Last year Apple announced its Self-Repair Service Program for the iPhone and now it’s officially launching. Allowing users to repair iPhone 12 Series, iPhone 13 Series, and the Third Generation SE at home. Apple says that genuine repair manuals and Apple parts and tools will be available in a new Self-Service Repair Store. In this store, customers will have access to over 200 individual parts and tools. At first, the store will include tools for only the iPhone 12 series, iPhone 13 series, and that Third Generation iPhone SE, as I just mentioned earlier. But the company says it plans to expand the store with tools and manuals and parts for Macs with Apple Silicon Chips later this year.
Nowadays, if you want to repair you’ll need to first review the repair manual for the product and the specific repair on Apple’s Support Website. After that, you’ll be able to order the required parts and tools from the Self-Service Repair Store and begin the initial repair. All the tools and parts offered in the store, undergo extensive testing to ensure the highest quality, safety, and reliability at least according to Apple. So here’s the thing! This all sounds great for you to know how to repair correctly and for those who want to repair their iPhones rather than being potentially charged more by Apple. But after going through the checkout process, specifically for what we picked, getting the rental kit, the parts, and everything, it was well over $1200!
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The actual tools and materials that I’m responsible for are around $119. But the rest is to ensure that Apple gets its massive toolkit back after I finish up the repair. This is just an authorization charge kind of holding it, just in case I decide not to send the rental kit back. Never mind the inconvenience of having to lug these giant kits around to and from your house to ship them back to Apple, now thankfully Apple does cover shipping! Still, this seems like an unnecessary hassle and I’m guessing that’s kind of the point of its Self-Service Repair Website. Apple says that the rental kits include two cases one weighing 43 pounds and the other weighing 36 pounds. If you step down on top of each other the cases will measure 20 inches in width and 47 inches in height.
Now thankfully both cases do include wheels, so it’s easier to transport. But again this just seems like a pretty big hassle. I ordered an iPhone 12 mini battery replacement kit, and the tool kit to do all of the work that’s required. All of that costs more than just bringing the phone to Apple and paying $69 if you don’t have apple care. If you do have Apple care then obviously just bring it in and they’ll fix it for no charge! I think the value is there, for other major repairs like screen or glass replacements, components like Face ID, etc. But I don’t know that it’s worth it for something like the battery. If it wasn’t for this channel and making a video on the whole process, there’s no chance that I would make this repair on my own.
I’m also like the least handy person of all time. Even though this is different than fixing something around the house, I’d still be pretty nervous that I would just further damage the phone by messing something up or making the battery explode in my face. If you can, it might be better to just order the official certified parts from Apple. Do not get the rental kit and maybe bring it into one of your local stores that fix iPhones.
At least at that point, you know that they’re using official parts, or hopefully, in the future, they just start ordering official parts from Apple, so You won’t have to worry about that. Probably it’s a little bit cheaper than taking it to Apple directly. Don’t you think so? I’d love to know your thoughts on all of this in the comments down below. Is this something that you’re planning on doing for your device, and do you think it’s worth it rather than just bringing it into an apple store and letting them take care of it?
Source : Apple Launches Self Service Repair Program for iPhone