Repair service expands
Best Buy partners with Apple for service repairs.
EVERY BEST BUY store across the US has become an Apple Authorized Service Center. This means the nearly 1,000 Best Buy locations can offer Apple–certified repairs with an Apple–certified technician. Best Buy’s Geek Squad now has nearly 7,600 techs newly certified by Apple, offering same–day iPhone repairs (subject to availability of parts) and other services for your Apple products.
This major expansion of the Apple Authorized Service network brings the total number of Apple–authorized third-party repair locations in the US to more than 1,800. Apple says this is three times as many locations as three years ago, and eight out of ten Apple customers will now be within 20 minutes of an authorized service provider.
These numbers are in addition to the company’s own Apple Stores, of which there are currently 272 in the US.
Whether you take your damaged device to the Genius Bar in an Apple Store, mail it to Apple, or use any of the network of third–party Apple Authorized Service providers, the repair will be carried out by Apple–trained technicians using genuine Apple parts, and the work will be backed by Apple.
Appointments for repairs at Best Buy and other Apple Authorized third–party repairers, just like Apple Store appointments, can all be booked through Apple’s support page at support.apple.com/repair. This support page will also help you find your nearest location, or you can use the Apple Support app, if you have it installed (and the device on which it’s installed is still operational...).
Some Best Buy stores have already been offering Apple product repairs for some time, but this expansion to the entire chain means there are many more service centers in towns
and neighborhoods that were previously a long journey from an official Apple repairer.
What’s uncertain is how this will impact on the numerous independent repairers, many of them Apple–certified techs even if their businesses are not Apple Authorized centers, who have been providing expert service in their neighborhoods, some of them for many years.
Fortune.com also comments that although this expansion appears to offer much wider and more convenient access to services across the country, it still falls short of the unrestricted “right to repair” demanded by activists. (Meaning you would not have to go to an Apple Authorized repairer but could choose any local mom–and–pop shop, or do the work yourself, without affecting your warranty.) What’s more,
Fortune claims, “Authorized repair locations aren’t typically allowed to do all the repairs the Apple Store’s Genius Bar would be able to do. (Like fixing those pesky MacBook keyboards, for example.)”
It’s not clear, however, which if any third– party Apple Authorized repairers are excluded from Apple’s Keyboard Service Program for notebook models with misbehaving “butterfly” keyboards, or for that matter its MacBook Pro battery recall program (see below). Apple’s information page for the former at apple.com/ support/keyboard-service-program-for-macnotebooks/ says without qualification, “Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will service eligible MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro keyboards, free of charge.” And if you have an eligible model, you can click a link on the page to “Find an Apple Authorized Service Provider” to carry out an inspection and get the ball rolling.