Apple is making it easier for iPhone owners perform their own repairs rather than taking their phones to a shop to replace a cracked screen, broken speaker, or dead battery, among other things.
The Self Service Repair program that Apple promised to launch is now live for customers in the US who want to perform out-of-warranty repairs on their devices. Well, some devices anyway.
The program offers free repair manuals plus a store where you can order official replacement parts and the tools you need to perform repairs. You can even rent tools rather than buying them outright, in case you’d rather not spend the money on a complete set of tools that you’re unlikely to need very often.
At launch the Self Service Repair program covers the following phones:
- iPhone 12 series
- iPhone 13 series
- iPhone SE (3rd-gen)
In other words, there’s a decent chance that if you’ve got a phone covered by the program, it’s still actually covered by Apple’s warranty. But now that Apple has started to offer self repair resources, it could become easier for folks to fix these phones in the years to come without breaking the bank (not that replacement parts are particularly cheap – a new iPhone 12 display will set you back $270, while a new battery runs around $70 – but you can get some money back if you send in your old parts for recycling).
Apple is just one of several phone makers making it easier for individuals to repair their devices. Google and Samsung both recently launched their own self-repair programs as well.
April 1st was 28 days ago.