Further update… Managed to find a seller on eBay who sells the rear glass covers with a slightly larger camera hole so it fits straight over the bump/lens. While this isn’t a perfect solution as there will be a bit of a gap it does makes it a million times easier and actually becomes feasible to do this repair (if you don’t mind hacking away at glass all day!).

My initial outburst was mainly because I was doing this job as a gesture of good will for someone and just assumed it to be straight forward. If it was my own phone or that of a close family/friend I would have just stripped it all down and done a proper job.

Hope this helps someone!

Well I was only 2 years late to this party I didn’t even bother to check! Definitely serves me right :) NEVER AGIAIN! LOL

Absolute joke. After having spent all day painstakingly removing every single glass shard from the rear I find out that the bloody rear replacement glass doesn’t fit over the camera bump anyway…

Is there not a version that just fits over the bump even if it leaves a tiny gap ??? There is no way people will want their cameras/mics butchered. Failing that, it seems a bit excessive to strip down the entire phone just to remove a welded bracket. Frankly it is RIDICULOUS and I have been doing smartphone/tablet repairs from day 1.

It’s my own fault for not researching the subject. I wrongly assumed it was like previous models where it’s just held in place with adhesive tape.

This same kind of thing happened to me when the iPad airs came out and I thought it was still possible to do ‘glass only’. I think the only way I will learn is from not doing Apple repairs anymore!

Anyway well done Apple for catching me out yet again…..