Senior technical writer, photographer, and tinkerer at iFixit HQ in San Luis Obispo, California.
Like many folks here, I’ve been fixing things most of my life—cars, computers, time machines. (Wait, sorry—that last thing happens later.)
I joined iFixit in 2013 as a technical writer, working mainly on repair guides and teardowns. I later co-wrote a lot of the instructions for iFixit’s university technical writing project, and helped coach a few thousand engineering students from over 50 universities through their technical writing coursework. I’ve enjoyed being a guest lecturer and attending academic conferences on technical writing, and helped teach a few of iFixit’s in-house workshops for technical writing instructors.
If working at iFixit sounds awesome, that’s because frequently, it is—I’m grateful to have been at the right place and time to collaborate on some world-class projects with this team. Because of iFixit, I’ve helped Greenpeace create its guide to greener electronics, consulted on repairability for some of the world’s top hardware engineers, and written repair guides for Patagonia.
My wife Zan, seen here in a rare photograph that I’m allowed to share with the internet.
I’m naturally an introvert and prefer to stay behind the camera rather than in front of it, but sometimes accidents happen. My talking head has appeared on a few broadcast programs and podcasts, like that time we tore down a Magic Leap One. I’ve also appeared briefly in at least one VICE documentary, wherein I badly needed a haircut and hadn’t slept since two dinners ago.
VICE News chased us to Australia for our teardown of the iPhone X.
I do enjoy anonymously sharing my photos though, and they frequently pop up in the tech press. That’s one of the really fun aspects of this job—you never know when your work might help a technology journalist explain a battery problem, solve a waterproofing mystery, or break down a new laptop design.
In my free time I enjoy scuba diving and formulating trenchant ripostes that would have come in really handy when I needed them yesterday.
True Tone can be restored with a screen programmer, although the programmer itself costs ~$50 or more—so it’s more economical if you’re doing more than one screen repair. We’ll have a guide with instructions for using the programmer sometime in the next month or so. If that’s something you’re interested in, keep your old screen—you’ll need to use the programmer to clone some data from the old screen to the new one.
In my experience this is usually a hardware rather than a software issue. Double-check the tips in the final step. Make sure there’s no dust or fingerprints on the Face ID lenses and projector. Make sure nothing was damaged during the repair, particularly those thin flex cables. Reseat the connectors, reassemble, and test again. If all else fails, try reinstalling the old screen and see if you get Face ID back—in theory, a defective coating on the new screen could interfere with the Face ID hardware. Good luck!
There seems to be a lot of variability in the strength of the glue—the specimen used for creating this guide was very stubborn! Glad yours was easier. Also keep in mind, this guide is designed to help you remove the screen intact in case you’re just trying to make other repairs, such as replacing the battery. The YouTube guide you mention assumes the screen is already destroyed (or at least that you don’t mind destroying it). Congrats on a successful repair!
@sbmiller Thanks for bringing this up. What a nightmare! Apparently this issue dates back several years—see How to fix apple error code 29. If you have an original Apple battery available, you may be able to install it temporarily to get things working again. I’ll be looking for an opportunity to test this in more depth and see if we can come up with any other solutions.
@victorbui714 Correct, this is also the connector for the earpiece speaker. Check the flex cable carefully and make sure it wasn’t pinched or torn. Make sure the connector socket is clean (give it a blast with some compressed air if needed) and try reseating it. If that doesn’t help, you may want to remove the earpiece speaker and inspect the four springs on the back, and check that they’re intact and making good contact with the four circular pads on the flex cable. Give the pads a wipe with some IPA and try not to leave any skin oils on them. If none of that works, try replacing the entire flex cable/sensor assembly. Good luck!
Capacity on a new battery should be much higher than 73%, but you won’t get an accurate reading until after it’s calibrated properly. Follow the calibration instructions carefully and then report back! If you still have issues, you may need to exchange for a different battery.
Negative, I’m not the original photographer. You’re right, I do see the retainer in some of the previous photos, although it wasn’t in any of the images for this particular step. May have been an oversight on the part of the original author! So I’m glad you caught it. I updated the verbiage as you requested. Don’t worry about adding arrows—at this point, if someone ignores both the images and the multiple warnings in the text, that’s no longer a fault with the guide. The heat/hairdryer tip is standard practice for anything that’s secured with adhesive—I hardly ever work on a MacBook of any vintage without using a heat gun at least a couple times. It may not be strictly necessary, but the result is much cleaner and it reduces the risk of accident.
@poporobright Sorry for the trouble! Looks like you’re already getting some good advice over in our Answers forum (Battery replacement odd behavior ). You shouldn’t have to calibrate the battery more than once, so try the suggested troubleshooting steps—and if that doesn’t do the trick, touch base with the customer support team and see if they want to swap you out for a different battery in case yours has a defect of some kind. Good luck!
@a340mech Detailed instructions for the adhesive are linked in the final step.
@victorbui714 Battery first, then adhesive during reassembly, as it says in the instructions. ;)
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