Introduction
If your iPhone XS Max screen is cracked, not responding to touch, or not showing a picture when your phone is powered on, use this guide to restore your iPhone to working order with a new screen, a.k.a. display assembly.
The combined earpiece speaker + sensor assembly affixed to the back of the display is paired to your individual iPhone from the factory, so you must transfer it from your old display to your new one during any display replacement. It contains the flood illuminator, which is part of the biometric Face ID security feature. If it is damaged or replaced, Face ID will cease to function, so take extra care not to damage any of these components during this procedure. If damaged, only Apple can restore Face ID function.
Note: True Tone functionality is disabled after a screen replacement, even when using an original Apple screen.
Video Overview
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Power off your iPhone before beginning disassembly.
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Remove the two 6.9 mm-long pentalobe screws at the bottom edge of the iPhone.
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Opening the iPhone's display will compromise its waterproof seals. Have replacement seals ready before you proceed past this step, or take care to avoid liquid exposure if you reassemble your iPhone without replacing the seals.
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If your iPhone has a cracked screen, keep further breakage contained and prevent bodily harm during your repair by taping over the glass.
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Lay overlapping strips of packing tape over the iPhone's display until the whole face is covered.
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If the broken glass makes it difficult to get a suction cup to stick in the next few steps, try folding a strong piece of tape (such as duct tape) into a handle and lifting the display with that instead.
How to detect my Iphone what screen it is, OLED or LCD?
It’s OLED. You can find the specs here, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201296
When you find your phone, at the bottom of the description click on, See the tech specs…
mcr4u2 -
The included suction cups were stiff and worthless. They would not lift the screen. Also, I tried every type of tape on the screen to help the suction cups stick without success. Heavy duty suction cups were for my bathroom also failed. However, I had an old GoPro mount with some preapplied double sided 3M VSB tape and stuck that on the screen near the bottom. Magic! This method had the added bonus of being able to use a GoPro attachment as a handle to lift the screen, and propped up the screen like a kickstand in step 12.
Very cool! Thanks
Antonio -
My screen was pretty stuck… would not budge. Heated, super glued the suction cup, tried gorilla tape. Ended up doing the GoPro mount with 3M VSB tape method mentioned. Worked great. That 3M tape is the bomb.
If you have flat feeler gauges (for adjusting engine valve tappet clearance, ignition points … old school) the .003 thick goes right in. Work your way up until you can get the pick or supplied pry tool in.
where can I buy 3M VSB plis!!
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Use a hairdryer or heat gun or prepare an iOpener and apply it to the lower edge of the iPhone for about a minute in order to soften up the adhesive underneath.
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Remove four Y000 screws securing the logic board cover bracket, of the following lengths:
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Two 1.1 mm screws
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One 1.5 mm screw
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One 3.7 mm screw
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Remove the three Y000 screws securing the display connector bracket:
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Two 1.5 mm screws
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One 1.1 mm screw
I am replacing the screen for the 2nd time - the first repair was done by someone else, and the first 2 screws are 1.5mm and the last screw is 1.1mm… If I put the screw back in am I risking Long Screw Damage?
Thanks for all your comments! I'll amend this step.
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Carefully lift the cable until the adhesive separates.
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Remove the three Y000 screws securing the speaker/sensor assembly:
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One 1.4 mm screw
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Two 1.5 mm screws
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Using a spudger, gently pry under the top edge of the speaker assembly, and flip it over—down and away from the top edge of the display.
If you are using a refurbished display, check for dirt in the earpiece speaker cutout.
If you have poor quality or low sound after changing the display, use a cotton bud and isopropyl alcohol to clean the earpiece cutout.
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Use a hairdryer or heat gun or prepare an iOpener and apply it to the top front of the display for 1-2 minutes, in order to soften the adhesive securing the sensors.
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Carefully slide the edge of your opening pick underneath the flex cable below the microphone.
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Twist gently to separate the microphone, while being careful not to strain or damage the flex cable.
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If needed, use the point of the spudger to finish separating the microphone from its notch in the front panel.
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If you successfully removed the entire ambient light sensor, as shown in the first photo, continue to the next step below.
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If the white diffuser strip detached and remains embedded in the display, as shown in the second photo, you will need to carefully lever it out along the top edge using a thin blade or pry tool. Re-applying heat first may make this task a bit easier.
I have accidentally damaged flood illuminator will it affect the face id also or if I just replace the Earpiece Speaker and Sensor Assembly it will get fixed.
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Remove the earpiece speaker and front sensor assembly.
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Proximity sensor
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Flood illuminator
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The module must be positioned so that these components are not obstructed by any adhesive.
Do you have to remove the earpiece speaker and front sensor assembly. If you are taking a screen from another Xs max with it already attached?
The front sensor assembly is part of Face ID, so you must transfer the original assembly to the replacement screen in order to maintain Face ID functionality.
No, you just take the whole unit. Warm it up and remove the glued sensors like described. Handle it carefully, the speaker cable is quite thin. If damaged, you might loose your face-ID functionality.
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Compare your new replacement part to the original part—you may need to transfer remaining components or remove adhesive backings from the new part before installing.
To reassemble your device, follow the above steps in reverse order.
Take your e-waste to an R2 or e-Stewards certified recycler.
Repair didn’t go as planned? Check out our Answers community for troubleshooting help.
Compare your new replacement part to the original part—you may need to transfer remaining components or remove adhesive backings from the new part before installing.
To reassemble your device, follow the above steps in reverse order.
Take your e-waste to an R2 or e-Stewards certified recycler.
Repair didn’t go as planned? Check out our Answers community for troubleshooting help.
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27 Comments
Nice guide. I could be wrong but for the first time in a while, changing a display on an Apple phone looks like it’s not anymore difficult than previous models.
John K
the-screen-savers.com
If you remove the screen but then apply the same screen back on the phone, will True Tone still be disabled?
@onslivion Nope! It'll continue to work fine, so long as you didn’t damage anything.
Hi i broke the Flex cable of the Part.
what i can do now.
is their some Parts for sale?
I just switched the screens from 2 phones and both are unresponsive, if put them back to its original logic board the work again, any idea why they dont work? both are original.
Why is True Tone disabled afterwards? Even with an Original Screen how is that possible?
That's normal. There's a chip in the screen that has info that is specific to the original logic board so unless you have a special machine to read/write to that chip, truetone will not work.
This was perfect. It definitely helped me replace the screen on a friend IPhone XS Max!
Every authoritative source (such as Apple Support, Wikipedia) that I read about the iPhone XS Max display states that it has an OLED display - not an AMOLED display, and not an LCD display (such as on the XR model). Yet the parts associated with this guide are LCD (website quirk?) and the written text for XS Max mention AMOLED. Isn’t this important to get right when replacing? The model I have is A1921.
Hi Mark,
The iPhone XS Max uses an AMOLED display. Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) is a subcategory of the general OLED tech—AMOLED displays contain circuitry which allows them to switch each OLED pixel on or off. Compared to Passive Matrix OLED, AMOLED displays have a higher refresh rate and are more energy efficient . However AMOLED displays are complex, difficult to source, and very expensive to replace (think $200-400 for the part!) Hardware manufacturers sought to resolve this problem by producing LCD replacement screens. These screens are made to be completely compatible with the iPhone XS Max, but are significantly cheaper to replace. They do look slightly different compared to the original screen. Check this link out for a more in-depth review of the differences.
Where is the INSTALL GUIDE this is just removal? And don’t tell me it’s the reverse. I have a small gasket that’s not mentioned in this and it doesn’t explain how to remove the main old gasket or install the new gasket
Where is the installation guide? This is just a removal guide. Don’t tell me that it’s the opposite of removal to install because I have a small gasket that is not mentioned in the YouTube video or on this site in my package
I would like to echo this comment. It is extremely disappointing to see a guide this comprehensive and detailed stop short of reassembly. Especially because some parts need to be transferred from the original display to the replacement one.
Completed the Repair with the more Expensive alternative - the OLED display.
The guide is very comprehensive and covered all the points including looking out for bits left behind!
- I noticed a tiny piece of conductive foam on the old display which i moved to the new one.
The OLED display is top quality, but a little darker due to losing the “True Tone” no doubt.
The Adhesive kit is very good, but separating the two films was a little difficult and messed up the alignment slightly, however I managed to recover!
One more addition I had to make after undertaking this repair.
I had noted that after swapping the display the earpiece was very quiet. I thought that I had missed a gasket, misaligned the earpiece speaker or not plugged in the leads correctly.
Nope. Much simpler than that. CLEAN THE EAR PIECE CUTOUT! *Eeeewwww* After putting up with this for about 4 weeks, I happened to get out the Cotton Buds. A quick wipe revealed someone elses EAR GUNK was clogging up the ear piece cutout !
Disgusted, I got out the Isopropyl and cleaned it (carefully) about 10 times, the audio is now crystal clear.
@ifixit - Please ensure your “Refurbished displays” have a clean earhole. It was pretty gross that it was clogged to the point that I could not HEAR!
Great guide, completely worked for me!
This guide worked perfectly for my iPhone Max XS screen replacement. This is only my second “project” from iFixit (the first was a replacement display screen for my Canon 6D) and both times, miraculously, everything worked. I’m really not sure if it is my skills or the details in the guides (it’s definitely the latter and a tiny bit of the former). The replacement parts are reasonably priced and the toolkits are VERY GOOD in quality.
For this iPhone screen fix, I used a previously purchased toolkit and “borrowed” suction handles (yes, definitely makes a difference and better than the tape alternative—I tried both) from a bathroom rack.
It took me about 3 hours to get this done. I rushed on step one and stripped the first pentalobe screw. Luckily, one stripped pentalobe screw is still OK. I managed to pull it apart by wiggling the screen around (without too much force). I used a hair dryer to heat the frame/adhesive.
Follow the instructions closely and don’t lose the tiny screws. A magnetic screwdriver helped.
I have accidentally damaged flood illuminator will it affect the face id also or if I just replace the Earpiece Speaker and Sensor Assembly it will get fixed.
Step 1: Remove pentalobe screws…is very careful to NOT STRIP THE SCREW…tools provided/metal is not hard enough and is unable to take out the screw in Step 1 and am now currently going out to buy better pentalobe screw driver. THANKS. Why don’t you just provide better tools and increase the cost……………………………………………
for me at least once you get use to repairing this it can take around 30 min too an hour but i also repair all devices even phones for living so i do have experience with repairing these
Changing just the glass screen on my iphone xs max and the black part behind the screen is cracked what do I do ?
Executed this repair almost flawlessly. The FaceID flex cable is very fragile and glued down very well. I advise you be careful when removing is as not much pressure at all can cause it to break (Speaking from experience). Other than that the guide was very easy to follow.
This was an incredible guide! With the video, it was the perfect guide and I managed to complete the fix in less than 2 hours.
Can water damaged iphone be restored by replacing screen?