I tried Apple’s self-repair program. Disaster ensued
Apple in April released its first self-repair program that gives people access to the parts, tools and instructions to fix our own iphones. It made waves when it was announced last year because it was a turning point for the right-to-repair movement, which has urged tech companies for more than a decade to provide resources so we can revive our electronics.
It was also music to my ears. As someone who became a do-ityourselfer during the pandemic, I was excited to try Apple’s new program with my iphone.
“How hard can it be?” I thought.
Very hard, it turns out.
For people like me who have little experience repairing electronics, the self-repair setup was so intimidating that I nearly wussed out. It involved first placing a $1,210 hold on my credit card to rent 75 pounds of repair equipment, which arrived at my door in hard plastic cases. The process was then so unforgiving that I destroyed my iphone screen in a split second with an irreversible error.
The catastrophe unfolded even though I called in an expert, Shakeel Taiyab, an independent phone repair technician in San Francisco, for help. After reading Apple’s manuals and trying the tools with me, Taiyab said he applauded Apple for trying to empower iphone owners but had a harsh verdict.
“They set up the customer to fail,” he said.
The self-repair program, I concluded, is impractical for most people. For starters, the cost of renting the equipment and purchasing parts from Apple — $96 to replace my iphone 12’s battery — was more than the $69 an Apple store charges to do the job. And as my experience shows, the process was challenging even with Apple’s tools.
This raises the question of why Apple rolled out the self-repair program in the first place. It is probably no coincidence that it made the move after the Federal Trade Commission said last year that it would ramp up enforcement against tech companies that made it hard for people to
fix their electronics.
And now, my tale of defeat.
Preparing for repair
I started by visiting Apple’s self-repair program website, selfservicerepair.com. There I found the service manual for the iphone 12 I wanted to repair and ordered the tools. (Apple’s program currently includes manuals for iphones released in the last two years.)
I perused the instructions for my iphone 12, which was working fine but was probably due for a new battery. The steps seemed straightforward enough: Use a machine to melt the glue and pry off the phone’s screen, remove the screws and battery, use another machine to install the new battery, then put everything back together and use a third machine to press together the phone.
I made the charge for the self-repair program to my credit card. It included a $49 rental fee for the tool kit, the $69 battery, $2 for glue and 15 cents for some screws, along with a $1,210 hold for renting the repair machines. After seven days, those tools would have to be shipped back to Apple with a prepaid label, and the old battery could also be traded in for a $24 credit.
A shaky start
Apple’s self-repair program rents out the same machines that the company’s technicians use at Apple stores. That’s heavy-duty gear. The three machines — all angular and industrial — looked like serious business. I had never used anything like them before.
So I called Taiyab, who had fixed my family’s devices in the past, and told him my conundrum. He invited me to try the machines on a spare broken phone in his office.
There, he provided a broken iphone 12 for practice. Then we walked through the steps together.
A repair nightmare
Now it was time to follow the same steps with my actual iphone 12. With gusto, I loaded it into the frame and inserted it into the machine to melt the glue and begin prying off the screen.
Taiyab stopped me immediately. “Did you remove the security screws?” he asked.
“Oh, shoot, no,” I said. We backed up a few steps. The screen looked normal. We repeated the steps to remove the battery and followed the rest of the steps to finish the repair.
Finally came the moment of truth. We plugged in the phone and powered it on. White lines flickered on the screen. It had been destroyed because we had not initially removed the two security screws.
Fortunately, Taiyab had plenty of spare Apple screens.
The nightmare continues
To my surprise, the final steps were the most infuriating. When we powered on the phone again, a warning message said the battery and screen had been replaced with unknown parts. This was annoying because the battery was a genuine part ordered from Apple. The screen was also authentic, because it came from another iphone.
Yet to finish the repair, Apple requires anyone who uses the self-repair program to run a “system configuration,” which involves calling a remote customer support representative to confirm the serial number of the part and pair it with the phone. Only then is the repair authenticated, which makes the warning message disappear.