and a
whole bunch of screws
now that we've got the logic board out
we can get started on the display
assembly which means we are almost done
but this is the point we run into about
a million tiny screws and washers so
you're going to be really grateful for
this screw tray right about now
now that all of those teeny tiny screws
are out you can begin to separate the
display assembly from the bezel using
your handy dandy plastic opening tool as
you're prying the tool apart you'll
notice that there's some adhesive
keeping the two pieces together so you
might need to pry with a little more
force than you would have expected
okay so with the display assembly raised
off the bezel we're going to start to
separate the two but not too hard
because there are some cables we need to
feed through the bezel the last thing
we're going to do is finally remove the
home button it's connected via a ribbon
cable that locks into place
and you'll want to be very careful when
lifting that latch up because it's
pretty fragile next I'm going to use my
tweezers to gently guide that cable out
of its socket again you want to be
careful because it's really fragile I
find it useful to anchor both of my
hands on the work service that way I
don't pull too hard as soon as that
cable is disconnected you can begin to
lift the home button up and off of the
vessel now all I have to do is install
my new home button and reassemble my
phone of course you can find all the
parts and tools for this and many other
repairs at ifixit.com and if you run
into any problems during your repairs
there are lots of solutions and the
iPhone 4 repair guide on our site for
all the latest tear downs and repair
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watching and happy repairing