Q: I drop my iphone in a cup of tea and now wont turn on, how do i fix this

CRay02 wrote:

 

Dear Philly Phan.  I would trust the people at I Pad rehab before I would drive two hours to the Apple Store to be told I need a new phone.  Guess what it's possible to be fixed by third party shops that have more knowledge than the Geniuses at the Apple Store.  Give me a break.  If I have a phone that needs a board repair I will send it to them in a heartbeat.  They are not some clown shop trying to cheat people.  And by the way it's hard to void a warranty on any I phone 5 series phones.  Some people can't afford to just go by the latest and greatest new device and don't want to be raked over the coles to have something fixed reasonably and by someone who really knows what they are doing.  I can't even tell you the number of customers who have been told by Apple that they need a new device when all they needed was a screen repair on a perfectly  good older device.  Give me break.

Then go right ahead.  I certainly wouldn't do that.  Give me a break.

zenmanic wrote:

 

Still laughing my head off. You guys have such an attitude to the "stupid behavior" of people that don't backup. If I had such attitude towards my customers i would be out of business. I tend to be more understanding of the situation and offer solutions compared to making statements like, well guess you didn't care about your wedding pics or baby pics.

Actually I do care about the pictures.  That's why I would not go to the trouble of preventing the automatic backup.

Personally, I believe Apple and 3rd party repair stores should work together unfortunately I don't see that coming any time soon. Apple needs to stop trying to keep everything closed up with such limited options that way more people would be willing to go to them for support. I would love to be able to tell my customers they can go to Apple to get their data if they need or if they need a motherboard repair of some kind unfortunately this isn't the case.

Csound1, Gail, Lawrence, Philly. Thank you for a very entertaining reading. I'm sure we'll debate again.

Conclusion for the OP

After Liquid spill.... Don't turn on. don't try to backup. If you have current backup. Apple offers $300 out of warranty replacements, but they don't offer getting your information if not backed up. But they can help narrow down if you have some backups in the cloud. If you don't have a backup many third parties do excellent work in fixing phones. (also many companies do a bad job also. Likely no more than any other newish industry). A third party does void any warranty. But one drop of liquid also voids your warranty.

xcesv4c wrote:

 

Personally, I believe Apple and 3rd party repair stores should work togethe

Why this is a free land, some of us don't want to be told who we must support, some us think that is our choice, and having seen a few of the 3rd party shops I wouldn't want to go there any way, Just like Apple should drop Best Buy, their standards are too low.

Good overall analysis. I think it's also important to mention (for those looking for future help or alternatives) that you can buy a working iPhone 5 series model online cheaper than the out-of-warranty swap price if you are looking for any other options.

Update: I called and got off the phone with Apple just because I was curious. They will still honor the OWW swap as long as the code on the board is readable and matches the serial on the back of the device. No matter what condition the device is in.

"It's a good lesson to them, don't you think?"

Try telling that to the woman who is crying in your shop because she can no longer see the texts, pics, and voicemails of her dead husband. "Well at least you learned a lesson." That right there is the dumbest post in this rediculous thread. And its heartless

Who is going to enforce this new way, will government pass a law mandating that Apple must deal with members of this independent group, how will it be enforced, fines probably if you take your iPhone o Apple for a repair?

Harrington Repair wrote:

 

Try telling that to the woman who is crying in your shop because she can no longer see the texts, pics, and voicemails of her dead husband. "Well at least you learned a lesson." That right there is the dumbest post in this rediculous thread. And also heartless.

But had she followed advice to backup she would not have lost anything, regardless of what happened to the phone

Ok but she didnt follow the advice so screw her and her dead husband right?

The person who decided that not backing was a good idea did that.

Heartless... No wonder so many people go to other alternatives other than Apple.

Wow, after watching this discussion evolve this week, it *almost* looks like there could be--dare I say Harmony here?

Here is what I see happening here.  We are all biased by our own experience.

ASC regulars have a long history of seeing posts of people going to "the mall guy" and getting a botched repair, then going to Apple and being denied OOW swap and having to buy a full price phone.   ASC regulars put a ton of time into their forum, and they do it because they want people to get their problems fixed as reliably and affordably as possible.   They have a low threshold for what they deem 'bad repair advice" and are very skeptical of independent repair.

The independent repair community members that have come here recently did so because the recent error 53 coverage gave the thing they put their heart and soul into a bad rap.  They want the voice of QUALITY independent repair to be heard and to allow consumers to judge for themselves.  They have a long history of putting customer's best interests first, providing a robust, quality repair that is backed by a solid warranty.  They see that Apple does not do very much repair at all, often advising customers with minor problems to buy OOW swaps at a cost well over the value of the device.   They see the despair on the customer's faces that have run out of iCloud space and realize their memories may be gone.  They also see that despite the letter of the law, in practice Apple does not deny OOW swaps.  This makes the independent repair an obvious choice.

What we can all agree on is that YES there are LOTS of disreputable cell phone repair shops out there---and people should not be going there--but how are they to know?   This is a major issue in our evolving industry, and I'd love to see the support of the ASC regulars working together with independent repair pros to get people the right information.

So the real question here is "How do you know what you're getting with independent repair?"
The answer as I see it is this.  A quality shop is recognized as having a track record of these three things.
1.) Solid reviews online from multiple sources.
2.) A robust warranty on the repair parts/labor
3.) A confidence inspiring no fix, no fee policy so that customers know---we don't get paid if we can't solve your problem.

While writing this post, I did a post error 53 screen replacement for an iPhone 6 just now.  A customer came in with a cracked iPhone 6.  I advised him that his option at Apple was $109.99 for the screen.   Our Apple Store is 10 minutes away.   I informed him that my price is $139.99, based on a parts price of $100 for the best available original quality screen.   He was happy to get it done on the spot with no appointment.   I did the repair in front of him while we chatted.  I let him marvel at the inside of his phone and hold it in his hands.  We talked about error 53 the whole time.  I held the little thing--his home button/fingerprint sensor in my tweezers and we laughed at how such a teeny thing could rock the world.   He marveled at the precision required to transfer all the tiny screws and small parts to the new screen. We did the pre-test and post-test of the functions of his phone together.   Touch ID is intact, screen looks beautiful.  He smiled, paid, took a card, and said "this was really great, thank you!"   

We do have a certification (Google iFixit MasterTech), which continues to evolve as we battle out true best practices on our industry forums.  We do have an advocacy group---(Google Right to Repair Act).   And we do need your help.  It is both reasonable for people to seek out quality independent repair, and hard for them to know what they are gettting.   Work with us.  Ask us questions.  Let's demystify repair and work together to help users know what questions THEY should be asking from their independent repair shop when Apple is not an option for them.

Sounds a bit like Florida's Right to Work legislation, but only for one industry.

I don't know about that.  I know that I would have loved to be able to give this customer a choice just like at the car mechanic.  Do you want the true OEM screen at price X?  Or do you want this original quality screen at price Y?  We do not offer high copy or other lesser quality options at any price.