fixing the dead iPhone SE

My iPhone converted itself into a brick yesterday. Everything is backed up, but I had that short all-over queasiness that I'd not be able to function.

It's partly brought about by not having another phone at the moment. We still don't have broadband, and the suppliers are all queuing up somewhere else to avoid connecting the fibre cable from the cabinet across the road to the house.

In full blown work mode I'd be utterly dependent on a phone, for email, messaging, conferencing, voicemail and, yes, actual phone calls.

I've gone through the Nokia phase, the two phones phase (work phone and personal phone), the Blackberry phase (years ago, but it did have a proper keyboard) and then into the single phone world of the iPhone.

I've experimented with Android phones too, and even a Chinese Goo-Phone which was a rip off of an iPhone 6, running android but reskinned to look like it was running iOS. These quirky phones were simply side projects, not meant to interfere with my main phone's use.

And my device of choice is still the iPhone, although not (currently) the latest design. I'm still using an iPhone SE. It's around two years old, but has that Apple industrial build quality that was somehow lost with the iPhone 6s.

I can remember writing about the later iPhones that it was becoming a pure marketing battle and the size of screen seemed to be winning. I didn't want to have to put a table tennis bat sized device in my pocket, but that was where it was heading.

So now, what to do? The iPhone 8 is due out in a few weeks, and that could be the point where the iPhone form factor suddenly collapses back to one shape in three sizes. My Steve Jobs phone will surely get axed as a new Tim Cook wireless rechargeable device replaces it?

For my phone, I'd already tried three chargers and a selection of different wires to no avail. Blank screen of brick.

But instead, another plan.

"Blow it!" I say.

Yes, the phone of course. I tried that thing.

The one where you clean out the apparently already clean USB socket on the phone.

Yes, I blew into the phone. A couple of times.

Then I plugged it in again.

A picture of a battery appeared, with a red line at the bottom.

Okay, 0%, but I can wait.

And : Update: before posting this, it's already up to 35%.