The first time we crossed paths with Scotty Allen from the Strange Parts channel was in April last year. His video, in which he showed us the process to build an iPhone from individual parts in Shenzhen has more than 12 million views, and since then he has done other extreme hacks like restoring the 3.5-millimeter audio output, or customizing the case with laser engraving and LED lights. Now it's the turn of the flash memory in his iPhone 6s, which he took from 16 GB to an impressive 128 GB. The mod is so complicated that it was basically presented as a mini documentary…
The standard iPhone 8 is available in two capacities: 64 and 256 GB. The first option costs 809 euros, while the second goes to 979 euros. 192 additional gigabytes represent a jump of 170 euros… and the premium on that number is brutal. This is nothing more than the so-called "price differentiation" in action: Apple knows that those customers with the advantage of greater purchasing power are willing to pay extra for more storage space, and it puts pressure on that point. Now, imagine that Apple wouldn't be very happy if someone is out there increasing the internal flash memory of their iPhone… and that's exactly what Scotty Allen from the Strange Parts has done.
His iPhone 6s has only 16 gigabytes of capacity. The plan was nothing less than to take it to 128 gigabytes, and it all started with the purchase of a Windows-based computer, because the programmer he needed to clone the low-level data of the chips only works on that operating system. Then he had to learn to remove the chips from the PCB with a heat gun without causing damage (he bought dozens for practice), and to do reballing. After several days he managed to remove a memory chip, reinstall it and have the smartphone work, which he interpreted as a green light to modify his customized iPhone 6s.
And the story has a happy ending. Moments of high tension mixed with a message to restore the operating system took Scotty to the limit, but his iPhone 6s is now 128 gigabytes, the maximum originally available for that model. Scotty acknowledged that there are 512-gigabyte modules (for more information visit the channel of Federico Cerva), although they are very difficult to obtain these days. And that brings us straight to the price: In Shenzhen there are stores that do the upgrade to 128 GB for the value of the chip itself, about 25 dollars… and Apple is left without its premium.
