Repairing your iPhone at home with approved parts will soon be possible

This is a first. Apple will now market spare parts and tools allowing individuals to repair certain models of iPhone and Mac computers, the firm announced on Wednesday November 17th. in a press release. Consumer associations had been pushing for many years for repair instructions and original parts to be more widely available.

As of 2019, independent repair shops can purchase parts, tools and manuals, with Apple now supplying some 2,800 independent repair shops in addition to its 5,000 officially authorized repairers. Individuals do not have the possibility of purchasing spare parts approved by Apple, and to repair their devices, they must be satisfied with components supplied by other manufacturers, the quality of which is uncertain. With this new project, the general public will now be able to access parts that comply with Apple standards.

Apple said its online store will initially offer around 200 parts and tools intended to address the most common issues around iPhone 12 and 13 model displays, batteries, and cameras. Subsequently, parts for Mac computers that use Apple’s M1 chip will also be offered, along with those intended for less common repairs.

A step towards the French “right to reparation”

Customers will get the same prices on parts and tools as independent repair shops, Apple said. They will also be able to return their used parts to the firm after having carried out a repair to benefit from a discount.

This new program could reconcile Apple with the French “right to reparation”. Graduated from 1 to 10, the repairability index provides information on the ease with which an electronic device can be repaired or repaired. Set up since the beginning of January in France, it is displayed in the form of a label in shops and on merchant sites, directly under smartphones, televisions, computers, mowers and washing machines .

At the end of February, almost two months after the official launch of the index, the four iPhone 12 models in particular only obtained 6/10. The repairability index of other Apple smartphones was also around 6/10, however, going down to 4.5 / 10 for the iPhone XR. These results placed iPhones below the average repairability score of 6.8 / 10 that The world had calculated by adding the scores of a hundred smartphones identified by the site.

Difficulty changing the screen of iPhone 13

Likewise, the American tech giant was pinned down in early November for the difficulty of troubleshooting the screen of its iPhone 13, the breakage of a screen being the most common failure of current smartphones. And if it was until now possible to change it on an iPhone, by yourself or by a repairman, it was no longer possible with the new model from Apple. According to an article published on November 4 by iFixit, a site specializing in repair instructions, when you changed the screen of the iPhone 13, you lost facial recognition, Face ID.

A few weeks after this incident – and after having backpedaled -, the Californian firm said it plans to launch its repair program for the beginning of 2022 in the United States, before extending it to other countries later in the year.