Yep, polarization issues are one of the huge differences that you'll notice with a lower quality replacement screen.
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Inside the iPhone Repair Ecosystem: Where Do Replacement Parts Come From and Can You Trust Them?
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Yep, polarization issues are one of the huge differences that you'll notice with a lower quality replacement screen.
I've never seen an aftermarket screen that has been indistinguishable from a genuine Apple screen. Either it feels cheaper, you can see the dot matrix of the touch panel, or it's not as responsive as the original. If you like to drop your Apple devices, you need AppleCare...
This was a great article - the details are much appreciated. I follow youtube publishers like Louis Rossmann and Linus Sebastian of "Linus Tech Tips", who both are involved with the "right to repair" movement. Rossmann is particularly focused on Apple as an independent specializing in Apple repairs (but primarily with Macs). iOS devices are indeed the most troublesome for independent shops to deal with in obtaining parts, schematics, and the like.
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Great article. I would add that sometimes there is no choice but to use 3rd party repair. About a year ago the power button on my iPad Air broke. Apple genius told me there is nothing to be done and I have to replace the whole iPad. A 3rd party shop replaced the button in a couple of hours. I can't recall exactly how much I paid but it was less than 100$CA.
I certainly rolled the dice on it but it's been working mostly fine since then.
And oh man, the price differences between Apple and 3rd parties! Just today I had to replace the lightning port on my old iphone 5s. 3rd party price: 35$. I also got a new battery and I paid 60$ (tax included) for everything. Only took them half an hour to do it. I checked with an Authorized Apple Repair store first and the battery alone was 111$. No thanks.
Of course it's rolling the dice again and I don't know how well this will work but this is my backup phone and I am getting a new one next month once the new iphones come out so it was worth the risk.
Lastly, given how expensive they make it to fix out of warranty phones Apple should offer an option to buy Apple Care for 3 years. The whole reason I was fixing my old 5s is because my 6s just died on me today. Was just fine yesterday but wouldn't even power up today. Why? who knows. Authorized Apple Repair told me it's a brick and I have to get a new one. It's less than 3 years old and is a total loss. Apple Care ran out last October so they won't cover it.
I certainly rolled the dice on it but it's been working mostly fine since then.
And oh man, the price differences between Apple and 3rd parties! Just today I had to replace the lightning port on my old iphone 5s. 3rd party price: 35$. I also got a new battery and I paid 60$ (tax included) for everything. Only took them half an hour to do it. I checked with an Authorized Apple Repair store first and the battery alone was 111$. No thanks.
Of course it's rolling the dice again and I don't know how well this will work but this is my backup phone and I am getting a new one next month once the new iphones come out so it was worth the risk.
Lastly, given how expensive they make it to fix out of warranty phones Apple should offer an option to buy Apple Care for 3 years. The whole reason I was fixing my old 5s is because my 6s just died on me today. Was just fine yesterday but wouldn't even power up today. Why? who knows. Authorized Apple Repair told me it's a brick and I have to get a new one. It's less than 3 years old and is a total loss. Apple Care ran out last October so they won't cover it.
I'm curious as to what might have happened to cause your 6s to "brick". Was it water damage, dropping the phone, too much heat exposure, or just a dead battery? Without physical damages to the phone and its components, a dead battery would be common after 3 years of heavy use - but that wouldn't "brick" the phone. You'd just need to replace the battery, which Apple will do for 6s phones. Anyway, that some Apple Repair person told you that the only alternative was to get a new phone sets off an alarm in my head. Anyway, good luck.
Thanks!
I have no idea what is wrong with my 6s. It was completely fine yesterday. And the battery was fine too (I recently checked the battery tool that Apple provided in the last ios update). I never dropped it and never got it into water. It was working perfectly. I set it to charge as usual last night and today it would not even power up.
I took it to an Authorized Apple Repair Store near my house (I could only get an Apple genius appointment for Thursday). they tested it with some tool which said that there is zero response from the phone which would not be the case if it was a dead battery. The guy said he doesn't know what it is but it's something more serious than a bad battery and it would require changing the whole phone. I'll go to the genius bar on Thursday. Maybe they'll give me other options. But I wouldn't expect an Authorized Repair Store to completely BS me. Does that happen often?
It shouldn't, especially with a phone as recent as the 6s (I have a 6s-plus, still working beautifully - and with a headphone jack!). Perhaps some sort of systemic set of failures happened to your phone, but before buying a new phone, I'd at least try to get a second opinion from someone - maybe even an independent repair shop that has a good reputation. Another option, if you have to buy a new phone - I think you can still get good deals on "new" 6s phones. I get mine through Sprint, and they still offer the 6s line at reduced prices. Probably not for much longer ...
Addendum: just checked Sprint and they still sell a new 6s for $449. Perhaps your carrier will offer similar deals - but I hope you can somehow get someone to diagnose a fix for your current phone.
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In China you can go to indoor mini malls that have counters where they display aftermarket components, and categorize them by quality. You can purchase them or they will offer to install it. And then if you go outside and walk the streets, there are vendors with just cardboard boxes laying out, full of parts for every device you can think of. You can rummage through like a garage sale and make deals, it's crazy. It's a huge market.
China, in all irony, is the "wild wild west" of free market enterprise right now. Whether with the black market, or through legitimate contracts (with companies like Apple), they are major in high tech hardware production. The political tariffs being propagated by the U.S. government right now will have major repercussions to the tech industry in the near future.
[doublepost=1534289863][/doublepost]This is very apropos to this topic:
Thats why apple care makes so much money. By time one usually needs insurance coverage on electronics, the coverage is out. (exception is laptops, those things so often break i find one has to get that insurance)
Thanks for the advice. I will certainly try to fix it. I want to take it to the genius bar on Thursday. If that doesn't work I'll try 3rd party repair. But I have a bad feeling given what I was told already and what's happened to me with the power button on my ipad. If the phone needs something like a new motherboard that's probably several hundred in repairs (parts+ labor) so it's not worth fixing it. Given the way these things are constructed these days just the labor to fix anything deep inside is very expensive.
This is why I want an option to get Apple Care for 3 years. IMO for a product like an iphone it's perfectly reasonable to expect that it be at least repairable for 3 years.
Apple is amazing. They don't sell replacement parts for their products, even when the law specifically states that they must.
As long as you have a ******** of money for repairs or to buy a new one after 2-3 years, you get a great product.
As long as you have a ******** of money for repairs or to buy a new one after 2-3 years, you get a great product.
LMAO,OLED displays are not new technology. Samsung has been making OLED phones for over a decade.
While Apple doesn't provide us schematics, those of us doing board-level repairs have access to a an international brain trust with which we share knowledge and expertise. Independent repair shops are at the forefront of serving consumers in ways that Apple do not. For example, if your phone has suffered water damage and your data is not backed to iCloud, then Apple will offer you a replacement phone but your newborn photos are gone. Independent shops like us may be able to get those photos back.
I'm all for third party repair shops. But unfortunately experience has taught me they just can't be trusted.
The screen was noticeably thicker and heavier, and had terrible viewing angles, and it suffered burn in so bad simply playing a game for 10 minutes would leave parts of the game UI visible for the next half an hour.
And then I dropped the repaired phone and the screen shattered — Event though I dropped it from a low height, onto carpet and it didn't land on the screen. There's no way the glass Apple uses would have broken in that drop.
Worst of all, it wasn't actually that much cheaper. I only saved about $50! A large part of the screen manufacturing and repair is just labor costs, which is the same regardless of the quality of parts used.
I doubt I'll ever get an iPhone repaired by a third party again.
The screen was noticeably thicker and heavier, and had terrible viewing angles, and it suffered burn in so bad simply playing a game for 10 minutes would leave parts of the game UI visible for the next half an hour.
And then I dropped the repaired phone and the screen shattered — Event though I dropped it from a low height, onto carpet and it didn't land on the screen. There's no way the glass Apple uses would have broken in that drop.
Worst of all, it wasn't actually that much cheaper. I only saved about $50! A large part of the screen manufacturing and repair is just labor costs, which is the same regardless of the quality of parts used.
I doubt I'll ever get an iPhone repaired by a third party again.
My wife took my 7 Plus when I got my Note 8, and managed to scratch the screen. We went through Verizon screen replacement program and one of the placed mentioned in the article, and it was a total nightmare. After 3 unsuccessful repairs, she finally got a refurb phone. Not iPhone X, this is 7 Plus.
I will never spend another dime on carrier insurance programs, and/or use independent shops.
I will never spend another dime on carrier insurance programs, and/or use independent shops.
An amazing article @jclo, super in-depth, well written and generally just very interesting!
I think the tone and style of the article fits well with MacRumors and to be quite honest it wouldn’t look out of place elsewhere else either. I’d love to see more of these type of articles maybe even once a month since they would obviously require much more extensive research etc.
Side note - you guys did a ‘daily roundup’ type thing on what must’ve been a trial basis a while back. Smaller rumours etc were put here once a day. Whatever happened to it? It was kind of interesting
I think the tone and style of the article fits well with MacRumors and to be quite honest it wouldn’t look out of place elsewhere else either. I’d love to see more of these type of articles maybe even once a month since they would obviously require much more extensive research etc.
Side note - you guys did a ‘daily roundup’ type thing on what must’ve been a trial basis a while back. Smaller rumours etc were put here once a day. Whatever happened to it? It was kind of interesting
Who do you suppose those other 30 people in the video were? I counted between 30 - 40 people in that video...
Great article. Was about to get a third-party screen replacement for my iPhone X. Would have saved about $50, but now I’m just gonna have Apple fix it. $279 is painful though.
Apple does sell parts to anyone who is an "authorised" service provider.
Becoming authorised isn't difficult, basically you have to demonstrate that you have a nicely presented room for talking to customers face to face and a separate room for doing the actual repairs. And you need to employ at least one person who is properly trained to carry out the repairs.
Satisfy that and a few other things, and you can order parts from Apple. Also Apple's phone support team will refer customers who live nearby to take their devices to your shop for repairs. And if it's under warranty, Apple will even pay for the repair.