Apple Makes iPhone Screen Fixes Easier as States Mull Repair Laws (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple customers will soon have more choices as the company looks to reduce long wait times for iPhone repairs at its retail stores. By the end of 2017, Apple will to put its proprietary machines for mending cracked iPhone glass in about 400 authorized third-party repair centers in 25 countries, company executives told Reuters. Among the first recipients is Minneapolis-based Best Buy, which has long sold and serviced Apple products. The electronics retailer already has one of the screen-repair machines at a Miami-area store and one coming soon to an outlet in Sunnyvale, California. Fixing cracked screens may seem like small potatoes, but it's a multi-billion-dollar global business. The move is also a major shift for Apple. The company had previously restricted use of its so-called Horizon Machine to its nearly 500 retail stores and mail-in repair centers; and it has guarded its design closely. The change also comes as eight U.S. states have launched "right to repair" bills aimed at prying open the tightly controlled repair networks of Apple and other high-tech manufacturers.

Comments

And other devices hopefully

[ncy]

I hope this extends to other Apple products as well. I'd think it would be a good business move for them. I never even consider Apple computers anymore because of how expensive and exclusive the repairs can be. For example, I bought a Macbook Air replacement keyboard for $100 + change, having to buy that off eBay at a "bargain" price, because Apple store would only fix it for a flat fee of $750 regardless of extent of damage (Air model). In contrast, my Lenovo Thinkpad's keyboard cost all but $10, and I replaced it myself in just a few minutes.

Re:And other devices hopefully

[rtb61]

Consider repair laws for Apple products, logically, is not software the same nature as hardware as a product and is not the end user entitled to repair laws to cover software as well. Not just iOS but Windows, they drop support aren't you the end user entitled to access product details in order to conduct your own repairs or have others do it?

this isnt a glass repair machine.

[nimbius]

Ceramics/composites engineer here for a large glass maker. This device doesnt repair your glass. For that you'd need an annealer, or a reflow bed. you'd also need to have moulds and castings and a polish/tempering system. thats not feasible in a machine the size of a microwave oven.

what this machine likely does is handle the delicate process of calibration, alignment, and most importantly replacement of the biometric sensor on the device. the access control and authentication from the reader to the rest of the phone is likely a highly guarded component as its used to access encryption keys for the device itself. these machines might contain a copy of sensitive intermediary or signing certificates used to rekey the phone. If Right To Repair passes, Apple could likely delegate the PKI straight to the user with an itunes API or something. replacing the button means you're in charge of generating the certificates.

Re:this isnt a glass repair machine.

[Khyber]

" For that you'd need an annealer, or a reflow bed. you'd also need to have moulds and castings and a polish/tempering system. thats not feasible in a machine the size of a microwave oven."

Lapidary/Glass worker here: We've got two tools the size of a microwave oven that does all of that for us. We've had them for over century. They're called a kiln and a flat lap/polisher. Those two tools alone do everything you just mentioned above.

What we do NOT have is the ability to repair the broken traces which usually come inside the glass now days as part of the digitizer.

Re:this isnt a glass repair machine.

[Immerman]

I doubt think anyone thinks it is. It's not a glass-repair device, it's a "broken screen on my phone" repair device - and as with virtually all repairs these days, the solution is no to repair the broken component, but to replace it.

That Apple has chosen to integrate the most failure prone component with others that are security sensitive almost certainly has at least as much do do with revenue generation as it does with otherwise solid design goals.

A responsible engineer satisfying the social responsibility aspect of their professional ethics would make sure the most failure-prone components are as cheap and easy to replace as possible. If you repair older appliances and machinery you can see this principle clearly - there's usually a number of easily-replaceable "sacrificial" components that are designed to absorb the majority of normal wear and/or out-of-spec stresses.

Still no competition

[Nidi62]

Among the first recipients is Minneapolis-based Best Buy, which has long sold and serviced Apple products.

And I am sure as part of the agreement, Best Buy will charge a price that was decided by Apple. Oh, and don't forget about forcing their employees to try and upsell on a warranty for the repair-valid only at Best Buy of course.

Re:Still no competition

[Khyber]

Don't forget that the Best Buy employees will "Need the password to your device to ensure repairs are effectively performed/video drivers are installed" while they surreptitiously snoop on your shit for the FBI.

It's almost as if

[rsilvergun]

Government Regulation, or even the threat of it, works.

Re:It's almost as if

[bill_mcgonigle]

Government Regulation, or even the threat of it, works.

It's only because of patent law that these third party repair machines haven't been able to exist already.

Re:The "Horizon Machine" doesn't repair glass

[sensei moreh]

I wouldn't be surprised to see the next Wikileaks dump talk about how the NSA sent agents to get hired at Best Buy to get access to this machine so they could reverse engineer the iPhone's security.

Maybe NSA already has one of these machines, so Apple figures they may as well make them available to third parties, too.