I fixed Apple’s red iPhone with a $14 screen protector

The new red iPhone looks just awesome. Well, the back of it does, anyway. I’ve never been a fan of phones with white bezels. I find them distracting — particularly in sunlight — and have always preferred the “single slab of glass” appearance that a black border gives off. So I was disappointed that Apple went with white on the front of the Product Red iPhone. It wasn’t surprising given that’s what you get with the gold and rose gold iPhones. But Apple hasn’t always done that. The white iPhone 3G and 3GS had a black on the front. More recently, the same was true for the iPhone 5C, which had a black faceplate opposite its vibrant colors around back.

But sadly that’s not the direction Jony Ive went for the special edition iPhone 7. So what’s a person to do? Well, you could buy a second phone and swap the displays, as seen in the video below. But that might get expensive unless you’ve got a friend who for whatever reason wants a white front on their black iPhone.

There’s another, far more affordable option: just buy a screen protector. You’ll need one that’s edge-to-edge with colored glass at the top and bottom. You can find the one seen here by searching for “Sparin” on Amazon. It’s around $ 14. A lot of people find it silly to put another layer of glass over their smartphone display. And yeah, usually it’s a sleazy $ 30 add-on that carriers try to sell you alongside a new phone. But in this case, it’s really just a way to get rid of that white front. Nearly all of it, anyway. You can see the white plastic border that’s between the curved glass and red aluminum. But on the whole? This is exactly what I wanted.

Yes, the one obvious downside is that you’re stuck with a white home button. But there’s really just no avoiding it. Even if you were to actually replace the screen, you’d need to leave the original white home button alone. Otherwise, Apple’s deep iOS security would freak out and you’d probably lose the ability to use Touch ID and Apple Pay. Not worth it. Does it look a little dumb? Sure, maybe. But I can live with it.

The full-screen protector adds a little extra bit of thickness to the phone.

Put on a case, and pretty much any remaining trace of white goes away.

Ahhhh. A big slab of black glass. Just the way Apple should’ve done it from the start.

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