Repairing iPhone 5 more costly than for past iPhones
Repairing the iPhone 5 costs far more than fixing its predecessors because of Apple’s tight control over the parts that make up its newest phone, according to a new report.
In some cases, just repairing an iPhone 5 screen can cost $30 more than the entire phone that’s been purchased for $200 with a two-year service contract.
Normally, users can turn to third-party shops to fix their iPhones. But many phone shops are not willing to repair the latest iPhone because of the high costs of parts, Marketwatch reported. The repair firms that do work on the iPhone are charging as much as Apple, or even more, to fix the phone.
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Apple’s $99 warranty plan remains the cheapest option to fix an iPhone 5 screen. The company charges a $49 fee each time to fix up to two incidents of accidental damage during the two-year warranty term. Apple is rumored to be planning changes to the warranty that would make repairing phones a default step instead of giving customers a completely new phone. The changes would save Apple nearly $1 billion a year, according to a recent report by AppleInsider.
According to the repair-guide website iFixIt.com, the display assemblies for previous iPhones ran about $100. The iPhone 5 display assembly costs twice as much.
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