A couple of weeks ago, iFixit programmer Tony Gines aimed a hair dryer at a bunch of broken glass in his living room. Then, armed with only bare fingers and some plastic opening tools, he pulled the glass apart, shard by shard. Is it any surprise that, in the process, he severed a tiny wire that got in the way? (Here’s the wire next to a thumb, for comparison.) The iPad 2 is light, compact, and has an intuitive user interface. Apple says, “When you pick up the iPad, it becomes an extension of you.” iPad users I know echo Apple on this point — they say using the iPad feels natural, like it’s wired into your brain. So people carry it around everywhere. But it’s also slick. So people drop it. When they drop it, the big glass panel on the front sometimes cracks. Dropping the iPad is not covered under warranty, of course; But did you know that Apple charges between $199 and $419 (plus sales tax) to replace the front glass on an iPad 2? If you break your iPad 2 and stick with Apple-approved solutions, you’re left with a pretty unappealing choice: pay an arm and a leg, or lose your brain extension.
When the front panel on Tony’s iPad 2 cracked, he chose something off-menu — self-repair. I talked to him today about his experiences: Elizabeth: When you took off the front glass, did it all come off in one piece? Tony: It did not. It came off in many, many pieces. That took the most amount of time and was the most dangerous. There were pieces of glass popping off and breaking. I was using a hair dryer, but by the time I got to the broken glass, it had cooled. I found it easier to take the glass off the glue when it was a little bit cooler — more pieces held together. Plus, I didn’t like blowing shards of glass off the counter. In the process, I ripped through the Wi-Fi antenna. Luckily, I’d read a lot about people ripping the antenna and purchased one before I got started, figuring I would too. The Wi-Fi antenna ended up being the hardest part. I nearly had to take all of the inner pieces out to get to its connector, which, without the iFixit guide, I would have never known how to find.
I also had to remove the home button for the glass replacement, which was another guide. So in total, I used three guides, and it took about three hours.To install just the glass, which was much easier to replace in the previous iPad. Tony: Yes, very frustrating. Apple is definitely not making these things easy to take apart and fix yourself. Elizabeth: What did you use to secure the new screen? Strips of double-sided tape? Tony: I actually used fiberglass carpet tape, double-sided. It had the strongest adhesive I could find. It’s better than regular mounting tape because it’s much thinner. Elizabeth: So, we gave the iPad 2 a 4/10 repairability score when we first tore it down. But since making our repair guides, we’ve considered downgrading it to 1/10. What do you think? Tony: Well, it’s a tough call, because it IS repairable… but definitely difficult. If you have the parts for it, you can definitely do it. It’s not easy though, that’s for sure — maybe it should’ve scored a 2.
However, I don’t want to make it seem like you’d be better off buying a new one. I spent $45 repairing an $800 iPad 2 that would have otherwise cost me $200 or more to send somewhere to fix, or have Apple throw away. Tony’s right not to be discouraging. We’re always in favor of repair. But the iPad 2 was not designed with repairability in mind. The very thin front glass is held on by a strong adhesive, which means you can only get into the device with heat and careful prying. It’s pretty common to break the glass accidentally while trying to get inside the device. If you decide to repair your iPad 2, Tony has a word of caution: It will be a long process, it will be difficult, and if you’re not very careful, you might damage other components. By using glue rather than the clips that held the original iPad together, Apple has made the iPad 2 significantly more difficult to repair. From a responsible product design perspective, that’s disappointing. These are some common tools used to work on this device.
You might not need every tool for every procedure. iFixit Opening Picks set of 6 Identification and Background ¶ The first iPad model was announced in January 2010 and was released April 3 of the same year. The device resembled a large iPod Touch, sporting a 9.7" LED-backlit display with multi-touch capabilities. Like the iPhone and iPod Touch that came before it, the iPad ran on Apple's iOS mobile operating system. While the launch model could only connect to the internet via Wi-Fi, a 3G-enabled model hit store shelves soon after. Several iPad models have been released since the original tablet. If you're not sure which version you have, check out our handy ID Your iPad tool and select the guides and parts that are compatible with your machine. Diagnose and repair screen backlight issues with our iDevice Backlight Troubleshooting Page. iFixit: ID Your iPadiPad 2 Front Panel Assembly Color & Kit Option: All-in-one fix for the iPad 2's front glass panel
Replacement part for any shattered iPad 2. Fix Kit includes replacement adhesive strips, home button assembly, and tools. This part make installing a front panel a lot easier since the adhesive, front facing camera bracket and home button are already installed. When performing the repair, sometimes you may damage the bezel and/or Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antenna. You may want to buy those parts just in case and if you don't end up using either of them, you can return them. Assembly components (these come pre-installed on the front panel): iPad 2 Adhesive Strips iPad 2nd and 3rd Gen Home Button Assembly New iPad 2 Front Panel Assembly Phillips #000, Phillips #00, Phillips #0, Torx T5, Sim Eject, and Magnetic Pickup screwdriver bits Black 4mm Screwdriver Handle My sister ran over her iPad with her car, I was amazed it wasn't completely obliterated. The front screen was shattered and the lower left and upper left sections of the aluminum back was slightly bent.
Even after all that the iPad still worked in this condition. This took a lot longer than I tho . . . A friend offered me his iPad that had a badly broken screen for free. He knows that I'm pretty handy with woodworking, so he thought I might give a try with electronics. He had covered it with packing tape, and it was still functional, but it would make some errors recognizing touches, swipes, tap . . . My dad dropped his iPad while he was on a metro and cracked the screen into a small, intense spiderweb right where the guide said to try to gain access with a larger crack extending from the web to the bottom left of the display. Overall, not as cleanly and the guide showed because of the location o . . . Large fissure on from the upper left corner to the lower left corner, and broken glass. iOpener kit gives you what you need to open up a ipad for presumably most repairs. The demonstration video works well because the glass itself is intact. If like mine it is in poor condition be prepared to spend a . . .
The digitizer was highly fractured, and multiple corners of the frame were bent in. Straightforward repair, removal of the digitizer was tedious but that was expected. Fixing the frame was easy with a Recorner It Tool. After you have the digitizer removal started, get a spudger under the adhesive st . . . Shattered my front panel 4 years ago and had it replaced at a local shop with a thick generic panel which decided to stop working late last year. Since the first repair used Norman double adhesive tape, panel was already popping off long before it stopped working which made replacement really easy an . . . cracked screen - spiderweb it was ok, however a cracked screen often means tiny bits. The fixit youtube video did not show how to replace the home button, it also didn't state that the touchscreen cable to the glass was a part that came with the glass. It also had conflicting information on the heat p . . . Kids dropped the ipad and it hit the corner and cracked the touchpanel.