Microwaving an iPhone 14 Pro Wasn’t the Smartest Move

Yes, you read that right. Someone put their iPhone 14 Pro in a microwave. Why? According to the email I received, the sender was drunk and accidentally microwaved his phone instead of his food. It stayed in there for 30 seconds to a full minute which, for an iPhone, is basically a sauna from hell.

I had no idea what to expect, but as soon as I opened the package, I could smell the damage, literally.

The plastic was clearly melted at all four corners of the phone, and the display was completely destroyed. This was going to be one of the weirdest repairs I’ve ever done, but if we could recover the data (or even fix it entirely), that would be a huge win.

The Damage Report

First, we took the phone apart, removing the pentalobe screws and heating the device to loosen the adhesive. But with the screen already cracked and likely fused to the frame thanks to the microwave, opening it was incredibly tough.

Inside, the phone didn’t look too bad… at first. But once we took a closer look, it was clear this wasn’t just a cracked screen situation:

• The charging port was completely burnt

• The Taptic Engine? Toast.

• Speakers? Also fried.

• Pretty much any plastic-based component had melted or deformed

Our main concern was whether the motherboard had survived. If it did, we could replace everything else. If it didn’t, this would be a very expensive paperweight.

Does It Power On?

We temporarily connected a working display and powered it up. To my surprise, we got the charging symbol and then… an Apple logo. The phone booted! That meant the motherboard and battery were functional, at least to some degree.

But just as we got hopeful, the phone started boot looping, which was a big red flag. After charging it up and trying a few restarts, the loop continued. That’s when I broke out iDevice Panic Log Analyzer, which pointed to a NAND, crystal, interposer or charging port issue. I took an educated guess, and it was the charging port.

The Flex Cable Elimination Game

To pinpoint the problem, I started disconnecting flex cables one by one to see what was triggering the boot loop. When I unplugged the charging port flex, the phone stopped rebooting and mystery solved.

With that out of the way, we removed the motherboard, swapped it into a new housing (taken from another original Apple iPhone), and reassembled everything with fresh parts.

And guess what? The phone stayed on for more than 3 minutes. Boot loop: defeated.

Moment of Truth

Once the phone was fully rebuilt, we tested every major function:

• Front and rear cameras? ✅

• Wi-Fi? ✅

• Flash? ✅

• Charging and battery health? ✅

• Speakers? Uh… wait a second...

When I loaded up YouTube to test the speaker, I noticed something unforgivable. The owner of this phone, the same person who microwaved a thousand-dollar device and asked me to fix it for free, wasn’t even subscribed to my channel.

Smh

I was going to do the whole thing for free out of sympathy, but not being subscribed? That stings. That being said, I’ll let it slide this time. The invoice will simply say: “Subscribe.”

Final Verdict

It turns out you can fix a microwaved iPhone… as long as the motherboard survives. This was one of the weirdest, smelliest, and most surprisingly successful repairs I’ve ever done.

Whether it took a swim, a fall, or a microwave vacation, I might just be able to bring it back from the dead.

And don’t forget to subscribe, because microwaving your phone is enough regret for one day.