What Happens if Your iPhone Camera Lens Breaks

July 22, 2024

Damaging your iPhone camera is one of the last things you want to happen – but what happens if your iPhone camera lens breaks? Is it possible to get it repaired? If you can, how much does it cost, or can you do it at home?

A million questions will be swirling in your head – but don’t worry. We’re going to cover what you need to know in this article so that you can decide what you want to do next.

For anyone looking for a local tech repair shop in the Manchester, Oldham, and Rochdale area, we also sell accessories to keep your tech running – like Apple chargers, cases, and screen protectors, as well as cases and holders for other phone makes, so you can keep your phone camera lens from breaking in the first place.

How Do You Break an iPhone Camera Lens?

You can break a lens easier than you might think, which is pretty scary. You might drop your device, something could drop on it, or a freak accident could happen.

If you want to do everything you can to protect your phone, invest in quality protective cases and lens protectors. These might feel like overkill at the time, but they can save you a lot of money in the log-run.

Different Types of Lens Damage

If you’re lucky, you might have just scratched the glass. This could have little to no effect on how well pictures come out, and is definitely the preferred situation to be in. You might be able to use a DIY kit to make the damage less noticeable for this, or you could just leave it.

However, you could also get deeper and more significant scratches, or even cracks across the lens. These will have a notable impact on the quality of pictures you can take, and will be incredibly frustrating to work with. You can try replacing the glass, take it to a repair shop, or just deal with it until it inevitably gets worse.

If you shatter your lens, then there’s no using that camera until it gets replaced. This is likely to happen from the phone being dropped from a height or a direct impact that wiped out the lens in one fell swoop. In either case, you have a broken lens that has rendered your camera useless, and you are going to need to get it repaired.

How Will a Broken Lens Affect Your iPhone?

A broken lens or lens protector on your phone will result in pictures that are of bad quality. Specifically, these images will have blurring or distortion in them, and the light could also be negatively affected.

If the damage is bad enough, you might not be able to take photos at all. It can be difficult to deal with any kind of imperfections on the photos that you take, especially when they come from phones as expensive as iPhones!

What Happens if Your iPhone Camera Lens Breaks

So, what happens if your iPhone camera lens breaks? Well, you will have a broken camera lens, which means that you probably won’t be able to use your camera.

It does depend on if the actual lens is broken, or just the protective glass that goes over the lens. One is easier to fix than the other, but we would recommend taking your device into a trusted repair shop like us to get it fixed.

Not having a camera on your iPhone can feel like a waste of a device – they have beautiful cameras, after all! So, if your iPhone camera lens breaks, the best thing to do is organise a trip to your local repair shop.

On a note about repair shops – make sure you go to a shop that uses actual Apple parts. Many third-party shops use other parts that just don’t do the job as well. While you might pay a bit extra for the true Apple parts, the quality is definitely worth it.

Can You Fix a Broken iPhone Camera Lens at Home?

You can absolutely fix the issue yourself if you feel comfortable enough to do so. The good news is, you don’t need to dig around or open up your phone to do it, which is great if your device is new and still under warranty from Apple.

With that being said, we would not recommend attempting to replace the glass that protects the lens itself if it has completely shattered. A crack can be dealt with, but tiny glass shards can easily get to the focal motor, which can then render your camera completely useless.

To put it simple, all you need to do is the following if you want to replace a broken phone camera lens:

Order the new, correct lens you need from somewhere like Amazon
Carefully take the broken pieces of glass out (do this carefully, and do not get fingerprints on the lens itself)
Replace the glass by stick your new protective lens over the area

We would recommend watching an in-depth tutorial if you want to attempt something like this, because it sounds a lot easier than it is.

How to Tell if it Needs to be Repaired or Not

If your broken lens impacts how you can use the camera, then it should be repaired. Of course, you can choose not to get it repaired immediately, but just remember that it will affect the quality of the pictures you can take – if you can still take them at all.

If you are someone who never uses their phone camera, then this probably won’t be high on your list of priorities. However, it’s always best to take care of your tech and get issues resolved as soon as possible, because you never know when one issue can lead to another.

Get it Repaired at imFixed

Prices vary depending on the model of iPhone, with newer models typically being the most expensive, with rear camera repair costs of up to £180. Older models, like the iPhone 5 cost £25 for the back camera replacement. So, no matter the model, we can fix your broken camera lens for a reasonable price.

Prices of rear camera repairs at imFixed:

iPhone 15 Pro Max – £95
iPhone 15 Pro – £95
iPhone 15 – £95
iPhone 14 Pro Max – £120
iPhone 14 Pro – £120
iPhone 14 – £120
iPhone 13 Pro Max – £180
iPhone 13 Pro – £150
iPhone 13 – £150
iPhone 12 Pro Max – £110
iPhone 12 Pro – £95
iPhone 12 – £95
iPhone 11 Pro Max – £65
iPhone 11 Pro – £75
iPhone 11 – £65
iPhone XS Max – £45
iPhone XS – £55
iPhone SE (3rd gen) – £45

If you don’t want to risk making your problem worse – even if it has nothing to do with your iPhone camera, why not bring it to us so that we can take care of it? With your experts in repairs, we can get your device up and running again like it’s brand new, and it only takes around 60 minutes!