Repair Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

iPhone repair costs are soaring

by Yoni Heisler (May 24th, 2013)

Marketwatch recently took a look at the rising price of iPhone 5 screen repairs, pointing out that the US$229 Apple sometimes charges to repair a broken iPhone 5 screen is often more than the cost of the device itself, with a two-year contract of course. At the root of rising iPhone repair costs ...

Mac 101: Checking your Mac's warranty status

by Matt Tinsley (Apr 15th, 2013)

More Mac 101, tips and tricks for novice Mac users. Every newly purchased Mac comes with a one-year limited warranty and 90 days of complimentary telephone technical support from Apple. Of course, by purchasing AppleCare with your new Mac, you can extend this warranty and telephone technical ...

iFixit releases tablet repairability list, Apple scores poorly

by Matt Tinsley (Mar 1st, 2013)

iFixit, the trusty resource for tech teardown and repair, has put together a tablet repairability guide for its readers. Unfortunately for the home tinkerer, Apple's iPad has performed rather poorly. iFixit places a high value on tech that is designed with repairability in mind, where consumers ...

Origin Stories: Tekserve

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Nov 16th, 2012)

Tekserve is a much-beloved Apple repair and sales shop in Manhattan. Our own Mike Rose has been a customer, and profiled the shop a little while ago. In the video below, I speak with Tekserve's CTO, Aaron Freimark about how Tekserve began, and a short history of Manhattan's longest-open Apple ...

Nexus 7 more repairable than iPad

by Mike Schramm (Jul 4th, 2012)

iFixit has taken Google's Nexus 7 tablet apart and found that it has at least one advantage over the iPad. The extra space inside makes it easier to repair than Apple's device. iFixit found the Nexus's interior squished than Apple's tablet, and the various components were apparently installed ...

How to fix an iPhone 4 Home button, Sprint or Verizon

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 6th, 2012)

I've never had problems with the home button on my Verizon iPhone, but if you do, you should check out this repair post from iMore's Allyson Kazmucha. Kazmucha, who founded the repair company PXLFIX, shows you how to remove the back cover, disassemble the internal components and pull out the ...

Smoking iPhone emphasizes importance of authorized repair work

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 4th, 2012)

An iPhone self-ignited during a Regional Express flight in Australia due to a faulty repair. According to a Sydney Morning Post article, the smoking phone was spotted by a cabin crew member, shortly after the plane landed at the Sydney Airport on November 25, 2011. The crew member asked the ...

Intensive surgery on an old MacBook Pro yields huge performance gains (Updated)

by Chris Rawson (Aug 19th, 2011)

Installing OS X Lion on a 3 1/2-year old MacBook Pro made it clearer than ever just how slow my old machine had become. Beachballs left and right, UI lag, incredibly long reboot times, dismal application load times... as someone accustomed to the "instant on" feel of an iPad or iPhone, I was ...

Flex testing iPad glass

by Kelly Hodgkins (Mar 25th, 2011)

The folks at iFixYouri had some glass panels from an iPad 1 and an iPad 2 laying around the shop and did some informal tests to see which panel would break under stress. An earlier analysis by iFixit revealed the glass in the iPad 2 was 27% thinner than the iPad 1. The California repair company ...

This is why I stay with Apple

by Chris Rawson (Mar 21st, 2011)

When I described the problems I've had with Apple's notebooks thus far, a few commenters asked me why I stick with Apple at all. "Have you considered a different brand of computer? A Dell or something?" one asked. Another said, "I find it strange that your answer is to buy another product from ...

Have a MacBook Pro with a faulty GPU and no AppleCare? You may still be covered

by Chris Rawson (Mar 8th, 2011)

If you own a MacBook Pro with an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT GPU and an expired warranty, you may be unaware that since late 2008 Apple has offered a free out-of-warranty service program for the faulty graphics chipset. Apple's replacement program for the 8600M GT was initially valid for three ...

iFixit releases iPhone 4 liberation kit for Pentalobe screws

by Dave Caolo (Jan 20th, 2011)

The good folks at iFixit have noticed that iPhone 4s taken in for service often return without their original Phillips 00 screws. Instead, they're being replaced with Apple's own proprietary Pentalobular screws. These are the same screws that are in the current-generation MacBook Air. Here's a ...

Apple trademarks 'Express Lane' and 'VoicePass'

by Mike Schramm (Dec 23rd, 2010)

Apple has filed two new trademarks right before the holidays this week. VoicePass is the first one -- it's filed in the category of "construction and repair services," so it likely has to do with supporting broken devices. MacNN says that the VoicePass service is used when calling in to customer ...

AppleCare Adventures: How to get a faulty MacBook battery replaced

by Chris Rawson (Oct 27th, 2010)

The old saying about cars depreciating the moment you drive them off the lot goes double for notebook batteries, which lose a bit of their maximum capacity with every charge cycle. The battery is the one component of your portable Mac that is all but guaranteed to fail eventually... though ...

iFixit tears down the 11-inch MacBook Air

by Chris Rawson (Oct 21st, 2010)

Less than a day after the new 11-inch MacBook Air hit shelves, iFixit's already dissected it. The repair site gave the new MacBook Air a repairability rating of 4/10, with 10 being easiest to repair. Two major obstacles face any user trying to do their own repairs on the MacBook Air. First, the ...