How Much Does it Cost to Make Your Own iPhone? - YouTube

This is the number one question I get asked

and the answer is...

We'll get to the full answer shortly

But first I wanted to give you a few updates

about strange parts

The last month has been a total whirlwind for me

I released my second video

To a huge response again

Thank you

I did a ton of interviews

And I even a chance

To do my first live studio taping in front an audience

And that was pretty cool

But first

You know what I wanna do?

What?

I wanna take a gander over to the another part of the studio

So we can learn all about drilling into an iPhone

This is cool

Alright let's...let's take a walk down to the fun side of the studio

Ohhhhhh

I haven't been here in so long

Oh we're here with Scotty ... Scotty Alan

I also did my first YouTube collaboration

with China's first Youtuber

Well I mean most people that know you know you as the iPhone guy

Yeah

So I'd though what we do is take this opportunity to just tell people who you are and give them a bit of a back-story

Yeah totally

So they don't just call you hey it's that iPhone guy

Totally! Yeah

Check out the description for a link to that.

And I flew around the world!

I visited 4 countries, 6 cities, 3 countries I've never been to before

and I gave two talks

One at the Noisebridge Hackerspace in San Francisco

Where I am a member

This is a very fast pick and place machine , it's a turret pick and place machine

and one at the Web Expo conference in Prague.

I haven't designed that many circuit boards before

and

if your like me this looks really intimidating

and I spent a ton of time researching new stories and shooting more video

but in the process, I got totally burned out

so I had to take a pretty mandatory 1 to 2 week break here and recharge my batteries

but I'm back in here Shenzhen, back in the swing of things

and a bunch of people have been asking me

Scotty, why don't you release videos more frequently?

And the truth is these big huge videos take a lot longer to make than you might think

but there's a lot of other stuff I'm excited to talk about

and share with you guys

So I'd thought I'd make some smaller videos like this one

while I work on the bigger stuff.

This is going to be a bit of an experiment so leave a comment with what you like

But let's get down to the main question for this video.

I've been getting a lot of emails

and comments and messages from people with all sorts of questions

uh...and

Unfortunately, I... I'm a little bit buried and while I do try and read everything

I haven't been able to give everybody a detailed response

and that makes me a little sad.

um.. But a lot of people ask similar or the questions

and so I thought rather then giving everybody a rushed answer

you know one on one

Maybe I could sit down and make a nicer video

where I could go into more depth and really answer it in the detail that does it justice

So the number one question I get is how much did it cost to you to make your own iPhone 6S

and there are a couple answers here

I know the answer everybody wants which is $300. Iit costs $300 for the parts that

went into the actual iPhone 6S I bought. Maybe a little bit more, but it in

that range. But that's not the full story. I spent a lot more than that I probably

spent over $1,000 on replacements for parts that I broke on tools on buying

the wrong part and then having me go back and get the right part I bought

some books things like that so while in the end the parts ended up costing me

$300, nobody I know that's tried to make their own iPhone like I have has gotten

away without having to buy extra stuff. Somewhere between $300 and $1000 is

probably what you can expect to spend if you come here to Shenzhen and try and

build your own iPhone like I did but I don't think this is the question that

people actually want an answer to. I think what a lot of people really want

to know is is building my own iPhone the cheapest way to get an iPhone and the

answer is no not really and let me give you a little bit more

context for why I think that so this same phone that I built when I built it

cost $600 new in the Apple store but a similar used iPhone would be like 250 to

350 dollars and if you think about it what I built at the end of the day

really is a refurbished used phone the most important part, the logic board, is a

used part that came out of a working phone manufactured by Apple so you know

while my phone might look a little bit nicer on the outside than your average

used phone at the end of the day it really is a used phone so my

recommendation is if you really want an iPhone and you don't have a lot of money

to spend look for a good used phone. Look for a used phone that's maybe you know a

couple of models behind you'll be able to inspect it make sure everything works

and you won't run the risk of breaking a really expensive part like breaking a

logic board which would dramatically increase the cost for you and probably

make you really sad but if you're like me and you really want to understand how

the side of an iPhone works building an

iPhone or repairing an iPhone is a great way to do it

so that's your motivation go for it. Now I've had some people who are trying to

build their own iPhones message me and say the one part that they're having a

hard time finding is the logic board which is you know really the heart of

the phone it's essentially the motherboard of the phone and

unfortunately I don't have a ton of great answers here you know the people

that I buy from aren't really set up to sell online they only really sell in

person they're very small they don't speak English

also I'm not particularly interested in starting a business around exporting use

iPhone parts out of China the customs issues are pretty tricky there and just

not something I'm interested in doing the best answer I can give you is to

look at eBay but if you've got a better answer than that go ahead and leave it

in the comments just don't post unrelated stuff I'm gonna delete it and

I'll probably ban you from leaving comments in the future and if you do end

up making your own iPhone send me a picture there are links on ways to reach

me in the in the description below well that about does it for this time guys I

did want to say a huge thank you to everybody that sent me story suggestions

and ideas I've tried to read everything but I really haven't been able to

respond to it all I'm sorry do feel free to keep sending me stuff I do try and

read everything I have to say I'm a little bit scared to release this video

it's not a big huge epic project like the first two and so if you like it show

me some love in the comments and if you've got more questions you'd like me

to answer leave those in the comments as well I'll read them all I'm Scotty from

Strange Parts. If you want to see more videos like this one hit that subscribe

button down below and stay tuned for more adventures. I'll see you next time