Recycling the Stock Scratch Protector From an iPhone 4

[johnnyham]

This is a really simple trick that I'm sure lots of people have done before, but as far as I can tell, nobody's bothered to actually post it online. Of course, if somebody did mention it years before and I missed it, feel free to share the link and flame me in any subsequent posts

I bought an iPhone 4 this morning, but I wasn't about to shell out another $30 to AT&T for a case. I'm currently looking at my options online, but in the meantime I wanted to keep my sleek piece of hardware clean. Nobody wants their brand new iPhone 4 to get scratches like this.

What I did was just leave the plastic scratch protector on the back of the iPhone. I cut off that little tab that there's for you to pull it up with so it wasn't in the way.



Tada! Now I have a fancy scratch protector compliments of Apple. If you're thinking to yourself "hmm, won't the plastic affect the quality of pictures?", well I took these two photos for you.



The one on the left has it on and the one on the right has it peeled back. There does appear to be a slight quality increase on the one with it off, but I think it's because I took the photo from slightly further away. Could be that it's the plastic. Regardless, I don't really see any significant change in the image quality.

I would have done this for the front screen, but there's no hole cut for the home button or the speaker. Plus the nice sales associate removed it for me before I left the store.

 

[mrat93]

I think you might want to cut off the corner where the camera is. Try taking a picture in a dark room with flash... Looks terrible.

 

[ScottNWDW]

You'll be buying a case in no time. That plastic will fall off on it's own after a few days.

 

[RBfKC10]

You'll be buying a case in no time. That plastic will fall off on it's own after a few days.

Not true... The plastic covering that comes with the iPhone 4 adheres to the screen and the back without any issues once the tab on the bottom is removed. I've had this configuration going myself ever since I got my phone on the 23rd, and I can assure anyone reading this that it will stay on there for quite a long time unless you abuse your phone.

Having said that, I've got a case and a screen protector on order. The one bad part about the plastic that comes with the phone is that it's of the sticky backed kind, and not the applied-with-fluid kind. The second you peel it off to cut the tab on the bottom, dust gets all over, and you'll never be air-bubble free again. I remedied this by switching the back for the front, but I'll be replacing both when my screen protectors get here tomorrow.

You could definitely use just the plastic that came with the phone though; Just make sure to cut the tab off while it's still on the phone (and to cut around the speaker or make holes...or you'll never hear anyone calling you)