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So really all the “genius” is doing is swapping over the rear camera and display. Doesn’t really reduce the carbon footprint by much. They will still ship the back half with the major components back to CHINA to be turned into a refurbished phone or refurbished “rear system”
 
I’m never buying from a carrier again. Did that with the 11 Pro and had an issue with dropped calls almost immediately. Spent the next 6 months having Apple blame carrier and carrier blame Apple. 3rd unit in, it turned out to be carrier. Not going to run the risk of being ping-ponged between 2 companies again.
Frustrating lesson learned.
 
I’m never buying from a carrier again. Did that with the 11 Pro and had an issue with dropped calls almost immediately. Spent the next 6 months having Apple blame carrier and carrier blame Apple. 3rd unit in, it turned out to be carrier. Not going to run the risk of being ping-ponged between 2 companies again.
How does this relate to the article?
 
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I dropped my 12 mini ONCE a week after I got it and it cracked the wide angle lens. $429 after tax. Credit card insurance covered it but this is not the "4x more durable" I signed up for. ...screen was fine though
Lesson learned: NEVER trust Apple’s marketing material.
 
I dropped my 12 mini ONCE a week after I got it and it cracked the wide angle lens. $429 after tax. Credit card insurance covered it but this is not the "4x more durable" I signed up for. ...screen was fine though
Uh, is there ANY marketing that says the *camera* lenses are 4x more durable? You don’t get to mix and match whatever claims for your situation.
 
Apple is seemingly going the repair-all-the-things route vs outright swaps like they used to do.

I had a two day old 12mini, kept rebooting on it's own and not-detecting the sim card. Brought into the local Apple Store, was told "oh sorry, we have to send it to depot".

Eff that, it's two days old. I want a swap. Nope, told to pound sand.

If I wanted depot repair service, I'd buy a Samsung.
2 day old?
Return as defective.
 
So you break the back glass and the only thing salvageable is the screen and cameras? Geez, if anything I want the back to have Ceramic Shield and not the front as that's the expensive one to replace. Sometimes I wish I could just get an "unpolitically plastic" iPhone. The fact these devices basically require a case for so many uses really shows the design flaw of the product.
 
So you break the back glass and the only thing salvageable is the screen and cameras? Geez, if anything I want the back to have Ceramic Shield and not the front as that's the expensive one to replace. Sometimes I wish I could just get an "unpolitically plastic" iPhone. The fact these devices basically require a case for so many uses really shows the design flaw of the product.
Nearly every component is removable from the back. The logic board, buttons, battery, lightning port, speakers, microphone, etc can be removed and replaced. The problem is Apple doesn’t have any technicians trained to work on that stuff. The most a so called Genius can do is replace major modules. They ship the bad modules back to China for rework.
 
I think I read this piece of news too fast. Are you saying that, starting with the iPhone 12, we’ll be able to use our iPhones naked without worrying about dropping it and cracking the rear glass and having to pay almost the 70% of the product cost to get it replaced?

I’m really curious to know how much are they gonna charge for this rear glass replacement, but man, it’s very good news!! They should have done this earlier, but I guess with previous frames this wasn’t as easy to do.
 
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I won the screen lottery so assuming I don’t break the screen and if something else were to fail, this overjoys me
 
Interesting.

So it looks like the back and most components will be refurbished, but the display and rear camera will be original. Is this better than having a fully refurbished iPhone? Seems like it - since owners would know the condition of their display.
 
I like the concept of repairable gear, but this almost seems just as complicated or convoluted by basically swapping everything but front display + rear cameras.
 
Apple is seemingly going the repair-all-the-things route vs outright swaps like they used to do.

I had a two day old 12mini, kept rebooting on it's own and not-detecting the sim card. Brought into the local Apple Store, was told "oh sorry, we have to send it to depot".

Eff that, it's two days old. I want a swap. Nope, told to pound sand.

If I wanted depot repair service, I'd buy a Samsung.

I had this with an iPad mini a few years back. They had no replacement stock only for sale stock.

So I said.. can I have a refund, which they said yes. I said cool. Then I’ll buy one of the new ones with it.

The look on the managers face was priceless.
 
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Article title somehow is quite misleading tbh.

So in principle, this is same like butterfly equipped MBP. One fc'kn broken keys, you replace whole top case assembly.
 
That's a cool benefit. I would be interested in knowing which credit card if there is no annual fee.

 
2 day old?
Return as defective.
I bought a 3rd gen iPad from the online Apple Store when it first came out. When I received it I noticed it had some streak on the back that looked like adhesive that wouldn’t come off with a damp cloth. If it was a product from another company it probably wouldn’t have bothered me as much but I expect products from Apple to be pristine when brand new. Even though I never purchased Apple Care I was told that I needed to go through them to resolve the issue. I went back and forth with them a few times without getting anywhere. I ended up speaking to the online Apple Store and they told me I could just return it for a full refund since I had it for less than two weeks. Just returning it to the Apple Store ended up being so much easier than dealing with Apple Care.
 
If they cared about the environmental footprint, they‘d swap the rear glass if the rear glass was broken.
 
In all my years of doing business with Apple, and using their products: I've only had about 4 times in about 20+ years I actually needed to call on them for repairs.

1 Was the last eMac they made, which had the bad capacitor problem + failed hard drive. Was fixed both times without issues. First by a third party authorized repair, and second time they came to the apartment to fix it under AppleCare.
2. Late 2006 white MacBook had the ethernet port die. Apple Genius Bar was a pain to deal with, but the same third party authorized repair place did it no problems.
3. iPhone 6, dead NFC chip. Apple did the initial charge hold on replacement. E.G. I send them the damaged phone after they sent me a new one. That went without issues.

Overall, I've had a good customer experience with Apple. However, there are things I would much rather not have to deal with them on, if it can be avoided.
 
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