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Welcome back.

Our apologies with the infrequency, these how-to articles take much more time and preparation than your average review, coupled with real-life responsibility leads to a much longer period of creation than a normal article. Currently, pictures are taken and ‘Stuff they didn’t teach you in school: Hooking up surround sound’ is in the early editing phases.

In lieu of not having any posts, here’s a simple one that will apply to 37 million readers; How to apply a film (or screen protector) to an iPhone or iPod touch.

Preamble

For the example, we’re using a Power Support brand anti-glare display. These are a particular favorite as they don’t show smudges and fingerprints and supply a sort of matte finish to the device. For some people, that’s not their thing – to each their own, the process is largely the same.

Why we teaching this? Best Buy chrages $8 to do it when you purchase one. Admittedly they use the Zagg Invisible-Shield, made out of the same stuff they coat military helicopter blades with, but the stuff itself is sticky and has a largely unpleasant feel to it – it also requires this ridiculous process to install properly that means you can’t touch your new phone/touch for 24 hours, and who wants that?

Unless you’re prone to putting your phone in the same pocket as your keys (and why the hell would you?) or happen to have a purse, skip the Zagg and go for Power Support.

Step 1: CLEAN THE PHONE.

This cannot be stressed enough. The less clean the phone is beforehand, the more bubbles and lines you’re going to have to push out and lift off later. We recommend a microfibre cloth and some mildly alcoholic spray (Apple retail stores sell it as iKlear, Best Buy as Monster – you can find the equivalent cheaper at Wal-Mart or online if you look) DO NOT USE WINDEX.

Make sure you clean it and inspect the screen under a  bright light with the screen/power off, this makes pieces of dust easier to see. Once you’re satisfied, set the phone on a level surface.

Step 2: PICK A STARTING POINT AND LAY THE FILM

Once you’ve cleaned it off, remove the film from its backing and line it up. Hold it just above the screen and make sure the ear piece and home button are evenly uncovered. If you’re doing an iPod touch, you can make sure it’s aligned as best you can by aligning the top and then aligning the circle around the home button evenly.

Hold one end of the film and let the other end begin to adhere to the screen.

A good tip here is to only let the center touch, so you can easily adjust the position.

Once you’ve got it sticking, you’re doing fine. Be sure to watch for any bubbles that form – if there’s a piece of fluff or dust causing it, scotch tape can be inserted to remove it, sticky side up. This part WILL take practice, but hopefully if you’ve cleaned it thoroughly, you won’t have too much of an issue.

STEP 3: LET THE SCREEN APPLY ITSELF

If you’ve cleaned and aligned the screen properly, it should basically adhere and fix itself to the device almost perfectly. With the Power Support ones, you can even lift it off and reapply fairly easily, as they’re static adhesion not glue.

Let it sliiiiiide down and put itself on.

STEP 4: DOUBLE CHECK THE FINISH!

Before you let that last part lie down, make sure there aren’t any bubbles caused by dust. Air bubbles proper can be pushed out with a credit card and tiny ones can be flattened out after about 30 seconds of body heat from a thumb.

If you’re satisfied let it lie, if not, lift up and adjust. If you’ve been careful the entire time and made sure to let the film follow its course, aligned properly beforehand and cleaned, you should have absolutely no issues at this point.

If you do need to adjust, pulling it up is fairly easy. Once you lay it all the way down, it becomes a little tougher to get off though, so be wary of putting that last bit down.

STEP 5: LET IT SETTLE

Let the last part come down and you’re done. Inspect your work. If you still need to adjust (really? You shouldn’t by now!) you can take another piece of scotch tape and apply it to one corner, lift and it will come up without much of a fuss.

Your new iPhone/iPod touch case is all yours. It should look like the picture below.

Enjoy.

No product used provided any financial or advertising support to Nukoda.com at the time or writing. We make no promises of the absolute quality of any product we use. Defective products are the responsibility of the manufacturer and/or retailer. Consumers are at their own risk when following any of the instructions or guides presented as part of the “Things they didn’t teach you in school” series. Nukoda.com, its owners or writers assume no responsibility for any damage done by readers to their own property by attempting any of the guides contained on the site. Nukoda.com assumes no responsibility for any injury incurred by those following our instructions.