iPhone 4 LED Mod: You Light Up My Logo
September 15th, 2011
A few years back, a guy busted open his iPhone and right before he polished it to a shiny mirrored finish, he snuck a little LED behind the Apple logo so it lit up. I always thought that was a cool design touch that Apple should consider adding themselves. Well so far they haven’t, but pretty soon iPhone 4 users will be able to get their phone outfitted with an LED logo anyhow.
An outfit in the UK going by the name of iPatch (nice name) plans on offering an upgrade to your iPhone 4, which ads a lovely glowing LED behind the Apple logo. It’s designed to light up whenever your screen is on, and turns off when the screen is off. They say they’ve experienced no meaningful drop in battery life when it’s turned on, and they may offer them with colored filters too if white isn’t your thing.
The guys at iPatch say that the mod is way too involved for users to perform themselves, but will be offering the mod for between £50 and £100 (~$79 to $159 USD) once they’ve worked out all the details. Since they are located in the UK, they plan on releasing a kit for other repair shops around the globe, so they can perform the installation locally. That said, they will accept international orders, but shipping and handling may make the cost unreasonable.
They haven’t started accepting phones yet, but say they’ve got the mod design finalized and hope to release it to the public in mid-October. For more info, hit up the iPatch website. Or maybe we’ll just get lucky and Apple will finally build in a light-up logo of their own on the iPhone 5. I can dream, can’t I?
[via Cult of Mac via Wired]
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Categories: Design Hacks + Mods Mobile Tech Technology
I would like to make my logo glow on my iPhone 4
I installed the mod 3 days ago on my 4S.
The good:
- Fairly simple instructions (using the video from the site/youtube).
- All necessary tools and sticky tape included (in a tacky display case).
- No soldering or other “destructive” activity required to install the mod.
- It actually looks really good, when it lights up the back.
The bad:
- The no-soldering approach means that you’re attaching one wire to a surface using 3M double-sticky tape (included) – feels cheap and “likely to not last”
- The strategy to aligning the lightpad is that you cut out pieces of a thin foam sticker and place them on the battery and whatever inside, which us supposed to prevent the light from moving around inside the case – no instructions is given about exactly *where* to put the light so it is aligned correctly when the back cover is put on.
- Back cover is really cheap plastic – nothing like the original “glass” back.
- The lightpad is actually a little too fat to fit between the battery and the cover, leaving a small gap at the top (which is *really* visible when the light is on)
- The lightpad being too fat means that you’re putting strain on the (cheap plastic) back cover, which (in my case) meant that it cracked right down through the Apple logo after 2 days.
- This whole mod is not very compatible with the app “Sleep Cycle”, which makes you put your phone upside down under your sheet (and attach it to a charger). The result is that the logo will be lit all night – pointing up and lighting up your bedroom.
Conclusion:
I am a bit disappointed – mostly about the quality of the back cover, but also the fact, that the manufacturer has not made an effort to make it easier to align the light with the back cover *and* fix the issue concerning the fact, that the lightpad is actually too thick to fit properly in there. I will probably be uninstalling shortly…
Installed the light mod and have the same issues as Truck3r. Quality of the backcover is really disappointed. It feels like cheap plastic and the top part already broke. To cover this, I had to use a bumpercover. Otherwise I had change it back immediately. I wouldn’t recommend this mod.
This product is coming to Australia. KO Gadgets has announced the Sole Australian Distributor and they’re taking pre-orders now. Take a look http://www.authentec.com.au/catalog/product/view/id/1243/s/iphonemod/