iFixit Saves the Day

Whitney uses an old iPhone with Proloquo2Go to communicate with family and friends who don't speak sign language.  It's becoming her primary means of communication.  Over the years, this survivor of a phone has taken swims in a sink and a drinking fountain and even got a battery replacement after the old one got so used it wouldn't hold much of a charge.  I used parts, tools and a repair guide from ifixit.org to make the repair back in April of 2012 and things came out great.  Whitney was thrilled to have her phone back and I shared the experience with the iFixit team on their blog.

Everything was going great until that summer when Whitney's poor battered old phone got dropped in the driveway during a visit to grandma and grandpa's house.  The screen was shattered and we figured the phone was a goner.  I tucked it away in my gadget drawer figuring that was the end of it.  Thankfully, we were able to get an iPad on loan from Whitney's school to continue her speech exercises.  But that big old iPad with a rugged case on it just wasn't as easy for a little girl to carry around with her and it wasn't the same as her old iPhone friend.  It didn't even fit in the drinking fountain.

Then a few weeks ago, Gwendolyn, the new host of iFixit's YouTube videos contacted me and asked if it would be okay to talk about Whitney and I and our iFixit story in their 10th anniversary video.  I was excited and said, "Of course."  You can see the great video they produced below:

I thanked iFixit for the chance to be a part of their anniversary and also half-jokingly asked if there was a discount on screens during the special occasion.  Then after the video above posted, a package arrived in the mail.  The iFixit folks had sent a new screen for Whitney's phone at no charge!  The next free moment I had, I broke out my tools again and used their repair guide to install the new screen in Whitney's old iPhone friend.  It worked just like new again.  We gave the phone back to Whitney and she walked around the whole rest of the day excitedly telling people about how her phone was broken but now it was fixed.  Our whole family is grateful.  So Melanie helped Whitney and I make this video to tell Gwendolyn and everyone at iFixit, thank you for saving the day: