This is the second broken screen I’ve fixed. Overlapped package tape carefully stuck to the glass and trimmed to the edges will contain most of the shards. I found that a hair dryer works for softening the glue. After getting under an edge with the suction cup I carefully followed the opening sequence using a combination of plastic picks and a single edge razor blade to get under the small pieces. It was slow going with lots of reheating with the dryer (about 45 minutes), but the taped glass came off without glass everywhere.

It is very important to make sure the cables are fully seated. When I finish assembling the phone I too had a vertical white stripe on the display. I disassembled the phone and reconnected the cables very carefully, and also made sure the shield was properly seated. When I turned the phone back on I found a very faint white line, but after doing a power cycle it disappeared to my great relief. Also, I would definitely recommend removing the display because it’s so hard to get the battery out you don’t need the extra risk of damaging the display.

I found this step to be the hardest part of the repair. A hair dryer on the back of the phone worked best. I broke the plastic tab right away and then used the black spudger along the outside to gently pry, stopping repeatedly to reheat the back of the phone. The battery finally released with a cracking sound. When I repeated this process on my second iPhone, I used more heat and worked more slowly and had better results — in fact the plastic tab didn't even break.

The suction cup with the blue plastic handle that came with the kit did not work, but I still had the cup with the silver ring that came with an iPad repair kit and it worked nicely. Also, I found that the guitar style picks that came with the iPad kit worked best for getting the screen started.