So I bricked my iPhone...

My brand new iPhone is basically a write off, and I'm sad.

The story begins a little over a month ago. It was my birthday, there was a BBQ in the park, there were water balloons, and I had my iPhone in my pocket (super dumb in retrospect). When I got home I noticed that my clothes were quite damp, although the phone was relatively dry, so I thought little of it. Later that evening I played around with it and noticed the home button was not responding. Thinking that a little bit of moisture must have found its way inside the button, I switched it off for the night and left it alone (what I should have done is put it in a container of rice).

The home button was stuffed. No matter what I did, the home button would not work. I tried restoring. I tried pressing hard and pressing soft. I tried fiddling around with the button in case it was stuck. I started to get that sinking feeling in my stomach that a birthday afternoon of horsing around had fatally damaged my pride and joy.

I waited a week for the break of following weekend and took it to the geneses at the Chadstone apple store. I had recently jailbroken the phone, so I restored the device using iTunes back to a virgin state for the trip - this step also retrospectively was a poor move. The dude listened to my 'it doesn't work' story, inspected the water exposure indicators on the top and bottom of the device and said 'you have exposed it to water, we can't touch it'. Now, I concede that the home button must have got some moisture in there, although the damn phone was far from immersed! At most it would have been as much as few drops of rain if I were to use it briefly during bad weather. I pushed the point and the dude said that officially the water indicators were not completely triggered, the top was clear and the bottom indicator was partially indicating water exposure. I could have scraped the indicator and gone back on another day to try again - this retrospectively would have been worth a shot.

A new iPhone. Almost 2 months of use. Next to useless given fragile electronics, and apple tells me I'm on my own. I was a little sad at this point. I accepted the situation, more specifically my causal role, and optimistically began researching the next step: third party repair.

I researched the general class of problem from two perspectives: water damaged iPhone and broken home button. I read lots of similar problems and questions on iPhone related forums including a most impressive successful iPhone resurrection saga that involved (among other things) baking the phone in the oven!

I researched the components that I may need to replace and their prices: home button, flex cable assembly, etc. I also collected a long list of local third party iPhone repair stores and got quotes for fixing the general problem (in the order of $60 to $80 AUD for a home button replacement).

I picked a guy and dropped off the phone. Unfortunately, replacing the home button did not fix the problem. My guy deduced that it must be the flex cable assembly that the home button interfaces. He ordered an assembly from China, and I waited a number of weeks. The part finally arrived, although swapping out the flex cable assembly and the home button did not fix the problem. My guy deduced that the problem is likely the main board, and the cost would be close to half the value of a new phone. At this point I put a halt to the experiment, and took the device back. Fortunately, my guys policy is 'no fix, no pay', although unfortunately upon receiving the handset back the speaker no longer works and the screen no longer sits snug in the case. I plan on re-visiting my guy soon to resolve these issues, hoping that the speaker issue is simply a matter of a loose connection, and the screen can be reset in the case better than it was.

My fall back position was to use the device without a working home button, and use a software solution to close apps. I mean, the only thing the button is for is to close apps. That is what I thought until I went to re-jailbreak the phone so that I could install said software. The finally nail in the coffin is that I cannot re-install a jailbroken firmware on the device because I cannot enter DFU mode, a step needed in the quickpwn jailbreaking process. There was a way to get into DFU mode without a home button using software and hints of alternative jailbreaking software (ZiPhone or iLIBERTY) that may operate this way, but thus far these have not offered a viable path. Therefore: No home button, no DFU mode, no jailbreaking, and thus a bricked iPhone.

Options have eroded and my thoughts have settled on the following for my iPhone finale:

1. Continuing to use the iPhone as is. Maybe a software based DFU mode will come along allowing me to jailbreak and install a software based home button solution (Bossprefs or something). I might be able to install an older firmware and then use a software DFU mode solution. The phone would be a constant reminder of the penalty of not being careful enough with edge technology. The down side is that until a home button solution is found, I have to turn the phone off and on any time I want to change applications, which is VERY ANNOYING!
   
2. Selling the iPhone. I am seriously considering selling the lot for parts on eBay and forking out the cash for either a brand new/secondhand iPhone or more likely a G1 (or equivalent) Android based phone.
3. Rebuild from Parts. A third and final option may be to buy another broken phone from eBay - one with a broken screen (my screen is fine) and give them both to an iPhone repair guy to construct a viable phone. Slim chance of a payoff, although cheaper than a new phone.

My iPhone situation is dire, and I've had it locked in a draw for the last few weeks so that I didn't have to address it directly (also I was out of the country on business). It is time for me to move on I think, to bury my fallen comrade. Moving to a new (albeit less aesthetic) phone platform seems attractive at this glum point in time.