Will it soon be possible to repair your iPhone yourself with spare parts purchased from Apple, as consumer associations have been demanding for many years? It is in any case now a reality in the United States, announced the manufacturer on Wednesday April 27.
The brand’s US customers can now order a new screen, battery or camera lens, as well as the tools needed to repair a defective phone. The models concerned are the ranges marketed since the end of 2020, that is to say the various iPhone 12, iPhone 13 and third generation iPhone SE.
The replacement of defective parts, warns Apple, remains a delicate operation, reserved for “customers who have experience of complex repairs of this type”. “For the vast majority of customers who don’t have [cette expérience]adds the brand in a press release, the easiest and safest way is to go to a certified technician”. Since 2019, Apple has thus developed a network of more than 5,000 officially approved repairers.
However, the brand specifies that the parts are not only identical to those used by authorized repairers, but also sold at the same price. Thus, the operation is not necessarily very advantageous for the customer, as the specialized site points out The Verge.
Thus, sending a repair kit for an iPhone 12 or 13 battery thus costs the same as having the battery replaced directly by Apple, while having the spare parts sent to replace a screen yourself iPhone 12 would save $12, or 4% of the cost of a repair performed by Apple. A sum to which it is necessary, if necessary, to add the price of the rental of the tools, invoiced 49 dollars. However, it is possible to return used parts to the firm after having carried out a repair to benefit from a discount.
If Apple has not yet mentioned the establishment of an equivalent program in Europe and France, it could reconcile Apple with the French “right to repair”. The repairability index has provided information since January 2021 on the ease with which an electronic device can be repaired or repaired: a score out of 10 which so far is unflattering for Apple, with for example an iPhone 12 which peaks at 6/10 .
In the same way, the American technology giant had been pinned, at the beginning of November 2021, for the difficulty of troubleshooting the screen of its iPhone 13, the breakage of a screen being the most common failure. current smartphones.
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