How to replace glass back

Hi Marcus,

I have to agree with @xnriqux on their assessment of the difficulty of that repair. While it can be done at home and many people have successfully replaced their rear glass, it is not without its hazards. We've seen on many occasions when people have done a rear glass replacement only to have something fail or stop working afterwards. This primarily seems to be due to heat damage to the flex cables and components just on the other side of that thin sheet of metal underneath the glass. So just be aware that things can go wrong due to the amount of heat you have to use to soften that very tough glue Apple uses on the rear screen. The unfortunate part is that Apple actually made the rear glass of the vanilla 14 models removable so it's actually not much more difficult to replace that rear glass than it is to remove the screen. It's really a shame they didn't carry that modification over to the 14 Pro models.

Anyway, here's a video showing the replacement process for your particular phone. Take note that it's a long, painful procedure.

iPhone 14 Pro Max back glass replacement/repair. How to repair your iPhone 14 promax back glass. - YouTube

I didn't watch the video all the way through, but at a minimum you'll need a heat gun, a spring loaded center punch and a flat bladed X-Acto knife and a couple of hours out of your life, at least.

As a caution here, the safe way to do this repair is to gut the phone first; remove all the internals so you don't risk heat damage. That, of course, comes with its own set of risks in that you can damage components and flex cables in the process, so it's not really a win-win situation. And just to further confuse the issue, think about this: if you're going to all the trouble of stripping out everything from the inside of the phone anyway, why not save yourself the headache of replacing the glass and just replace the entire housing as one piece?

Naturally that comes with its own set of problems, as there are a lot of parts inside that phone. iFixit actually has a video showing the entire process of gutting a phone and replacing the bare housing. It looks like a heck of a lot of work, so it's not like it's a vast improvement over the rear glass replacement.

iPhone 14 Pro Max Housing Replacement - iFixit Repair Guide

Note that you could mitigate some of that headache by a judicious purchase of a rear housing. I know on older models they would sell housings that "included small parts", meaning many of the stickers, contacts, plastics and even some ribbon cables may be included, making the job that much easier to where you just have to replace major components and not every single little part.

Alternatively, you could look for a used one on eBay where the main parts have been taken out but the housing hasn't been stripped completely. This is somewhat of a crapshoot as it depends on the skill of the disassembler; I've bought ones that were great and others that looked like the parts were taken out by a drunken gorilla equipped with just a crowbar.

So those are your options, Marcus. If it was me, I'd seriously consider shopping around to see if I could locate a professional shop who could do the job at a reasonable price. With those computer-controlled lasers, the glass comes out much easier than it would for you and I and there's much less chance of internal damage, although it does still happen on occasion. I'd suggest making sure they will stand by their repair and fix any incidental damage done by their laser. I have no idea what the shops are charging for your phone, but for me if I could find someone to do it for under $100 USD, I'd be strongly tempted to just pay them to do the job given how difficult it is.

It's all up to you, but I'd be interested to hear what you decide to do and why you made that choice. Good luck, and let us know how it goes!